First Try

"...And you're not even listening to me, are you?"

My head snapped up and I stared at Ryan's face which was crumpled into a frown. Ever since we sat down at our table he hadn't stopped going on about... whatever he was talking about, and ever since he began, I hadn't stopped thinking about how I was going to tell Ryan I was very very much attracted to his best friend.

"What?"

"Yeah, I thought so," he chuckled, feeding himself some more pasta. "What's on your mind, anyway? You look like you're trying to figure out how to fix all the problems in the world."

I stared at him for quite some time and thought Why is everything so complicated?. I remember asking Spencer that before, and he answered, with that same charming smile on his face that he always seemed to wear, "Nothing in life is complicated, everything's just a matter of making the right choice. It's the people who have to make the choices that make it so complicated for themselves.".

And for a moment, I believed him.

"Andy?"

"Ryan," I began, straightening up in my seat and staring right into his eyes. Those pools of mud that get me stuck to them, and make me feel dirty and ugly compared to the beautiful one who owns them. *"I know what it's like to want to die, how it hurts to smile, how you hurt yourself on the outside to try to kill the thing on the inside*, and it's because of you that I know."

His eyebrows furrowed, eyes flashing with confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about you, me, and our crazy, fucked up love life. I'm talking about how it probably wasn't meant to be in the first place, but we made it work. I'm talking about how it wasn't until you fucked it up that I really learned the true meaning of heartbreak.

"You promised you'd never hurt me, and you broke that vow - over and over again. You swore on your life and you broke it, and now you're dead. You're not the same Ryan I knew back then, or maybe you are, but I just don't seem to have the courage to break down that front you put up when you broke up with me and got it on with Keltie. I was scared, Ryan; I was scared that... if I saw the real 'you' again, I'd love you as if you never even hurt me.

"I want to be able to hate you, to show you that everything you did to me, I took to heart. I didn't want you to become that little boy I used to look up to, because he always stood up for me, anymore, because I loved that little boy; I loved everything he did for me and everything he was - innocent and caring. But that little boy had to grow up, and he turned into you. The guy who dated girls and threw them away like they meant nothing. The guy who fucked someone else while the girl he knew loved him was in the same house. The guy who could actually take stringing two girls along - one of them knew, the other didn't.

"I'm telling you all this because you asked me what was on my mind. I'm not gonna hide the truth from you anymore, Ryan. I'm thinking about how much I like Brendon, and how much he's been a better best friend than you've been a boyfriend lately; if that even made any sense to you. I'm thinking about how I was gonna let you know that I made out with your best friend in the dressing room of the mall this afternoon, how I was gonna let you know that I enjoyed every second of it.

"And that was how, Ryan; that was how I was going to let you know that I'm falling in love with your best friend - straight up and blunt."

He stared at me for the longest time, spaghetti sauce on the corner of his lip and maybe, just maybe, tears in his eyes.

"You... cheated on me?" he asked, his face hardening and his lips forming a tight line.

"No, I didn't, because to cheat, you'd actually have to be with someone. You never asked me to be your girlfriend again after Keltie."

"It was implied!"

"And I'm supposed to get all those implications?! Fuck that, Ryan, just fuck that. If you loved me then you would have actually gone through the trouble and asked me properly." I pushed away from the table angrily and stood up, not minding the stares I got for the blatant use of vulgar language in a family friendly restaurant.

I made my way out of the restaurant, aware of Ryan's presence not too far behind me.

"Andy, would you just wait!"

His hand grabbed at my arm and spun me around.

"No, Ryan! I'm tired of waiting for you! I'm sick and tired of always having to be the one looking at you with bated breaths and wondering how you're going to show me that you love me!" I snatched my arm from his grip and stormed off.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

I lay curled up against Brendon that night, sticky, dried up tears on my cheeks and on his neck. The night was silent, resting after the sky flooded the ground with tears. I sniffed, burying my face further into him, trying to keep the unwanted tears away.

Brendon tightened his grip around me and he began rubbing my back.

"C'mon, Andy, stop the tears. He's not worth you losing this much energy."

I nodded and sniffed again. Why does he have to be so nice? Why can't he just be ugly and bitchy?

Because then I'd have no one to love.