You Drain The Life From Me.

"What are you doing here?"

"I brought him over here. He needed to hear that."

"What did you hear?" I said to Garrett.

"Everything."

"Lauren, why did you...why would you even think of..."

"Don't get mad at her. She's right. I needed to hear that."

"No you didn't."

"He did, Leigh. I'm going bowling with Pat. Garrett, stay here. You two are going to talk about this."

She stood up and gave me a hug and on her way out, she smiled at Garrett, who walked inside and lay down next to me. I did my best not to do anything violent to him.

I changed the mix to my Ivory one and lay back down.

"Where'd you get all of Nathaniel's songs?" he inquired.

"From him. Can we please just talk about this?"

"You're in love with me?"

"I think we've made that clear."

"You know I've loved you since we were little."

"Nice way of showing it, huh?"

"I didn't know."

"Didn't know what?"

"That I was hurting you."

"You're a pretty ignorant bastard then, Gare."

"Can you just stop insulting me? You're not the only one that's getting hurt here!"

"How are you getting hurt? You get the girls. You get to control the friendship or relationship or whatever the fuck is going on here. You get to determine whether or not I can openly tell you I love you!"

"That's not true!"

"Yes, it is! If you decide to stop loving me for the week then I have to stop loving you too and just be Leigh, Garrett's best friend. Every time you say you love me, I believe you and I wait for it to turn into something more, but it never does because you move on before it even accelerates."

"Maybe I'm scared, Leigh!"

"Of what?!"

"Of this becoming...something bigger and then falling apart because I have commitment issues! Every girl that I'm with, I get tired of. But I've never gotten tired of you because you're my best friend and I never want to get tired of you. Never. Maybe I use all those girls to stop what I don't want to happen from happening. Ever think about that? No. Because you've never asked me! You just let yourself get hurt."

"You've never told me that and you let me get hurt. How is it that you can be so damn open about our nonexistent sex life but not say a word about why you won't fucking love me back!?"

"I do love you back, dammit!"

"If you did, you wouldn't run away from it!"

"I'm not the only one guilty of running away from this! It's been 10 years since I first told you I liked you and you've never confronted me until now!"

"I've never had the chance! You always seem to move on before I even get to make sense of what you've told me. It's like you did things just to toy around with my heart and then when you got bored, you walked away until you found interest in me again."

"You're such a bitch, Leigh."

I got up and walked towards the door.

"Don't you fucking dare run away from this now."

"Then stop me, Garrett. Give me a reason to stay. I don't see any, do you? And don't tell me that I should stick around because you love me. I've been sticking around my whole life and it's gotten me absolutely nowhere. Now go be with Rachael."

"You didn't know that before practice I was out telling Rachael I couldn't go on our date because I was so worried about you?"

I stopped dead in my tracks.

"But I thought you liked Rachael."

"I do."

"Then...?"

"I like you more."

I couldn't move.

That wasn't true.

It couldn't be true.

"...How could you like me more?" It came out as a whisper, but he heard it.

"How couldn't I?"

"I'm not girly. I run away from problems. I'm not pretty. I'm not funny. I'm not very nice, especially right now. And I'm not confident. Why would you want me? Why would you want this piece of crap?"

"I run away from problems too. I don't care if you're not girly because girly girls don't like zombies and comic books and dinosaurs and they don't mosh like you. I laugh when I'm with you all the time. What do you mean you're not nice? You're amazing to little kids and you help whoever needs you no matter what you're doing. Confident? That's all I see in you. You're headstrong and you know what you want in life and you go for it. And don't tell me you're not pretty. Well, you know what? Maybe you're not."

I turned for the door once more, hurt by his words despite everything else he had said.

One. This boy had to be fucking bipolar.

Two. I had to get out of here. It was like tug of war with him.

Three. He took a deep breath and his eyes glinted with hopefulness.

"You're not pretty because you're fucking gorgeous."

I didn't want to believe him. I couldn't. So I didn't.

"Leigh..."

I didn't get a chance to even think -- more like overthink -- about how I could respond to that. Garrett helped me with that, actually.

He pulled me towards him and once again, he kissed me.

This time, I didn't resist.

No matter how much I didn't want it to happen, it did and I didn't want to think about the rest. I just wanted to think about now and this kiss and this moment.

But then.

Wonderwall by Oasis played out of nowhere and Garrett hastily pulled away, shoving his hand in his pocket, pulling out his phone.

"Um...I gotta take this," he mumbled. I barely heard what he said as I tried to process what had just happened. Garrett and I had put all the words that should have been said a long while ago out in the open and it felt good. It really did.

"Hi mom...no...I don't...actually, can you get me pink Vitamin Water and Sour Patch Kids? Yeah. I'll be home soon. I just...yes, I'm with Leigh. Um...well, I don't know why we're not together yet. Mom, can you tell Trey to stop making those stupid kissing noises? Mommy, I love you. Bye!"

I smiled and giggled for the first time in what felt like years. I loved Mrs. Nickelsen like my own mother.

There was a knock on the door. Before I could even say come in, John walked in with a worried expression.

"Did someone die?!"

"What?!" I exclaimed.

"I heard a lot of yelling and then there was silence so I figured you killed Garrett!"

I raised an eyebrow at my brother's stupidity.

"John, we're fine. We worked it out."

He noted the smile on my face and I looked over and saw Garrett had one too.

"So I'm guessing you guys...are together now...?" John asked with a wary expression.

I had no idea. But I guess Garrett did cause he nodded.

"It's about damn time."