Gone

“Get out.”

“Reece, it meant nothing! It just happened.”

“Pack your shit. And get out.”

“You know I love you! It was just a stupid little mistake.”

I get up and wrench the bedroom door open.

“Get the fuck out of my house,” I spit. Jared’s shoulders drop and realisation crosses his face.

I feel nothing. And he knows it.

“You are scum,” I tell him flatly as he stumbles past me. “I’ll send your things to your mom. Don’t bother coming back.”

I hear the front door click shut and I exhale, feeling the weight of the world slip from my shoulders. I throw myself on the bed and start making a snow angel out of the sheets. So really it’s a sheet-angel.

But I need to burn them.

*

His stuff is neatly backed into black garbage bags by the door, when Caleb and Whitney get home from college.

“Hey, Reece!” Whitney says and ruffles my hair while she drops her bag on the ground and flops down next to me on the couch.

“Oh no,” Caleb says.

He’s just looked at the TV and seen the movie playing: Forrest Gump.

“Where’s Jared?” he asks.

I feel Whitney’s doe-eyes bore into the side of my face.

“Gone.”

Whitney’s arms wrap around me and Caleb is soon on my other side, slinging an arm over my shoulder.

His arm remains for the duration of the movie and I cry into his shirt when Forrest reads Jenny his letter. It’s mostly because of Jared, but also because it gets me every time.

*

“Men are such pigs,” Whitney says over dinner. Caleb and I both give her a look.

“Well, they are. You’re just two of the better pigs,” she says with a happy smile. I chuckle in spite of myself and Caleb pokes my cheek with the butt of his fork.

“There he is,” he states, then continues, “If I see that little prick again, I’m going to beat the shit out of him.”

“Three years, down the drain. What a loser,” Whitney concurs.

Three years I’ll never get back. Three years I didn’t get to spend with someone better.

“Can we tattoo his forehead with ‘cheating bastard’ or something, while he’s asleep?” Caleb offers.

“Let’s add in ‘tiny dick’ too!”

“It’d be awesome if we could register him as a sex offender.”

I excuse myself and start wandering down the hall.

“Do you think he’ll be okay?” I hear Whitney ask softly.

Caleb takes a moment to respond, probably running his hand through his dark-brown hair, then says, “He’ll be fine.”

“Are you going to tell him?”

I take a few steps back.

Tell me what?

“When he’s ready.”

“At least I know you’d never treat him so badly. I mean this has been coming for god knows how long.”

“Yeah. And it’s killed me to have to watch it.”

*

I drop off Jared’s things at his mother’s. She doesn’t say anything, just gives me a sympathetic look. Whatever, he is her son and it’s her job to stick by him.

Even if he is a cheat.

*

“How’re you doing today, Champ?” Caleb asks, patting me on the back when he walks into the kitchen. I try not to notice the way his hand lingers as my teeth cut through my cornflakes with a loud crunch.

“Fine,” I say. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
He gives me a pointed look and I roll my eyes.

“It’s done. I’m moving on,” I tell him for what feels like the fifty-millionth time. Seriously, it’s been three weeks. What am I supposed to do? Wallow?

“I’m going out before Whit adds in her two cents too and I suffocate,” I snap, grabbing my jacket and slamming the door in my wake.

I pretend I don’t see the hurt on his face.

Whatever.

*

“Reece,” he says, leaning against my doorframe. I raise an eyebrow. “You’ve been avoiding me for weeks.”

“Are you done being all sympathetic?” I ask and he frowns.

“Why can’t you just ask for help?” He takes a step into my room and closes the door behind him, joining me on the floor with my music magazines.

“Why do you think I need it? Really?” I flip a glossed page over, but my eyes are on his hazel ones.

“Because I know you too well,” he whispers, expression soft.

“It’s not because you’re in love with me?”

He goes quiet.

One.

Two.

Three.

“…How long have you known?”

“Since the break-up,” I say nonchalantly, despite the fact that I’m in internal meltdown mode right now.

“Oh shit,” he groans and puts his head in his hands.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s not a big deal.” Caleb glares at me.

“Not a big deal? Not a big deal? What is wrong with you Reece? Of course it’s a big deal! Five fucking years! You think you wasted your time on that asshole Jared? That’s fucking nothing. At least you had someone and weren’t pining over your best friend while he was with another guy.

“And when you’ve waited as long as I have, you don’t want things to just slip out. It has to be perfect. And now everything’s fucked.”

I stare into that broken, distraught face of my best friend and feel it all stand still; time, space, and my heart, are all still.

Then I reach out and cup his face with my hands, forcing him to look me in the eyes.

“You are a selfish bastard. You have no clue what I’ve been through,” I tell him slowly. “But…I want…I want to fall in love with you.”

And then he kisses me.

And it doesn’t feel like kissing a brother, which I was scared of the night I found out.

It feels right, which I imagined it would seven years ago when I was in love with him.

No fireworks go off. I’m not buzzing with electrical currents. But my heart is still leaping out of my chest.

My hands are tangled in his hair and he pulls me into his lap, kissing me deeper.

And in this moment, I’m gone; lost somewhere in his arms.