A Ballad of Love and Hate

Fall slowly faded out and it was already Thanksgiving time.

My therapy was going well and I was gaining my weight back at a steady pace, making the nutritionist and Ryan happy.

I was also happy as well because the burdens I had been carrying were now gone.

My therapist kept asking more about interactions with my brother and how what he did may linger with my personal sex life but it never lingered, not anymore at least.

As it was Thanksgiving time, I was considering my options.

Do I go home and face my whack family or do I go on vacation to somewhere tropical and work on my tan?

“Why don’t you just come to my family’s house?” Ryan persisted on the phone.

We had been keeping our friendship together, controlling our desires and actually learn how to communicate and be friends.

“Ry, I’m not crashing the Lochte family Thanksgiving, your mother would be so unprepared for me and start feeling like she has to go out of her way,” I sighed, laying on my bed.

“It’s a two day warning, you’re fine,” he continued. I rolled my eyes.

I wouldn’t win this battle.

I was on a flight a day later to Florida. Ryan and I would be hanging out for the day before leaving tomorrow for his moms house.

“What are we doing today?” I asked Ryan when we got to his house.

“Whatever you want, any ideas?” He shrugged.

“You’re the host, you’re suppose to know,” I laughed.

Ryan carried my bag to the guest room and fell on the bed. I flopped down next to him and looked at the ceiling.

“Well I know what we’re doing tomorrow, Friday, and Saturday,” he defended himself.

“Well I know tomorrow but what are we doing Friday and Saturday?” I questioned as his smile grew.

“Friday, we’re going to be getting up at 4am and join the crazy. I know we don’t need to do the whole Black Friday thing but it’s incredibly fun and me and Devon like to go and stir things up. And Saturday, it’s all about Gator football,” he grinned.

“Oh Ryan you’re making me go to the football game? Come on, I hated those even when I went to UF,” I sighed, remembering my two years at UF and hating football games the most, particularly with Ryan.

“Oh come on, it’ll be fun, we’re not going to be in the student section and we get to drive to Tallahassee. And tonight, we can literally do whatever you want,” he stroked my face. I rolled my eyes.

“We can do literally anything I want?” I smiled, he nodded a little afraid.

Oh this was going to be great.

“Damnit, Noah, I thought we’d be having fun, not working,” Ryan groaned when I pulled out sketches and measurements.

“Ry, I fell behind from my time off, and this is fun for me, I get to sew and you get to keep your shirt off, you love being shirtless,” I smiled as I pulled out a couple of garments to fix up.

“You only want me for my body,” he grumbled. I rolled my eyes and began to work.

I hadn’t been able to do much with my men’s line with everything that had been going on. It felt so nice to have fabric in my hands and hems to align.

The whole time, Ryan and I were able to hang out with each other. The sexual tension was of course there (the man had the body of a wonderland) but it was nice to just joke around and not dwell so much on the heavy stuff.

“Can we at least do watch a movie tonight?” He asked, I could tell he truly hated this.

I frowned a little and stepped away.

“I suppose I can stop for the night,” I sighed, Ryan stepped off the small stool and changed into shorts and a t-shirt. I followed suit, putting on some leggings and a t-shirt.

I met him in the living room where he was scrolling through netflix on his TV.

“Do you want to watch a rom com or can I pick something different?" He asked. I sat on the couch and curled up.

"You pick. I most likely will pass out," I smiled as Ryan scrolled through the choices. He stopped on Captain America and pressed play.

Ryan sat on the other end of the couch. I felt my eyes get heavy mid way through the movie.

"Noah do you want a blanket?" He asked me. I mumbled non-sense and felt the weight of a blanket rest lightly on me.

"Ry please sit with me," I said in a sleepy voice.

"I'm right here sweetheart," he replied. I lazily sat up and positioned myself with him.

Ryan was sitting up right as I snuggled into his chest. He hesitated for a moment. We hadn't even kissed since I started therapy. Only brief hugs and maybe I would link arms with him.

Ryan relaxed and helped me get more comfortable. He put his arm around me and I felt the sense of security from him once more.

I woke up the next morning still in Ryan's arms. His phone was blaring but he made no move to get it. I pulled away from him and grabbed his phone on my own.

"Hey Ike, it's Noah," I said when I answered.

"Oh Noah how are you sweetie? We're so excited you're coming. I just wanted to see if you guys were on the road yet,” Ike said into the phone. I sat up a little more and looked at the clock on the wall.

“Oh no, I’m so sorry Mrs. Lochte, we fell asleep on the couch watching a movie, Ryan isn’t even stirring a bit, I will shake him awake and we will be on our way as soon as possible,” I began to grow a little frantic but I heard his mom laugh into the phone.

“Noah, you know us, we’re not formal, you don’t have to call me Mrs. Lochte for one and two, just wake Ryan and let us know when you leave so I can gauge dinner, I’ll make snacks for the kids,” she replied. I let her know I would before shaking Ryan a little.

“Ry, come on, wake up,” I shook, growing annoyed.

Ryan stirred in his sleep a little bit and looked at me with sleepy eyes.

“What is it?” He questioned sleepily. I played with his hairline and smiled.

“We have to get to your mom’s,” I said. Ryan pulled me back into his arms and played with my hair.

“Okay, let’s go,” he said after a few minutes of us sitting there and silence, lazily looking at each other.

I swore something more was about to happen.

Instead, we both got showered and grabbed our things to head out.

Ryan’s family was about two hours away. Softly, music played in the background and I remembered the times before we drove to his mom’s house.

“Last time you came home with me was for my Olympic send off for Beijing,” Ryan spoke up. I ran my fingers through my hair and smiled.

“And we sang out to some awful music, and had to pull over to the side of the road for, stuff,” I laughed.

“We could pull over again,” he suggested, raising his eyebrows. I rolled my eyes.

“We’re not going to, someone definitely saw us having sex that day,” I said. Ryan shrugged.

“Great, they saw how awesome of a girlfriend I had,” he smiled lightly.

I turned the music up a little bit as I got a little upset.

I was a had been. And while we were just in a place of friendship and it was awesome, I was starting to desire more.

And more.

We soon arrived to his mothers house and she came out with his brother to help with our bags.

“Oh, Noah, look at you! You look so pretty and your hair is so long!” His mother pulled me into a hug.

“It’s great to see you too, Ike,” I grinned, taking in her familiar hug.

“And there’s my boy, oh Ryan, we’ve missed you too,” she smiled, pulling him into a hug.

We walked into the familiar warm house and I felt like I was at home immediately. Ryan’s nephew was running around and his sisters were helping set up the table.

“Noey! Look at you! What happened to the short hair?!” His sister, Megan greeted me, I smiled and gave her a hug.

“I grew it out for three years, wanna cut it?” I laughed. She looked at me seriously.

“I can,” she shrugged.

“Ryan would kill you if you cut his girlfriend’s hair,” his other sister piped up. My face turned a little red and I looked down.

“Well, we actually are just friends,” I said awkwardly.

“What? You guys aren’t back together? Why?” Megan asked.

“Well you know, we’re just, hanging out,” I played with my hair.

“Girls, leave Noah alone, sweetie, Ryan’s in the backyard, go hang out,” Ryan’s mother pushed me out of the house to the back, so she could scold her daughters.

I found Ryan laying on the trampoline and hopped up to join him.

“You’re not going to greet your family?” I asked. He looked over at me.

“They’re all insane right now, and being pesky sisters, I’ll talk to them at dinner, did they bother you?” He asked.

“Megan offered to cut my hair,” I shrugged. He laughed at took a piece in my hair.

“I do miss your short hair, this hair, it just reminds me of all the time I haven’t been around you,” he smiled.

I put my hands on his face and looked him in the eyes.

“Ryan, four years ago, we were very different and immature people. And think if we didn’t break up then where we’d be? I probably would have been angry at you for not going to fashion school and you would’ve hated me for not going to the Olympics. I always told you how much you didn’t care but I’m glad we don’t have that ‘what if’ regret we could have had,” I explained.

“I know you're right. But it's something I failed at and I hate failing but at least we're friends now," he sighed.

I was about to speak up. About to tell him how much I was wanting to be more but his mother called us in for dinner.

As Ryan's mom was Cuban, Thanksgiving at the Lochte’s was always a little different. There was American food but there was also a ton of Cuban dishes at the table.

Seeing as the family was also incredibly close, they were not shy about talking about anything that was going on in their lives. His brother-in-laws were also up for talking about anything that came to mind.

“You know, Ryan and you were late today, was it the same reason as last time?” Megan raised her eyebrows. I looked to Ryan who began to smirk.

Of course they knew everything about that one time.

“No, I overslept,” Ryan explained.

“Because of sex?” The question was raised by his brother.

It was going to take time to get back into the Lochte family style of conversation.

“I don’t want to put Noah on the spot, Noah, how’s your mom? I heard your dad was incredibly busy in the OR, we saw Nathaniel the other day, he seemed like he was doing well,” Ike smiled at me, I saw Ryan grip onto his fork.

“Yeah, my dad has been pretty OR heavy lately, I haven’t heard from Nate in a while though,” I said steadily.

Truth was, I haven’t heard from any of my family in almost six months.

“What’s Nate doing again? He’s an engineer right? Jeez, Noah, your family is freaking smart,” Ryan’s brother said.

I just nodded. Everyone in Florida said that about my family.

When dinner was done, I tried helping out but Ryan intervened to go for a walk outside.

“My family didn’t know the full details of why you were coming over here, I think they think your family is out of town, I’m sorry,” Ryan explained.

“It’s fine, I wouldn’t want them to know the full story, they would see my family in a different light and I don’t want that,” I said.

I grabbed Ryan’s arm as we walked around the suburban neighborhood.

Not many words exchanged. But there was so much I wanted to say.

I wanted to say that I forgave him for the past and I was sorry.

I wanted to thank him for helping me to get better these past few months.

I wanted to tell him that I wanted to be with him again after seeing the care he had for me through this.

But I wasn’t brave enough to. Instead, Ryan kept talking about how great it was just to be able to talk to me again.

How great it was to finally be friends after all these years.

I sighed.

I will always be the had been.