Hidden Feelings

Have you ever loved someone but been completely afraid to tell them the truth about your feelings? And even more than that, have you ever loved someone that you weren’t supposed to love? That was the position that Ryan Dunn found himself in with Brandi Margera—the younger sister of one of his best friends.

He knew how wrong it was to be in love with her, especially since she was only seventeen. But he just couldn’t help himself. He’d tried to hide his feelings for two long years, ever since she’d started her caterpillar transformation from a neutral worm that blended into the scenery and was just another one of the guys into a beautiful young butterfly capable of making any guy on the street stop and stare in awe.

Yes, he knew it was wrong. But he didn’t know if he could continue hiding it any longer. He was growing tired of fighting off the feeling of loving Brandi. He was tired of pretending that he saw her as only Bam’s little sister; as another friend to spend time with and do stupid things with. He wanted her to see what he felt for her. He wanted her to know just how deep his feelings ran. And the worst part? He knew she’d think he was crazy if he ever told her.

“Ryan? Baby, come back to bed. It’s two o’clock in the morning,” his girlfriend, Janelle, called to him softly before she sat slightly upwards so that she could look over at his body. He was sitting in the corner of the room again, the third night in a row, just watching the moon outside the window. It was starting to worry her, how much time he spent staring at the moon. She didn’t think it was normal.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” his muffled response came quietly before he turned back to the window. Janelle just sighed, shaking her head as she turned the light on.

“That’s what you said last night, Ryan. And you never came back to bed,” she told him pointedly. “It’s about her, isn’t it? That’s what’s got you up all night now.”

The man looked up, shock clearly written on his face, his eyes wide and guilty. He didn’t know how she had figured it out. Ryan thought he’d done a good job at hiding his feelings—hiding the fact that he couldn’t give Janelle his heart because someone else already had it.

“What are you talking about?”

He knew that it was a stupid excuse and that she probably wouldn’t believe him, but he didn’t care. He didn’t want to break Janelle’s heart. She’d been good to him for the last seven and a half months that they’d been living together, and she’d been even better before they’d lived together. Their relationship had spanned for two years. They’d been together before the feelings had started developing for Brandi, and Ryan felt as though he owed it to his girlfriend to stay with her, even if his heart felt trapped by her.

“Whoever you’re thinking about. She’s the one who has you staying up all night. You can admit it, you know. I’m not stupid.”

Ryan sighed, knowing that his girlfriend had figured it out. Great, he thought bitterly to himself. That’s another person I’ve fucked over in life. You just can’t do anything right, can you, Ryan?

“It’s complicated, ‘Nelle,” he muttered, turning to face her before reaching up onto the dresser and grabbing his packet of cigarettes and lighter. The window was already open, so the smoke wouldn’t bother her as he lit up one of the cancer sticks. Janelle watched as he took a few slow drags off of it before she climbed out of their bed and approached him, sitting on the floor in front of him.

“You can talk to me about it. We’re supposed to talk shit like this through, right? Relationships aren’t always perfect. If we just talk about it, maybe—”

“This can’t be fixed by talking,” he cut her off, not wanting her to get her hopes up like he knew she was going to. “’It really is me, not you. I’m the one who fucked things up between us, Janelle.”

“It’s not so bad,” she whispered, grabbing his hands. “Whatever’s going on, if you just come clean, we can get past it, and—”

Ryan cut her off for a second time, this time feeling even worse than he had the first time. “I didn’t cheat on you, Janelle. But I don’t love you. Not like you love me.”

Her hazel eyes widened, and he knew that he had just broken her heart. For their entire two-year relationship, he’d told her he loved her on a daily basis. He used to believe it, too. Hell, maybe it had been true, once upon a time. But it sure as hell wasn’t now. He loved Brandi, and goddamn it, he couldn’t change that if he tried to.

After the initial shock passed through her eyes, he saw the hurt and the anger starting to set in. He knew it wasn’t going to be long before she started yelling now, but he knew he could handle it. He deserved it. After leading someone on for as long as he had her, he definitely deserved to be yelled at. And probably even more than that, he thought to himself. If there was an award for the shittiest boyfriend, Ryan Dunn would definitely get it. He didn’t know how to do things right with Janelle anymore. How could he if his heart wasn’t invested in the relationship? Everything felt forced, and he didn’t think that was how it was supposed to feel if two people really belonged together.

He watched as the realization finally set in, and then blinked as her face started turning red, her eyes starting to gloss over with salty tears. He turned his head so that he wouldn’t have to see her cry. He’d never been good with comforting a crying girl, and especially not when he was the one who had caused the tears in the first place.

“How can you say you don’t love me, Ryan?” She asked him incredulously, throwing her hands in the air. It no longer mattered that it was the middle of the night; that she’d woken up originally to call him to bed. Now, all that mattered was that he had, in essence, broken up with her fresh after waking up. That was no way to go, Janelle thought to herself. She couldn’t understand it.

“Because I don’t,” he muttered, shrugging indifferently. He found that his heart didn’t even clench at the fact that she was hurt, and that was how he knew for sure that he didn’t love Janelle Studebaker anymore. He loved Brandi, and he couldn’t keep pretending with Janessa.

“You’re…You’re…” The blonde started, obviously trying to figure out a way to stop the inevitable from happening. “You’re just confused. Maybe some other girl got into your head, and—”

“It’s been this way for the last two years, Janelle,” he whispered, turning to face her finally, his eyes blinking.

If his previous words hadn’t stopped her in her tracks, these ones most certainly did. She just blinked and stood there, incapable of doing much else before she finally took a step back, the tears starting to fall faster and her chest moving up and down more rapidly.

“Tell me this is all just some sick fucking joke, Ryan. Tell me you’re pulling some fucking stunt,” she pleaded with him, shaking her head. She knew that her hysterics were a bit out of hand and a bit over the top, but she couldn’t stop it. She really did love Ryan, and she didn’t want to admit that this was the end. After everything she’d stood by him through, they couldn’t end this way. She simply wouldn’t stand for it.

“Stop trying to deny it, Janelle. I love another girl, alright? I know it sucks, but it’s the truth. You can stay here until you figure out where you can go, but I can’t stay here with you. I’ll get a hotel or something,” he muttered, standing up from his spot on the floor. He already had a duffel bag packed full of clothes from a recent trip to Los Angeles, so he didn’t need to waste time packing. He could just go and leave it at that.

“Let me change your mind,” she whispered, shaking her head furiously. “Let me change your mind, Ryan. You don’t need to leave. You can stay here with me. We can—”

“No, we can’t!” He yelled at her, finally losing his cool for a moment. “We can’t fix what’s been broken for two years, Janelle. We can’t fix this if I don’t want to fix it!”

He said nothing else as he grabbed the duffel bag and his cigarettes, not taking a second look at her as he left the house and their memories behind. He knew that he’d been hiding his feelings for far too long, and now he needed to come clean. He needed to stop fighting what he felt for Brandi Margera. He knew his best friend was going to kick his ass, but he didn’t care. He knew that his feelings for Brandi were more important than whatever problems Bam would have.

After he left the house, he didn’t know where to go. He knew that it was too late to get into a hotel, and he didn’t want to go back to his own house and face Janelle. He figured he could probably crash at one of his friends’ house until the morning. He knew that it would be Saturday tomorrow, and he could find Brandi and confess to her everything that he felt for her.



The next morning, Ryan was in just as much a state of worry as he had been the night before. He was a nervous wreck trying to figure out what to tell Brandi. He didn’t even know if she was going to reciprocate his feelings. Would she tell him that she didn’t care if he had feelings? Would she find it strange that he’d fallen in love with his best friend’s younger sister? Or would, by some miracle, she feel the same way about him?

He left the friend’s house that he’d crashed at and started making his way to her house, the radio turned off so he could concentrate on his thoughts. He was unsure of what he could say to her. He’d never felt this nervous about talking to someone and revealing his feelings before, even with Janelle.

The drive finally came to an end when he parked in the driveway in front of the Margera’s house, and he took a shaky breath before pushing his hand back through his hair as he exited his car. Bam was already on the skate ramp on the other side of the house, and he could hear music blaring from Brandi’s bedroom window, which had to mean that she was upstairs. He knew there was no time like the present to talk to her. Bam was out of the house, and he knew it was an ideal time to talk.

He managed to get into the house without Bam seeing him, and then slipped up the stairwell before Ape and Phil could see him as well. He was hoping to be quick about this, and discreet. He didn’t want everyone to know what he was going to say. The only person he wanted to know about his feelings right now was Brandi.

Her bedroom door was open when he got to the top of the stairs, and he felt his breath hitch in his throat when he saw that she was in the middle of changing from her pajamas into a pair of Daisy Dukes and a small white tank top.

He turned around, not wanting to be a peeping tom before he cleared his throat. “Brandi?” He asked her, still facing the wall on the other side of the hallway so that he wasn’t invading her privacy.

She let out a surprised squeal, and he turned around only after she had told him that she was dressed. “Ryan, I didn’t know you were planning on stopping by today,” she muttered under her breath, pushing her hand back through her hair.

“Neither did I,” he admitted, a small, nervous smile on his face before he looked up at her. She looked happy to see him, though there was also a hint of nervousness and just a touch of natural blush on her cheeks.

“So…What brings you here?”

She seemed genuinely curious in why he was there, Ryan thought to himself. That was a good thing, right? If she was interested, that meant that she wanted to spend time with him. He took a deep breath before stepping inside of her room.

“Can we talk in private? It’s about you,” he whispered, his heart racing quickly in his chest before he shifted his weight to his other leg. Brandi nodded and closed the door before she turned to face him, an expectant smile on his face.

“Alright, spill,” she told him, sitting on the edge of her bed. “You know you can talk to me about whatever it is that’s bothering you.”

Ryan knew that she was right, although her words sounded eerily like a remnant of what Janelle had said the night before. He pushed that thought out of his mind before he sat down on the edge of the bed next to her, a small smile on his own face before he cleared his throat.

“I can’t…I mean…I don’t…” He muttered, unsure of what he was supposed to say at this point. “What I’m trying to say is—”

“Oh, I love this song!” Brandi cut him off excitedly before she got up, rushing over to her CD player and turning up the radio. Ryan’s eyes widened when he heard the familiar opening bars of some old REO Speedwagon song starting to fill the atmosphere.

He watched as Brandi happily danced around the room to the song, the lyrics barely passing through his mind as he listened to the singer warble on about how keeping someone in their sights and about a candle. It was a song that could easily be related to his situation, he thought to himself. And the more he thought about it, the more he realized that he could use this song as an opportunity to express to Morgan what words were failing to communicate.

He didn’t say anything as he stood up, walking over to where Brandi had started dancing around the room before he extended his hand to her, showing her that he wanted to dance with her. She nodded and quickly grabbed his hand before she allowed him to twirl her to one of the lines before he pulled her in close.

She felt so right in his arms, he thought to himself. His arm looped perfectly around her waist, and her small hand felt complete inside of his own larger, more callous one. He liked the feel of her hair brushing softly up against his skin, and he couldn’t help but feel calmed and relaxed when she moved her own body closer to his.

As the song came to a close, he knew that his opportunity was drawing to a close. He said nothing as he moved closer, licking over his bottom lip nervously before he stopped the two of them from dancing.

“Ryan?”

Her voice came out as a breathy whisper, almost nonexistent and almost untraceable with the sound of the loud classic rock song, though he could still hear her. He said nothing before carefully reaching up to tuck some hair behind her ear, letting his hand linger for a few moments before he felt his breath hitch in his throat.

“Ryan, are you going to say anything, or…?” Brandi asked him, sounding more worried than anything else. Ryan groaned and pushed his hand back through his hair before he leaned forward, connecting their lips together in a chaste kiss.

He had no idea what he was doing, he realized. The moment felt right and he couldn’t stop himself from pressing his lips against hers. Even if it was just once, he wanted to know how it felt to kiss her. He started pulling away after a few moments, realizing that she wasn’t going to kiss him back before she surprised him by grabbing tightly onto his shoulders, deepening the kiss just slightly.

The kiss was the most amazing thing that Ryan had ever felt in his life, and he knew it. He loved the taste of her lips on his. She wasn’t wearing Chap Stick or lip gloss, but it didn’t matter to him. She tasted amazing and he wanted more. However, they needed to break the kiss after several minutes, both of them realizing that they needed air.

Neither of them said a word for several minutes after he broke the kiss. They were both stunned at the fact that he’d broken the ice and kissed her. She reached up and touched the side of his face softly before leaning in, kissing the corner of his mouth just slightly.

“How long?” She whispered, feeling him grab his hand tightly in hers.

He thought about his answer for a few minutes before smiling, shaking his head. “Two years. It’s about fucking time I kissed you, Brandi,” he murmured, leaning his forehead against hers before pulling her in for a tight hug.

The sound of her airy laughter filled the room, and he knew he’d done a good thing by kissing her. He didn’t know where this was going to take them from here, or whether or not they’d be able to work out a relationship. But what he did know was that he was done fighting his feelings. He knew that he loved Brandi, and now he’d finally shown her that.