Could Tell a Love

I looked Jared in the eyes and realized that I’d forgotten how sweet he was.

That’s why I loved him.

He leaned over and kissed me softly. "If you need anything, just come and talk, alright? I’m always here."

I nodded and gave him a small smile. We left the table and both realized that our bathroom break was a lot longer than anticipated.

My relationship with Jared was borderline serious, borderline very touchy feely close. Even Eric knew and was fine with that. Everyone knew that Jared and I haven’t completely broken it off.

When we both walked into the room, everyone started talking, mainly joking around.

"What were you guys doing, making out?" Matt asked, messing up my hair.

"They were gone longer than that. They must’ve gotten further than that." Mike said, smirking.

"Knock it off, the both of you. We just talked. Beau’s feeling kinda down." Jared said, throwing his arm over my shoulders.

I looked at the floor, feeling slightly embarrassed, stuffing my hands in my jeans pockets.

"So you cheered him up, huh?" Mike asked, smirking, elbowing my arm.

"Obviously not, he still seems kinda depressed." Matt said, also smirking.

Jared threw something at them, which sent them both into a fit of laughter.

"Come on, Beau. What’s bugging you? You can tell us." Miranda suddenly said. I forgot she was in here again. I gave her a death stare.

I guess we were actually gonna tell the guys, Eric and I. I forgot all about that, it seems so long ago. It doesn’t even feel like a special day. I made eye contact with Eric, who looked a little nervous. They were fine with Jared and I, why wouldn’t they be fine with Eric and I. They probably saw it coming anyways.

"Well," Eric started, "Beau and I—"

"I knew it." Matt said. "How long?"

"6 months today, well, it was." I said quietly.

"What do you mean was?" Mike asked.

That familiar anger I’ve been feeling become present again. "I found him on the couch, sleeping with Miranda’s friend." I said coldly.

I heard small gasps that I could care less about.

I glared at Eric, who was playing with a string on his sweatshirt, the look of regret on his face.

"When?" Matt asked again, sitting on one of the amps.

"This morning." Eric spoke up. We all looked at him. The remorseful, regretful look was gone. His expression was unreadable.

"And you think everything is fine and dandy?" Jared asked, defending me.

"Jared, please, I can handle this—"

"You should see the contacts list on Eric’s phone. There has to be at least 20 different numbers on there." Miranda added in.

The collective gasp was more noticeable this time.

This whole situation was getting out of control. "Alright, everyone is taking this whole thing out of proportion—"

"No, Beau. It’s right where it should be. No one should treat you like that behind your back. Who knows how many girls he’s gotten pregnant or hurt ever since you’ve been with him." Miranda said, becoming a part of the conversation.

"You can’t even talk Miranda." I spat at her.

"Yeah, and you can’t either. Did you forget about us?" She spat right back.

I knew it was going to come up, but I didn’t want it to.

"So you’re not the only guilty one in this whole scandal?" Jared asked Eric, sounding slightly confused.

He didn’t answer, just looked at the floor in guilt.

Jared sighed and looked the other way, probably thinking of something to say. He was trying to act like my mentor, like he’s done so many times before.

"I’m guessing that you had something to do with the both of them, then, too?" Sarah asked.

Miranda turned to look at Sarah, and nodded solemnly.

"We’ll aren’t you a Paegeho." Sarah said under her breath.

"We just have a whole fucking triangle going on now, don’t we?" Matt said.

"We tried resolving it. All three of us sat down and talked it through. In the end, Eric chose me and I chose Eric. Miranda was the odd ball out. She left for a good month and just a few days ago she called and asked to hang out. I said sure, thinking that she didn’t have any interest in me, but I was wrong. She tried convincing me to break up with Eric. I said that I couldn’t, and she told me about his list of contacts on his phone. Once I saw them, she wanted me to cheat on him again with her and have him purposely walk in on us. I agreed, but just so she would leave me alone. In reality I didn’t want to.

"So today comes, and I find that Miranda was right. Eric was sleeping with her on my couch." I pointed to Sarah and she blushed. I hadn’t realized that I’d been crying the whole time. I wiped my tears and continued. "Now I don’t know where to go. I can’t trust anyone here, can I? You’re all just a bunch of cheating sons of— "

I felt someone hug me. I instantly hugged them back. I cried into their shoulder while everyone around us just stayed silent.

"You’re a retard, you know that?" I heard Jared say softly in my ear.

"I know." I said mid sob. I hugged him tighter.

"Do you guys need a minute?" Mike asked slowly.

"Yeah, I think all four of us do." Miranda said, pushing Mike, Matt, and Sarah out of the room and closing the door.

After a long awkward silence my sobs cleared and Jared let go of me, sitting next to me. He looked right into my eyes. "You wanna try again? Start over?"

I laughed, wiping a stray tear. "Jared, it never ended—"

"I just interrupted." Eric said in a cocky tone, crossing his arms, getting a smug look on his face.

"And if you wouldn’t have done that, we wouldn’t be knee deep in your shit." I said coldly.

"I can’t help it that you fell for me." He said coolly, getting two legs of his chair off the ground.

"Alright, shut up. The two of you." Miranda interrupted our argument.

"No, this isn’t your fight to be fought. Leave them be." Jared said sternly.

"I didn’t fall for you right away, you seduced me. You must be a pro at it by now, since you fuck everything in your path."

"I seduced you? Excuse you, who made the first move? You. I just followed through."

"You didn’t have to follow through. I told you that I was taken, but you still pursued me. You still tried to get me to go with you." I said, getting up, getting the urge to make this fight physical.

"But who finally gave in?" Eric asked, standing as well. "Who cheated on their beloved—"

I shoved him into the wall when we were half a foot from each other. He hit with a big bang and the shock that came over his face quickly turned to anger. Eric’s hands balled into fists and he stalked towards me. Before I knew it, though, he had his hands on my shoulders, taking me down to the ground. I hit hard, my head bouncing on the floor. I got an instant headache and my vision blurred as a huge surge of pain erupted in my nose. I felt warm liquid flowing through my nostril. My vision became clearer and I grabbed onto his throat and rolled, now sitting on top of him. I saw some of my blood drip on him. I felt someone trying to grab me off him and they succeeded. I got to my feet, feeling woozy. I saw Eric emerge onto his feet as well, giving me a crazed stare. I was pretty sure I was giving him one back as well. I started swaying, getting extremely lightheaded and I saw bright spots cover my vision. Around the spots I saw Eric coming at me again, but I didn’t feel the pain. My vision turned black and I heard nothing more.

I woke on my couch to angry whispers.

"Why the fuck would you do something like that?" I heard Jared say, probably talking to Eric.

There was no response. I slowly opened my eyes, feeling an instant pain in my head.

Jared must’ve noticed me awaken because he rushed to my side, along with Matt and Mike.

"Hey, how are you doing?" Jared asked softly.

"Ow." I said, trying to sit up.

"No, don’t do anything." Jared said, pushing me back down.

"Wow, you look like shit." Matt said.

"Shut up, Matt." He said, glaring at him and almost instantaneously looking back at me. I looked at his face and he had a black and blue eye.

"What the hell happened to you?" I asked, trying to think straight. Then I remembered not feeling another punch thrown at me. "Did you take Eric’s punch for me? Why the hell would you do that?! You’re such a dumbass!" I yelled at him with all the energy I had.

"I couldn’t stand seeing you get hurt like that. I had to do something."

"So you couldn’t have just grabbed his arms and held him back? Something that wouldn’t have resulted in that huge bruise on your face?" I asked frantically.

"Shhh. Don’t talk anymore. Just relax. We can talk when you’re feeling better."

"Where’s Eric? And Miranda?"

"They’re still here, but they thought that you didn’t wanna see them right now."

"Get Eric. I need to apologize." I said, tears forming once again. "I should’ve never started that fight. I’m so stupid." I held my hands up to my face, my nose throbbing in pain from the sudden contact with my hand.

"Not now, just go back to sleep—" Jared kept insisting.

I grabbed his hand with both of mine. I gave him my most desperate stare. "Please."

He sighed and got up, going into a different room. Eric replaced Jared; he came and sat on the floor next to the couch, being careful not to look at me.

"Eric, I’m really sorry. I should’ve never started that whole thing. I put that way out of control."

He laughed and shook his head. I heard him sniffle. "You only pushed me into the wall. I’m the one who let my temper get the best of me and do this to you." He wiped his tears. "Look. I know that I’m a cheating son of a bitch. I accept that now. But I still don’t want that to ruin our friendship. If we let that ruin everything, then the whole band might be ruined." He explained.

"I get where you’re coming from and all, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to trust you again. You’ve lied to me so much and cheated on me behind my back..." I breathed in deeply, holding back my urge to start crying again. "...it just might take some time getting used to trusting you again."

"I think I can handle that. Just promise me that you’ll be able to forgive me, even if that doesn’t mean trusting me at first?" He looked into my eyes for the first time this whole conversation, getting a pained expression in his eyes as he looked at my wounds.

"I can forgive you. I promise. Just no more random fights, alright? I think all three of us had enough."

Eric laughed silently and shook his head again. "He really cares about you, doesn’t he? I mean, throwing himself in front of you like that? In all honesty, I don’t think I would’ve done that."

I smiled to myself. "Yeah, I guess he really does." I turned to look at Eric. "Hey."

He turned and looked at me again.

"Thanks for listening."

He gave me his classic crooked smile and got up, shoving his hands in his pockets, going back into my bedroom, where I guess Miranda and Eric were sitting.

I closed my eyes, feeling more at ease now that this whole thing was over for now. I was almost out until I heard footsteps coming towards me. I pretended to be asleep. The footsteps stopped right in front of the couch. I felt whoever it was push my hair away from my forehead and kiss me. "I love you." I heard Jared’s voice whisper in my ear. My hair fell back onto my forehead and I heard him walk into the kitchen and out the back door. Everything that happened after that was a blur as I drifted off into a painless sleep.

I woke up around two in the morning with a really bad headache. I let my vision clear and adjust itself to the dark. I looked over on the table and saw two aspirin and a glass of water. I smiled and leaned to take them off the table. I heard snoring coming from below me. I saw Jared’s hair and one of his arms poking out of some blankets on the floor. I smiled and took another gulp of water and laid back down again, falling asleep to the rhythmic sound of Jared’s snoring.