Put Your Heart Where Your Mouth Is

[Andy's View]

Pat was in the room with me, but I wasn't talking much. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something felt so wrong. Garrett had yet to stop texting. I could ask him who he was talking to, but he'd look at me, shake his head, and then go back to smiling at the screen. I was missing something here.

I glanced up from an outdated magazine. "Pat, you might as well grow some, and then hand them over."

He turned around to glare at me, peeling his eyes away from Gossip Girl for the first time in twenty minutes. "So, uh, Garrett," Pat said, with a smug smile. "How's Ji--"

"ANDY!" The door came crashing open, and in came Wren, who was looking more pregnant every day. She was so skinny, and every second she became a little bit more...horizontal. "Garrett--He's--he, he met up with his ex-girlfriend--He's--"

"In the room." I said, pointing at my boyfriend, who finally dropped his phone to look extremely nervous. I sat down on the couch, not sure of what to say. "Um, okay."

"So," Wren said, shooting him a nasty glare. "You really need to learn to keep your vagina to yourself, Gare-Bear."

I scratched my head. "What's her name?" I felt dizzy. I wanted everybody to go away, and let me think. Knowing my friends, that would never happen.

"Jill Keyes." Garrett sighed. "I guarantee it's not what you're thinking."

"So you met up with her, then?" Wren hissed.

I looked up at her. "I think I can handle this."

She rolled her eyes.

"Yeah. She showed up at rehearsal because she bartends where we're playing, and we talked. That's it." He said, looking to meet my eyes. I continued staring at the wall. "Andy, nothing happened. You know I wouldn't do that."

I nodded, and stood up. I wasn't storming off like I wanted to. Maybe I wasn't even jealous. I needed to find my brother, because I was dropping out. What was the point of me staying around, anyways? Even if he was meeting up with Jill, there wasn't a thing I could do about it. He'd blame me for having trust issues, but in reality, it would just be me being terrified of losing him. The only solution I could come up with in the blink of an eye was that I needed to leave, and I needed to leave now.

"Andy, wait!" Garrett said, walking behind me.

I closed the door behind me, and saw Kennedy and John fighting in the kitchen. "Kennedy, I'm going to take a break for a whie."

"What?" He and John shouted at the same time. John looked guilty.

"It's not your fault." I said, looking up at John. "Things turned shitty, and I'm running. It's what I do."

"Where are you going to go? How are you going to get home?" Kennedy asked, looking frantic.

I didn't know how to answer that. I looked down at the carpet for a moment, as I studied the design and chewed at my bottom lip. What was there for me to do? I had no job, and no reason to go back and live with my father and his replacement wife. The only thing that came to mind was school. "Um, I think I'm going back to NYC. I'll finish my degree, or something. I'll be fine." I sighed. In reassuring him, all I needed was to convince myself that I was making the right decision. Say it out loud didn't help much, but it made it real, and that was all I could ask for.

---

The goodbyes were harder than I ever would've expected. Nobody said anything, they just hugged me, and looked like they had some kind of confession--nobody explained why they all looked so guilty. Garrett looked like he was going to cry, but I nodded in his direction, grabbed my bags, and called a taxi. There went the best summer of my life.

"Andy," Garrett said, grabbing my arm as the cab pulled up. "Please don't go."

"Put your heart where your mouth is." I said, closing the door behind me.

I left him on the curb, staring after me.