Flipping Coins

Ryan immediately cupped his mouth with both of his huge, wafer hands, and his eyes evolved to oversized saucers of honey brown.

A nearby businessman glanced in our direction, sending us a quizzical glimpse before he strutted back to his surely luxurious vehicle.

But I didn’t care. I didn't care because someone knew.

Ryan knew. But how did he know? Had I accidentally let my feelings slip? Maybe I had been talking in my sleep somewhere, or thinking out loud. There had to be a logical explanation.

…or maybe Ryan really didn’t know. Maybe he was taking a wild assumption just to hide something else or just for the triumphant, gallant feeling of being right. I should play it cool for whatever reason, just in case. After all, better safe than sorry.

So, being the immature freak-a-zooid I was, I decided to laugh. So I laughed. Surprisingly, it sounded normal. A for Theatre Arts class.

I bent over, clutching my gut, and slapped my knees a couple of times, trying to make it seem all the more believable. When I lurched back up and let out a sigh to conclude my bellowing routine, I questioned with a smile, “You think I love Brendon?”

Ryan’s eyes had narrowed unsurely, probably questioning my sanity, and he nodded in answer to my question. He no longer looked scared; he looked confused.

After shrieking a few more times with my artificial laughs, I sighed. “You are too funny, Ryro. Too damn funny for your own good.”

Ryan licked his lips and stared at the ground for a few seconds. Then, peering back up at me, he said, “No, Emie. I'm sorry. I didn’t mean what I said about thinking that you love Brendon.”

My heart settled for just a second until he laid out the rest of his sentence.

“…I know you love Brendon.”

My brain kept replaying the same line: Play it cool. Play it cool. Play. It. Cool.

Arching my back to maintain my posture and dignity, I kept my face expressionless and remarked, “Oh, do you now?”

Ryan nodded confidently. Then, he began, “Yes, I do. I know you well, maybe too well, and I know for a fact that you love Brendon. I’ve seen you stare at him when you think no one else is watching. You react intensely when you learn that you are going to see or talk to Brendon. Your skin might as well turn green with envy and hatred toward Evelia. God, need I say more?” He chuckled with a wide gesture, as if that further proved his point.

Play it cool.

I frowned. “First of all, I do not, in any way, have anything against Evelia. Especially hatred because that’s just plain absurd. Secondly, did it ever occur to you that maybe I'm excited to see my best friend, whom I almost lost, F.Y.I, rather than having it to do with excessive affection for the guy? And lastly, since when it is bad to look at the person you’re thinking about while you’re reminiscing through memories?”

Ryan cocked a grin in response and shook his head in rejection to my answers. “Those are nice cover-ups and all, but I’m still not convinced. What about the time when I told you that Brendon loves you? Emie, your face lit up so much that I started to wonder whether you were on crack. And you can’t deny that by saying ‘Oh, well that was just because he’s my best friend, and it’s nice to know you're loved’, because it isn’t going to sway my reasoning.” He raised his eyebrows, daring for a challenge.

Godammit, play it cool, Emie!

Swallowing, I hunched my eyebrows and replied with attitude, “Ryan, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’ve kind of been through a lot, me and Brendon. To know that through all the shit that hit the fan in our relationship, he actually still loves me? Well, that’s saying a lot. Excuse me for showing a little joy about it.”

I smirked haughtily as if to say ‘top that, bitch.’ Okay, so make that an A+ for Theatre Arts.

Ryan looked perplexed at my response, if I may say so. His eyes fell far off into space, trying to calculate how his evidence had been so easily proven wrong. Scratching the back of his neck and clearing his throat several times over, Ryan finally met my gaze and softly apologized, “Emie, I’m--I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed things so quickly. I-I don’t really know what else to say besides sorry. You, obviously, don’t love Brendon in that way. I was wrong.”

Suddenly, my guilt hit me like a stream of sunlight lighting from behind a flimsy cloud. Here I was, as wrong as it could get, with Ryan begging for me to accept an apology that I didn’t deserve to receive in the first place. Ryan was right, yet I was still lying to him even when he questioned it right up front. It’s not like he hadn’t brought it up. I was turning into the champion of all liars, and I didn’t exactly like it.

Desperately trying to keep my poise and refrain from blushing with guilt, I blinked down to eye my shoes and quietly muttered, “It’s…okay. Don’t worry about it.”

Ryan must have taken my meekness to mean something else, and he took a step forward. Placing a hand on my shoulder, he forced me to look up to his worried eyes. “Emie, please don’t close me out because of this misunderstanding. Sure, it was a huge mistake for me to assume, and I jumped to conclusions that I had no right diving into, but I really don’t think you should start shutting me off like you did with---“

“You’re right,” I suddenly broke in, bobbing my head up and down like an apple floating in a tank of water. “You’re totally right, Ryan. I…I do love Brendon.”

Ryan shook his head, allowing his mop of hair to fling over his tightly closed eyes. “No, Emie. Don’t agree with me just to make me feel better, or to stop me from getting my point across. You need to hear me out---“

“Dammit, Ryan! I’m agreeing with you because it’s true!” I yelled, taking Ryan’s own bony shoulders into my hands in return. “I love Brendon! With everything in my lame, totally unappealing soul. And not in some best friend, brotherly type of way, either. I love Brendon.”

My chest was heaving, and I could feel the size of my eyes triple in volume. Ryan was staring into my eyes in shock, and I waited for his reaction with anxiousness and nervous bubbles suspending throughout my entire body. His reaction would tell me a lot, and I waited in fear.

At last, Ryan let go of my own shoulders and did a kind of stumble backwards until he unsteadily perched himself back onto my car’s trunk. Ryan was still wide-eyed as he ran his stringy fingers through his mess of light brown hair, boring his eyes into his vividly patterned slip-ons.

After what seemed like a lifetime and a half, Ryan quietly murmured to himself, “I knew it all along.”

I took a tense step forward and feebly asked, “And---what do you think?”

Ryan made a weird expression, met my eyes from the first time in minutes, and asked, “Honestly?”

“Please.”

Opening and closing his mouth a few times, he finally managed to sputter out, “I think you’d be a fucking awesome couple!”

With a grin, he watched me dart straight into his arms with happiness.

Squealing with glee, I pulled away and asked, “Really?!”

Ryan nodded slightly but then suddenly frowned. “Although, I have to admit, I do feel kind of hurt.”

My heart dropped.

“Why?”

“Well,” Ryan tensely explained, scratching the back of his neck. “It just pains me to know that you couldn’t have told me this sooner. It’s not like I have a reputation of being a big-mouth or anything. I would have kept quite.”

Guilt extinguishing any spiteful joy that I had held at his approval, I kneeled down and peered into Ryan’s avoiding eyes. “I’m sorry, Ry. I mean, it’s just such a big deal to me. I couldn’t risk it. Even though I know that you are about as loyal as three hundred German Shepards combined, if it somehow slipped without meaning to…I didn’t want to lose Brendon to something as silly as this stupid crush I can’t seem to get over.”

Ryan chuckled. “You call love a silly crush? How Shakespeare would respond to this, I wonder.”

“Well, how do I even know its love in the first place? What if it really is just an obsession gone out of hand? Or maybe I’m just trying to mistakenly label fear of losing someone as love?” I could have bambled on with my alternatives, but thought it best to just end it there.

Ryan suddenly casted on a dreamy expression, and he seemed to not actually be looking at me although his pupils were fixed to my face. “If you think about them wherever you are, through whatever you’re doing; If their face is the only thing you can dream about; If you love just about every flaw or unattractive attribute they pull off; If you accept that person whole solely into you’re life and dream of only a future with that person, then, yes, I’d call that a true form of love.” He still seemed dazed by the end of his romantic tirade.

“I’ve told you a million times, Ryan,” I remarked, breaking the silence,”you would do well as a speaker at a Weight Watcher’s meeting.”

Ryan finally met my eyes for real and laughed. “And I’ve told you a million times that I have never, or ever plan to, participate in any weight-loss program, nor do I have any fat to commit to such a course.”

We both burst into fits of laughter until a glance toward my wrist caused me to shriek in fright.

“It’s already 2?!” I cried out in shock, leaping to my feet and fumbling for my car keys.

Ryan hopped off my car and called, “Ok, well, I’ll see you tomorrow, right?!”

Ceasing my movements to start my car and buckle my seatbelt at the same time, I peeked my head out of the car door and asked, “What's tomorrow? Did you want to meet for lunch again or something?”

Ryan’s eyebrows furrowed. “No, we’ve got a show in town tomorrow. It’s to persuade people to come to our tour that kicks off next week. Didn’t Brendon tell you this?”

“I’m sure I would have remembered if he did,” I retorted.

Ryan rolled his eyes. “Of course you would. Well, it’s at the Pearl Theater. Can you go?”

I made a clicking sound in my throat a couple times before answering, “It’s a tough call. Can I get back to you?”

“I dunno. Can you?” Ryan smirked teasingly.

“May I get back to you?” I corrected myself, rolling my eyes playfully.

Ryan laughed, already walking away. “Sure thing. See ya, Mrs. Urie.”

I gave him a less than polite gesture before switching my gears and pulling off.