You Know Me Well(30)

“What does that mean?”

“Why don’t you tell me? I think you’re the one with the secrets here.”

He says it playfully, not meanly. He’s in a good mood. He’s having a ball. The world is his oyster, Taylor is his pearl, and I’m somewhere on the other side of the shell.

I want to play along. I want to be his friend here. I want to be able to smile and laugh and slap him on the back and go along with whatever he says.

But I can’t. I just can’t.

“No,” I say.

Ryan looks at me strangely. “No?”

“Yeah. No.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“I mean I can’t do this. I really, truly can’t do this.”

My heart is in full panic mode. Of all the things I’ve imagined saying to him, why is this the one that’s coming out? I’m already figuring out how to backpedal, how to pretend I’m only kidding. It’s not too late.

Then he asks, “You can’t do what?” And it’s too late.

“Are you serious?” I say. “Can you possibly be serious?”

He puts down the tennis racket, as if doing this suddenly makes him serious. He’s looking at me like I’m a pet that’s gone feral.

And, fuck it, maybe I am.

“Look,” he says, “I’m sorry I yanked you back here to go into the city again. Had I known you were there, I would’ve just met you. You understand, right?”

“No,” I say. “No no no no no no no. This isn’t about that. You can’t possibly think this is about that.”

This is where he should ask, Then what’s it about? But he doesn’t. Because he knows. And asking that question will take us one step closer to the answer.

I give it to him anyway.

“When I say I can’t do this anymore, I mean I can’t continue to trample over my own feelings just to keep things okay with you. I can’t. And that means I can’t sit here on your bed and tell you that, sure, I would love to go with you to your new boyfriend’s party. The fact that you could ask me to do that means you’ve done a much better job separating yourself than I have. But there’s only one me, Ryan. And he’s so fucking in love with you it’s scary.”

I’m starting to shake. I can’t believe this is happening.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Ryan says.

“That’s not my point!” I shout.

“I know.” Ryan’s voice is quieter now. “I know that’s not your point.”

There. I’ve done it. I’ve defeated his good mood. And it doesn’t make me feel any better.

“We talked about this,” he says gently. “We knew what we were doing.”

“We were lying!” I tell him. “The whole time, we were lying.”

He shakes his head. “I never lied to you.”

“No, but you lied to yourself. If you actually feel there isn’t anything more to what we’re doing than friendship, or if you really don’t think that fooling around affects what we are—then you’re lying to yourself. But have you ever really believed it? Do you really have no idea how much I love you? How much I want this to work out?”

Ryan looks horrified, and I understand that both of us have been afraid of this conversation, for different reasons.

“Why are you doing this?” he asks.

“Because you are the best thing in my life and I know I’m the best thing in your life. Because it’s one thing for me to think you aren’t ready to be with anyone and it’s totally another for you to want to be with someone besides me. Because I know how it feels when we kiss each other. Because I feel like I have spent my whole life waiting to tell you the truth, and if I hold it in any longer, it is going to make me hate both of us. Because I don’t want to be your wingman—I want to be your goddamn copilot.”

“But what if I don’t want that?” Ryan is adamant. “What if I want Taylor?”

I can’t look at him. I am falling apart. I wrap my arms around myself. I stare at the carpet under my feet.

“I mean,” Ryan continues, “what if Taylor’s the one I want to date? That doesn’t mean I don’t want you as my best friend. I want you as my best friend. Always. Doesn’t that matter more than dating?”

I don’t look up. “I know. I know all that. And maybe I’m being selfish, but I want everything. I want all of you. Because I’m in love with all of you.”

I say this and I realize—there’s nothing else I can say. I can repeat it a million different ways—but there’s nothing more I can add, nothing stronger than this.

I am trying not to think about kissing on this bed. I am trying not to think about being naked on this carpet. I am trying not to remember all the times we closed that door and became those people and made everything feel possible.

He walks over and sits next to me. I feel the weight of him against the mattress. The dip and the slight lift.

He puts a hand on my shoulder. Not romantic. Consoling.

“Look,” he tells me, “I can say it over and over again. You are my best friend. You are my best friend. You are my best friend. I love you like that, which is huge. I don’t want to hurt that, and I don’t want to hurt you. I know you’re making it seem like it’s obvious that you’d react this way to Taylor, but honestly, it feels out of the blue to me. I know it isn’t—I know that now. But you have to understand, to me it is. I never thought what we did was … that. I am very, very sorry if you did. But I didn’t do anything to make you think that. I didn’t. It’s always been clear to me. And that doesn’t make you any less awesome to me. You are completely awesome to me. You’re just not my boyfriend. You’re my best friend.”