Don't Give Up (On Me)

“Spit it out already, O’Callaghan,” I smirked, nudging him in the side as we sat on Tim’s roof. He’d pulled me away from the party beneath us to ‘drink on the roof’ but I knew what he had up his sleeve. I knew what he wanted to ask me, but was chickening out last minute.

“God, pushy much?” He chuckled, taking a sip of his beer.

“I am not pushy, you’re just a pussy.” I smirked, amused with my rhyming. I had a smart mouth when I was drunk, I’d been told.

“Never, have I met a girl who could keep up with my drinking.” John stated with a laugh.

“Never have I met a guy who was such a-“

“Alright, I haven’t done this in a really long time- y’know it’s extremely cocky to assume what you’re assuming.” He pointed out, teasing me.

I raised an eyebrow. “Unless what I’m assuming is about to happen actually is about to happen, and pointing out that you’re just too much of a wimp to do it-“

“Will you be my girlfriend?”

I stopped, blushing slightly before I leaned over and kissed him. I pulled away when he tried to drop the tongue, taking a sip from his beer.

“Should I take that as a yes?” He asked, a little taken back.

“You can take it as a maybe,” I shrugged casually.

His jaw dropped. “Leighton!” His hands snaked around my waist and pulled me into him, making me laugh.

“Alright it’s a yes!” I laughed, nodding. I took his hands in mine and pressed my lips back onto his.

“Good,” he smirked, laying back on the roof and pulling me with him. “S’about time.”

***

“You ready to go?”

I looked up from the mess that was my work, spread across the dining table to see John standing in the doorway. “Yeah sorry. You’ve taken your medication?” I asked, only lightly reminding him.

He stopped, seeming to have forgotten. “I’ll take my meds then we can go.” He nodded, crossing the dining room floor to retrieve his medication from the kitchen.

I let my eyes follow him into the room, shamefully checking him out- I couldn’t help it, he was wearing the super skinny jeans that turned me on and he didn’t wear those a lot. I bit my lip as he bent down to grab the water jug from the fridge. I couldn’t tell if he was doing it on purpose or if he was just ridiculously oblivious (if he was, it was kinda cute). Either way, I couldn’t stop looking. The past few days that he’d been back, we’d been surprisingly…intimate with eachother and I couldn’t but wonder if that was because he hadn’t been taking the medication that caused a lacking in that department.

Whatever it was, I didn’t want the medication to get in the way of what was long overdue between us but I couldn’t exactly voice that to him without A) offending him or B) sounding like a total hypocrite. But was it so bad to want something we were designed to crave?

“Leighton,”

I looked up to see John looking at me with an amused grin. “Sorry, what?” I blushed, making eye contact and immediately wishing I hadn’t.

A shit eating grin stretched across his face. “You like what you see, huh?”

“Yeah,” I scoffed, nodding quickly. “You know those jeans turn me on, asshole.”

“I know, and I think it’s cute how flustered you get.” He chuckled, leaning down to kiss me.

His mouth tasted sour, like pills. It was hardly there, but I could taste it. I pulled away subtly and looked back up at him. “Can we go or are you going to tease me further?”

“Where d’you wanna go?” He breathed, “the bathroom? Or how about the laundry?”

My eyes widened and I swatted him on the arm. “John!”

He let out a laugh and took my hands, pulling me up from the table. “I’m joking, wow you’re really turned on, huh?”

I blushed, shaking my head at him. “No.”

“Oh you so are,” he chuckled, wrapping his arms around my waist and kissing me. “You look gorgeous, by the way.” He murmured against my ear lobe before taking it in his mouth, making me groan.

I didn’t think I looked gorgeous, but I’ll accept the comment if it was followed by a kiss that
good. I wore a light chiffon floral skirt that stopped at the knees over a pair of black tights. I’d pulled on a baggy sweater and my boots so I would be warm in the fucked up weather. We’d never had a winter so early or cold so this was definitely hitting hard. That and it was almost October.

“I love when you make that sound,” he groaned, pushing me against the wall, his hands finding my hips
underneath the material of my sweater.

“John we can’t,” I breathed over his shoulder. “We’re going to be late.”

“We’ve got twenty minutes-“

“It takes fifteen minutes to get there!” I stated, my voice getting higher against my will.

“We’ve done it quicker-“

“John!” I gasped, smacking his arm.

He let out a laugh. “Alright, I’m done teasing,” he smirked, kissing me again. “Let’s go.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and sent him a look.

“Okay okay, I’m sorry.” He pouted, pressing his lips to the tip of my nose. “Happy?”

“Very,” I teased, kissing him back before taking his hand and pulling him to the front door, grabbing my phone and purse on the way, only for John to take my purse and put it back on the bench.

“Boyfriend pays,” he said simply.

Was this all because of the lack of medication or was it because of the mood swings? Would I be getting
another wave of bitchy temper tantrums soon? That’s the thing I hated about the good moods- the bad moods were always expected.

I gave him one last kiss before we headed out to his truck and drove the fifteen minute drive to the diner we had become regulars at over the past few years. When we got there, we were indeed the last to arrive. We made our rounds greeting everyone and I collected a few small gifts from a few people and a happy birthday from just about everyone (including a really nice watch from Austin and Hilary) before we took our seats across from Jac and Eric.

When everyone fell back into conversation, I noticed Garrett sitting beside me, no sign of Tate.

“Hey Nickelson, where’s your girl?” I asked, leaning over for a private conversation I could feel Jac eavesdropping into.

Garrett looked up, almost startled because he’d been focusing so hard on his menu. “Huh? Oh she’s not coming.” He said, the tone of his voice flat.

“Why not?” I asked with a frown.

Garrett hesitated. “I asked her to come out but she wouldn’t. I haven’t been sleeping at home and I called her this morning to ask her to come with me, y’know, to make an effort but she won’t.” He scoffed, shaking his head.

I looked over at Pat who was distracted by his phone and it made my blood boil at the possibility that he could be texting her. He could be texting the very girl that is making the guy next to me, utterly miserable.

“She hasn’t really been open with me about it so I don’t have a lot of advice apart from the obvious,” I mused.

He looked over at me. “You’re going to tell me to break up with her, to stop putting her through this.”

“No. I’d tell you to break up with her to stop putting you through this.” I responded. “But I’m not going to do that because I’m the last person that should be giving relationship advice.”

Garrett sent me a look. “You don’t see it, do you?”

I frowned. “What?”

“How strong you are to keep going through all the shit you two go through,” he said, keeping his voice down. “You view it as a bad relationship, but you don’t see it as something that continues to strengthen what you two have.”

I’d never thought of it like that. The endless arguments, the lying, the moods, the crying…it never once resonated with me as something that ‘made us stronger’. Not once. I guess being with the human embodiment of depression for so long, you tend to stop seeing ‘the bright side’ to everything.

I didn’t have a response and Garrett offered a small smile once realizing before going back to his menu. I was brought back into it by John, whose lips found my neck and kissed with pleasure. I looked over at him and kissed him back. “What’s up?”

“What do you feel like eating?” He asked, wrapping his arms around my waist. “You really need to eat.”

“I’m not that hungry to be honest,” I mused, twisting the ring around my finger. “What about you?”

When I didn’t receive a reply, I looked up to find him staring at my hands. I nudged him and he snapped back into reality.

“Sorry what?” He asked, looking at me.

“I said what about you? Are you okay babe?” I asked, pouting slightly. I really loved when he was all affectionate like this.

“Oh sorry,” he chuckled, kissing my cheek. “Uh yeah I’m not too fussed to be honest.”

“We could share a meal,” I suggested.

“We both need to put on weight,” he pointed out.

“Yeah but I’m not hungry right now,” I whined childishly. “C’mon, don’t you wanna share a meal? I thought you loved me-“

“Oh my god Leighton, you’re such a child,” Jac laughed from across the table.

I blushed, not realizing we weren’t in our own world. “Shut up, I’m not hungry-“

“For once,” John smirked.

“Why do you all hate me?” I mumbled dramatically, looking back down at the menu, nothing really jumping out at me.

“You’re so cute,” John chuckled. “You wanna go halves on the unhealthiest burger and fries there is? We should probably get a thick shake to humor your parents too."

“Your eating habits make me sick.” Lydia scoffed from beside John.

“We can’t all be personal trainers.” I retorted. “But yeah that sounds good.”

“You guys don’t know what you’re missing with these vegie burgers.” Kennedy threw back sarcastically.

“You don’t know what you’re missing without your man card.” John retaliated.

The guys laughed but I swatted John on the arm. “Hey, it’s not his fault.” I smirked, “Lydia kicks asses for a living.”

“Oh wow you’re so funny,” Lydia scoffed, throwing daggers my way. It was all in good fun of course, and she knew that, shown by the smile she tried to hide. “If you two need to put on weight, junk food is just going to put it in all the wrong places.”

“Hey, I’m cutting back on smoking and I’m stopping drinking,” John stated, “plus she’s gone all Lydia-health-kick on me, this is allowed.” He finished.

“I guess it’s hand over your man card day.” Eric ‘coughed’ from across the table.

“Oh like you can talk, Casanova.” Parker teased, “Mr. ‘I found the one’.”

Jac blushed and looked down at her menu. I bet she regretted telling us that now.

“Why don’t you go ahead and propose?” Austin smirked.

I didn’t realize how brutal everyone had gotten when it came to protecting their ‘balls’ in the relationship.

The harmless banter when on for a little while longer before everyone made the decision to order. Jac and I made faces at each other while we waited, almost having a telepathic conversation, if it wasn’t for the faces. She looked down the table at Pat before making a rude gesture with her hands, low enough for only me to notice. I held back a laugh and looked down at the table to see him glaring at the both of us, sending me death glares because ‘Jac knew too’ or whatever. I rolled my eyes and looked away, sending Jac a ‘cut it out’ look before resuming into the conversation that was happening down our end of the table. I didn’t think Pat could ever anger me to the extent where I felt like ruining his friendship with his best friend.

Our meals finally came and I was kind of amazed at how big they were. I was thankful me and John decided to share because there was no way I’d be able to finish it on my own. He was right though; we both needed to put on weight. The past few weeks have been stressful and we’ve been irresponsible with our eating, which wasn’t acceptable anymore if we were going to start making those changes.

I watched as John cut the burger down the middle, his hands shaking. I took the initiative to place my hand on top of his to steady him while he was cutting.

“I’m gonna get my medication changed,” he murmured in my ear.

“You know there’s side effects with every type of medication, right?” I said softly.

He nodded. “But these ones are the worst. Shaking hands stop me from writing and playing guitar.”

I tried not to roll my eyes. “There are worse things-“

“Right, so my career just doesn’t matter then.” He muttered.

I gave him a look. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

He looked at me and sighed. “Sorry.”

“Nah it’s okay,” I said, waving it off. “I get it.”

“I also don’t want these meds to mess up what we have going,” he murmured in my ear. “Y’know, where I’m actually satisfying in bed.”

I blushed, and shoved him lightly in the chest. So I wasn’t paranoid. “You’re always satisfying, you know that.” I scoffed, so only he could hear.

He laughed and draped his arm around my chair before stealing a fry. I looked up at him, my eyes stopping on the scar under his chin. It was somewhat comforting to see how far he was since the episode. I don’t think I could manage another moment like that again. Even driving past the hospital gave me nausea.

The rest of the lunch was nice, and it felt good to immerse ourselves within our friends (even if for a short period of time) because it gave us a break from that house and the connotations it left. Things just felt a lot more…tolerable and less suffocating when we were out of the house.

We even ate most of the meal too.

***

“Fucks’ sake,” Garrett muttered from beside me.

I looked over my shoulder. “You okay?” I asked.

He looked up, as if he hadn’t realized he’d cursed aloud. “Oh, sorry. I was just…no not really.”

“What’s up?” I asked lightly, turning to him.

He shrugged with a sigh. “She’s being difficult with me- I mean look at this message she sent me. All I said
was that I’d prefer if she was here with me and she bites my head off.” He scoffed, showing me the message from Tate.

tate <3: I guess we all can’t have what we want. Doesn’t feel so good, does it? Maybe if you didn’t
treat me like shit I wouldn’t be sleeping alone.

How dare she. She had absolutely no right to talk about being treated ‘like shit’ when she was the one
stabbing him in the back. And she sure as hell wasn’t sleeping alone.

“You look angry,” Garrett observed quietly.

“I just expected a lot more from her,” I said tightly. “I expected a lot more from a few people.” I said as my eyes fell to Pat, who sat there texting away on his phone.

“Me too,” He sighed, nodding in agreement, “myself included.”

“Tell me about it,” I winced, not proud of the way I treated Tate. “This seems like the kind of conversation we should be having over wine.”

“I’d probably get a beating from her if that happened,” he mused.

I could barely control the anger I harbored for her right now. I just couldn’t understand how she was letting him hurt so badly. Of course any guy is going to freak out when they hear their girlfriend could be pregnant, they weren’t trying and he was far too young to be a dad so of course he freaked- he was only a year old than me. That didn’t give her a right to cheat on him though.

That was when I made the decision to go confront her about it. I was sick of standing on the sidelines and it was becoming difficult to ignore the situation at work. Hopefully I could spark something in her that pushed her to fix things with Garrett or just call it off. If she did either of those things I know I’d be able to tolerate her. I missed having her as a friend and talking to her at work every day, if I wasn’t doing this for the sake of their relationship, I was doing it for the sake of ours.

So when we all left the diner, I waited until John drove us home before telling him I’d just be going over to Tate’s, as we were in need of ‘girl time’ apparently. John complained a little and it took a lot of strength to turn down his advances, but I needed to do this. I was way too emotional about the situation and I needed to get over there.

He understood and let me take his truck over to hers and Garrett’s. Luckily nor Garrett’s or Pat’s cars were in the driveway and I walked right up to her front door and knocked continuously until she opened the door.

I wasn’t expecting her to look like an emotional wreck.

“What do you want?” She sighed, sounding completely over it, like she was ready to throw in the towel.

“We need to talk,” I said through gritted teeth.

“If you’re here to force me into telling Garrett, you may as well leave.” She snapped, standing a side and letting me in anyway.

“I’m not. Though I am here to tell you to stop hurting him,” I said, crossing my arms and facing her. “He doesn’t deserve this, Tate.”

Her eyes widened in anger. “Oh he doesn’t deserve this?!”

“Of course not! You don’t do that kind of thing to the person you love!” I snapped venomously.

“I think you should just go,” she seethed angrily. “Get out.”

“No,” I shook my head firmly. “I don’t want our friendship to end because of this, Tate. But I’m losing my patience here.”

“Oh wow, Leighton Johnson gives a damn about someone other than her fucked up boyfriend, lucky me.” She scoffed, “I don’t need our friendship. You judged me the second you saw me and Pat and you don’t even know that half of it.”

It really took a lot to not hit her after the way she spoke about John. I decided to ignore that and keep focused on the discussion at hand. “What was I supposed to think when I saw you two going at it? Oh they’re ‘just friends’?! Really?! He was texting you all this morning!”

She frowned. “No he wasn’t- I haven’t spoken to him since last week. I ended everything with him on Tuesday- we’re not even friends anymore.”

That was harsh…they’d been best friends since they were young…I guess it doesn’t always work when you hook up with your best friend.

Maybe he’d found another girl in a committed relationship.

“That still doesn’t excuse the situation you’ve put Garrett in- sure, he got mad, but he has a right to get mad!” I stated.

She glared at me. “Get out. Leave.”

“You told him you were pregnant!”

“Leave!”

“Tate-“

“It was a false alarm because I can’t fucking have kids!” She yelled, silencing the entire house.

My heart ached for a split second. “W-what?”

Her eyes filled with tears. “I found out I couldn’t have kids, we’ve been doing tests and everything but they’re all coming back the same. I can’t ever have kids, Leighton. When I told him, he was so upset- he’s always wanted to be a dad. At first he blamed me; he treated me like crap because he blamed me for it. I couldn’t take it so I hooked up with my best friend and it was contagious because that was the only love I was getting.”

“Tate…” I said softly, approaching her. When I pulled her into my arms, she broke down sobbing.

“I don’t want to lose you Lei, but I can’t stand the judgment. Sleeping with someone no strings attached was the only way I knew how to deal with it.” She whimpered.

But so many of his strings were attached. To her.

“I’m so sorry, Tate. I’m so so sorry.”

The next two hours were spent crying and getting deep with one another. I felt so bad for her after finding out the terrible news. I couldn’t believe how quickly I switched teams once hearing that. How dare Garrett treat her like that- she didn’t have any say in the matter and here he was treating her like absolute shit over it. It was bad enough she couldn’t be a mother, he didn’t have to go and blame her for it.

When I went home later that afternoon, I left with a better friendship and a new perspective on all three of them. Tate explained to me how Pat was reluctant about hooking up, but she persuaded him into it. She also told me how she had to break off not only their affair, but their friendship- just until she was sorted with Garrett. She needed to figure out what was best for her before she decided where to go from there.

“Lei you’re finally back!” John called from the kitchen.

I met him at the kitchen bench with a kiss, before he pulled me in for a hug. “Hey baby, sorry I was away for so long.”

“Nah it’s cool, guess what?” He prompted, waving off my apology.

“What?” I asked, a smile stretching across my lips. He was so cute sometimes.

“We’re playing a show on Halloween, and we’ll be playing two new songs we’ve written that we hope will be recorded by then.”

My eyes widened and the smile faded. “A show?”

He sighed, “I know what you’re thinking, I was hesitant at first too, but I’m building my confidence up babe, I think I can do this.”

“You know I’m supporting you one hundred percent,” I nodded. “If you don’t feel you can, there’s no shame in admitting so.”

“I know,” he nodded, “but it’s only a small gig in the basement of the venue.”

“That doesn’t sound too intense,” I murmured, “and when are you recording?”

“We’re hoping to start on Monday.”

“As in tomorrow?” I asked wearily.

He nodded, not noticing my reluctance. “I think this will really help with the anxiety.”

“It won’t help the stress,” I pointed out, rubbing his shoulders soothingly with my hands.

“No but that will,” he sighed peacefully, closing his eyes. “That feels so good.”

“You wanna take a hot bath?” I asked, trying to push the recording business right from my mind. I wasn’t looking forward to that side of John for a number of reasons, one including the ever present depression he faced when not living up to his own expectations.

I wanted to speak up but I can only imagine how that would be received.

***

“Are you fucking kidding me?! That’s why you don’t want people to know?!” I snapped, pushing him away from me. “Why are you so ashamed to be dating someone younger than you?!”

“I’m not ashamed!” He yelled, getting angrier with me. Fuck his emotions for all I cared. “I just don’t want you to get into trouble!”

“With who?! I’m over eighteen, I’m not going to get into trouble-“

“You parents will hate me, my mom will think I’m corrupting you, Tim will have it out for me-“

“Stop making up excuses! We’ve been seeing each other for two months now- I don’t know why you dragged out the asking me to be your girlfriend part if you’re too much of a pussy to tell your friends!” I shot back. “They’re my friends too, they’re not going to care!”

“Of course they will!” He insisted cockily, grabbing my hand. Now he was just making up excuses.

“I can’t believe you-“ I stopped when I felt something being slipped onto my wrist. I looked own and
gasped to see a gold bracelet adorning my left arm. The heart shaped lock only told me it was a Tiffany & Co. bracelet. “John…”

“You’re so cute when you’re mad,” he chuckled, “of course I want to tell everyone, I just wanted to give this to you without you expecting it.”

“So you chose to pick a fight?” I laughed, admiring the bracelet.

He nodded, a smug grin on his lips. “I'm way more stubborn than that. Happy first fight, Lei.”

I let out a louder laugh and pulled his lips to mine. “I love it, happy first fight.”

I looked down at the bracelet on my wrist. It seemed bigger because my wrists had gotten thinner, but it still fit perfectly. I guess like us. No matter what we went through together, we still fit perfectly.