Dreams of 18(57)

Why am I getting more and more convinced that he doesn’t?

“Do you guys… talk?”

Brian’s question brings me out of my thoughts, and I fist the sheet covering my body. I fist it so hard that I’m almost sure I’m this close to tearing it apart.

“Yeah.” I scrunch my eyes shut. “Brian, I… I looked you up on Facebook and I saw your posts about traveling and not going home this summer and I… I came to Colorado. I came to see your dad, Bri. I’m here.”

Although, his dad is not. Today was supposed to be his first day of summer camp and from the looks of it, he’s already left while I was sleeping.

How strange that I could never sleep back in Connecticut but here I don’t realize what’s happening around me while my eyes are closed.

“Do you know where I am right now?” he asks, breaking the tense silence.

I swallow. “Yeah. California.”

He chuckles.

Although there’s no happiness in it. It sounds broken and I feel so guilty for doing this to him again.

Why do I keep hurting him?

“Bri, I’m sorry. I came to apologize to your dad. I swear to you. There’s nothing between your dad and me. I –”

“You knew where I was but instead, you went to him.”

“What?”

I don’t understand what he means. I really don’t and before I can ask him, he speaks. “I like you, Vi.”

I still don’t understand and maybe my silence alerts him of that because he explains, “I wanted to ask you out that night. On the night of your birthday.”

“You wanted to ask me out?” I ask in a squeaky voice.

“Yeah, I did.”

He wanted to ask me out.

Like, on a date?

“You mean, on a date?” I ask him, out loud.

“Yeah. On a date.”

“But… How’s that…” I lick my lips. “How’s that possible? I thought you were always dating someone and… I… We were… We were friends.”

“Yeah, we were. But I wanted more. I wanted to ask you out a million times but I never had the courage. You were always so busy in your own world and… When I saw you with my dad, I fucking lost it.” He sighs. “I just wanted you to see me, you know.”

He wanted me to see him. See him.

God, isn’t that what I used to think myself? Despite all my avoidance of him, I used to think that I wanted Mr. Edwards to see me.

And Brian, his son, wanted the same thing from me?

He wanted me to see him the way I wanted his dad to see me.

Oh God.

God.

All the while I was waiting for his dad to see me, he was waiting for me to see him?

I think I’m gonna… I think I’m gonna throw up.

“I didn’t… I had no… idea.”

He chuckles again but it’s rueful this time. “I know. I know that.”

I press a hand to my chest, trying to smother the pain in there.

“Brian, I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, it’s okay. Believe me, it is,” he tries to calm me down.

“It is?” I ask in a tear-thickened voice.

“I don’t feel that way about you anymore, Vi.”

“You don’t?”

“Nope. I don’t, sorry. I think it was the whole moving away thing, you know. You were going somewhere else and I was going somewhere else and I just felt… sad about that, I think.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, trust me. I’m over it. I’m not in the same place.”

I grab it as a lifeline. I grab it with both hands and breathe out a sigh of relief. It’s big, huge. I almost dissolve in the bed. “Oh, thank God. Thank. God. You have no idea how relieved I am. Gosh. I got so scared for a second.”

He laughs. “Yeah, I heard that.”

I go to smile but then I remember something. Something he said before I got all sidetracked.

“Did you just say that you’ve been acting like an asshole to your dad? Why’d you say that?”

He goes all silent and I don’t know what to think.

All I know is that something bad is coming. Even worse than when he said he wanted to ask me out. Although, for the life of me I can’t imagine what it could be.

“Bri? Why did you say that?”

“Because he likes you too.”

I’ve never been shot before. I don’t know what it feels like to have a tiny bullet, traveling at the speed of sound, hit your body.

I imagine it’s jarring, to say the least.

I imagine it’s painful. It’s shocking. It makes your bones rattle and it makes your breaths fall out of your lungs. It makes a hole in your body.

That’s what it feels like right now.

Like I’ve been shot and I don’t know how it happened and I don’t know what to do next.

“What?”

I’ve barely said it; my voice is thin as paper, thinner, even. But my best friend hears it.

“Yeah, he does. He wants you. I asked him point blank that night and I could read it on his face. I could see it. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. It was all there. He looked so guilty. So fucking tormented over it.”