To Hell With Your New Shit

“You’re what!?” I roared at Kennedy, bringing my face so close to his that he could probably feel the waves of anger rolling off of me and hitting him.

“I’m going to get coffee with Lindsay tomorrow,” he repeated calmly, as though it should come as no surprise to me, before pushing me away and stalking into the kitchen.

“You can’t seriously be thinking that I’m okay with you doing this,” I began lecturing him. “You’re just going to go and have this nice, lovely little chat with Lindsay and she’s going to rope you onto her side.”

“Her side?” Kennedy asked incredulously. “I wasn’t aware this was a war, John.”

“She left!” I protested. “She just up and left and ditched me – ditched all of us – and you’re going to go slinking back to her like some lost puppy?”

“You’re being ridiculous,” he argued, shaking his head. “And look, I may not have been as close with Lindsay as you were, but I know her pretty well. If she runs, it’s not over something stupid. So if you want me to start listening to your whining, you better give me a damn good reason, because for the past three years you haven’t given anyone shit.”

I stared wide-eyed at my friend. That could not have been Kennedy speaking.

“I can’t,” I offered defensively as I began to pace around the kitchen in my apartment.

“Can’t what?”

I didn’t even know what I couldn’t do.

“I just can’t, okay?”

“John, what the hell is the matter with you? If you can’t talk to me, or any of the other guys, who are you going to talk to? I’m sure you don’t talk to your parents or your brothers about it or anything, either. No one’s going to judge you or think you’re a bad person for anything – I mean, not unless you killed someone of course, but I highly doubt you did that – so what are you…”

“We slept together!” I blurted out, practically yelling, before I could think about what I was admitting to. I just couldn’t take any more of Kennedy’s babbling. I snapped. I crumpled into a kitchen chair and buried my head in my hands, cursing under my breath.

“Jesus,” Kennedy muttered. “Shit. You slept with her? With Lindsay? Your best friend? What? When?”

“The night before she left,” I mumbled, my face still buried in my folded arms on top of the table.

“Wow,” Kennedy breathed, pulling out a chair at the table and sitting next to me. “So that’s… So that’s it? She just left?”

“She left, Kennedy!” I practically yelled at him. “She left without saying anything.”

“Wait, were you guys drunk?” he asked suddenly. I picked my head up and looked at him.

“No, you dipshit,” I groaned. “I told her… I told her I loved her and – “

“YOU WHAT?” Kennedy practically screamed, jumping out of his chair. I stared at him, confused, until I noticed that he was practically grinning. “I KNEW IT!”

I just kept staring at him, annoyed, until he sat back down and apologized.

“Right, I’m sorry, continue. You said you loved her,” at this point he couldn’t help but let a sly smile appear once again, “and then what?”

“And then, I don’t know. She didn’t say it back, or anything, she just kissed me. And then, well, yeah…” I left off awkwardly.

“And then you had sex?”

“Jesus, Kennedy, I don’t have to spell everything out for you, do I? One thing just led to another and yeah, we had sex, okay?”

Kennedy didn’t say anything; he just leaned back in his chair and let out a sharp breath. I dropped my head back onto the table, muttering angry curses at the wood. It was silent for a few minutes, before Kennedy spoke up.

“Do you still love her?” He asked quietly. I didn’t respond. I just squeezed my eyelids shut, unwilling to admit even to myself that there were tears forming at the corners of my eyes. “John?”

“I don’t know,” I practically whispered. I suddenly shot past the embarrassment of crying in front of my friend and opened my red, watery eyes. “I don’t want to, I mean I shouldn’t, right? Not after she did that. But I don’t think I can help it.”

Kennedy nodded and fixed his gaze upon his hands, which were folded in his lap.

“Are you still going to meet up with her tomorrow?” I asked suspiciously.

“Yes,” he replied, barely missing a beat.

“You’re not going to tell her I told you all of this, are you?”

“Not if you don’t want me to, I guess,” he responded with a shrug. I nodded slowly, not sure of what to say or do anymore. “You should talk to her, though. Nothing’s going to get solved unless the two of you talk about it.”

“What’s there to solve?” I scoffed. “It seems pretty clear to me that she regretted it, so she had to leave without saying anything.”

“What if that’s not true?” he pointed out. “I mean, she’s the one who kissed you, right?”

“Yeah, but what if it was just a heat of the moment thing? What if she only did it because she knew she was just going to leave without a word the next day? I mean, she could have been planning that for – “

“John,” he interrupted, “shut up. You’re being stupid. Making up scenarios is only going to make you feel worse. Which, by the way, is why you really ought to talk to her and find out what really happened."

“Yeah, thanks Dr. Brock,” I muttered sarcastically. “Whatever you say.”