Teach the Heart to Live

Jeremy

By the time Monday came around I found myself more excited than I had been in a long time to go to school. Piper seemed to have gotten along well with Ryan and was smiling constantly. The party they’d met at seemed to have also allowed Rylan to be less guarded towards me. He’d spent most of the night smiling and laughing, blowing off other opportunities to hang out with the soccer guys that wandered over to him. For once I actually felt like I was wanted and it was such an amazing sensation.

When I wandered into my psychology class I expected Rylan to be just as friendly then. Instead he gave me a polite nod when I spoke but otherwise avoided eye contact. I attempted to actually talk to him but all I could extract was clipped, one-word answers and a glare. Finally I gave up and fell silent, wallowing a bit pathetically in my disappointment. I didn’t understand what had changed but something obviously had.

“What’s wrong?” Piper asked after school, smile dropping as soon as she met me at my locker. I thought I had schooled my face into a normal expression but apparently I was wrong. I tried to play dumb and she only scoffed. “You’re thinking way to hard about something.” Her tone was gentle as she ran her hand through my hair with a soft smile. I stood up from where I’d been kneeling so I was too tall for her to continue.

“Rylan. He was so nice the other night and now he won’t talk to me again. It’s like Saturday never happened.” I knew my disappointment was obvious but Piper already knew how much I liked him.

“I hate to tell you this Jeremy but… I mean, do you think he was just trying to get laid?” I wanted to be angry at her for such an accusation but it was said so calmly that I couldn’t be. I knew she had a good point and I had no proof to the contrary.

“He just seemed so sincere when we were talking.” Piper gave me a sympathetic smile before wrapping her arm around my waist. I allowed her to pull me to the parking lot once I’d thrown my locker shut. I didn’t have any homework so it was easy enough to just leave my book bag there.

Piper stayed relatively silent the entire way to my house. Even once we’d gone inside she simply greeted my mother and wandered up the stairs to my room. I moved a bit more slowly, assuring my mother my day had been perfectly fine and grabbing Piper and I a bag of Doritos, before I walked upstairs to my room.

“Food,” she exclaimed happily as I tossed the bag to her. She caught it easily and had the bag open before I’d even sat next to her. As we always did when she came over I turned the TV onto the Discovery channel and prepared to watch a few hours of whatever show happened to come on.

“Hey Jere?” Piper began. The timidity in her voice concerned me as I looked at her. “I really think you should try and move on from Rylan. If he’s hurt you this much and you barely know him how bad do you think it would be if you two ever dated? I’d kill him if he made you cry.”

“I’ll try,” I told her though I knew it wouldn’t make much of a difference. I wanted to like Rylan, or at least the Rylan I saw around his friends. He was so nice to everyone, except me, and he always seemed genuine. Of course, I’d thought the small friendship we’d started to form had been genuine too but the more I thought about it the more likely Piper’s idea became. He was probably just trying to make the best of a night he didn’t want to be a part of.