If I Told You I Loved You, How Far Would You Run?

It’s Saturday and Spencer and Jon are treating me like a child.

“We’re going out for lunch,” Spencer says, checking his watch. “We should be back in a couple of hours, but don’t hesitate to call us if you need anything.”

I roll my eyes. “Yes, mother,” I grumble, reminding myself horribly of Jon. “Come on, I’m sick, mentally crippled.”

“Don’t be so prickly,” Jon says, as if he wouldn’t have said the same in my position. “We’re just trying to look out for you. Now be a good boy and try not the burn the apartment down.”

“I love you too!” I yell after them as the door closes.

I should burn the apartment down, just to piss them off, I grumble internally in one second of complete irrationality.

* * *

About an hour passes and I’ve done nothing but sit on my fat ass all day, watching little kid cartoons and eating chocolate-chip cookies.

I’m laughing at the serious parts of a cartoon when the doorbell rings.

Grumbling, I barrel to the door and fling it open. “What d’you want?” I grunt, but suddenly catch my breath.

It’s him.

Sad and sorry looking, face twisted, but it’s still him.

“She broke up with me,” Ryan says in a hollow voice.

“Kudos to her.”

Ignoring my callous remark, he continues—“She broke with me because … she felt like I was too attached to you, and … I was glad she did.”

This catches my attention. “And are you?” I ask.

“Am I what?”

“Too attached to me?”

Ryan stares at me, and his eyes look broken. “I’ve always told you that you mean the world to me,” he says softly. “And I meant every word of it.”

“You are my world.”

And when he kisses me, it tastes not of snicker-doodle cookies or cheap cigarettes, but of vanilla chapped-stick and a slight zest.

“Why’d you kiss me?” I ask when we pull apart. “What did you mean by that?”

Ryan cups my face and looks me in the eye. “I mean that I love you,” he whispers.

“I love you too,” I whisper back. “More than anything. Will you be my boyfriend?”

“What about Pete?” he asks.

Brushing his bangs out of his face, I kiss Ryan on the forehead. “Don’t worry about it,” I say softly. “We weren’t attached at all.”