You're Right That It's Wrong To Spend the Night Alone

"Will?"

"Brendon!" His distaste for me had finally passed and we were back to being good friends.

"Um, hey."

"Can I help you?"

"I think I love Ryan."

I heard him sigh, then groan. "Sucks for you, Bren. You fucked up."

"Look, Will, I know. But please...Talk to him and don't hate me for everything. Please."

"Bren, look. You're my friend, and you're great and all, but I'm not gonna let you hurt him like that again."

"But if I got him, I'd have no reason to hurt him."

"Brendon..."

"Will, please."

"God dammit, Brendon. I can practically hear you pouting."

I giggled a little. "Is that a yes?"

He sighed. "Sure."

"Yes!"

"But you know he's fucked up. He doesn't talk to any of us anymore."

"I know."

"He's ashamed of himself."

"I know-what? Ashamed of himself?"

"Yeah. Good job, Bren. You made him hate himself even more."

"Ugh."

"Yeah." I heard a scuffle on the other end of the phone. "Hey, I have to go. Gabe's about to go on and he needs help with his hair or something." He giggled.

"Okay," I laughed. "Bye, Will."

"Bye, Bren."

At that moment, I swore I'd never hurt Ryan again.

"Hey, Ryro."

He looked at me suspiciously. "Hey."

"Let's go out for ice cream."

He shrugged. "Whatever."

I sighed a little to myself, pulling away from the building. "So how'd it go today?"

"It was... interesting."

"Yeah?" That was more of an answer than I normally got.

"Yeah."

I glanced over to see him playing with his hands, looking down, and I opened my mouth, but he beat me to talking.

"She said I should apologize to the people I've hurt."

"You have nothing to apologize for, sweetie, to any of us."

"But I do."

"Nah."

"Yeah. Um..."
And then he said something I never thought I'd hear.
"I'm sorry, Bren."

I nearly stopped the car, shocked.
Instead, I just swallowed hard. "For what, Ry?"

"I... I know I hurt you when I jumped. And I knew that you weren't ready for a boyfriend, but I pushed you anyway. Today I realized it was my own actions that put me at the point of jumping off the building, not yours or anyone else's."

At that, I did stop the car.
I could hear the tears in his voice, and I pulled over to the side of the road.
"Ryan, you don't need to apologize to me. It was my fault. I know it was."

"Brendon-"

"Ryan, please listen to me. I know I hurt you, and I'm so sorry. You always told me you never had feelings, didn't know emotions, and I took advantage of that. I don't know why, I don't know how, but I turned into a monster that destroyed you." Now tears were running down both our faces.

"Brendon..." He unbuckled his seat belt, crawling onto me.

Surprised, I unbuckled as well, and wrapped my arms around him.

"Don't blame yourself," he whispered. "It's not your fault."

"It is..."

He cupped my face, forcing me to look into his eyes. "Never, in a million years, will it have been your fault."

I wrapped my arms around his waist, just looking back at his gorgeous brown eyes.

And then our lips connected.