I whip out my phone, and my fingers punch the screen until the screen lights up with an outgoing call to Maddy. I know he won’t answer. Because why the fuck would he answer me these days? I’d given up on leaving messages, given up on calling. But tonight, I’m leaving a message. I’m giving him a piece of my mind. Fucking force-feeding it to him.
His voicemail recording plays, and it only adds fuel to the fire raging inside me. Flames of red fury and blue despair. The familiarity of his voice, the way my body instantly wants to lean into the sound even though it’s only coming from my phone, has a growl erupting from my throat. He’s shattering me. Can’t he see that? How can he think he can just stop all contact, and I wouldn’t fucking break?
The tone beeps, and I unleash. A month’s worth of holding back, of confusion, of anguish and anger and being fucking abandoned bymy personcomes crashing forth. I’m storming the mound, all my volatile emotions charging behind me.
“Howcouldyou, Maddy?” I yell into the phone. “How could you fucking do this to me? I deserve better than this. Fifteen years of friendship. God, more than friendship. We’re so much more than friends, and you know it. And you fucking cut me off without explanation? Well, fuck you, Madz.Fuck. You.”
I hold the phone in front of me, glaring at it like it’s the enemy. My ragged breaths tear from me, fogging up my phone’s screen. My throat tightens, and the words barely surface as the pain tries to smother me. “I need distance, you said. You owe me a fucking explanation, Maddox Barnes. BecauseI need distancedoesn’t make any fucking sense. You’re a fucking liar. A fucking pathetic coward. Who even are you? The Maddy I know would haveneverdone this to me.”
A sob rips from me, and I slam the side of my fist against the wall, not even caring about the pain that shoots down my forearm, not even caring how important that hand is to my future. I’m too furious with myself now that I let that sob free. I’m too furious with the man on the other side of the phone. Maddy doesn’t deserve to know how much he’s tearing me apart.
My forehead drops to the wall, the rough brick cutting into my skin. I hold the microphone up to my mouth. “Why are you doing this to me?” I plead. “How can you throw us away so easily? You’re everything to me, Maddy. And I’m nothing to you? Discardable?” My voice breaks, and a strangled sound bursts from me. My breaths are coming short and sharp, too fast. I can’t get enough air.
Gentle hands land on my arm and pull me off the wall. I barely register the concerned “Cowboy?” before I crumble against the faintly familiar presence and finally succumb to the agony breeding inside me. The sobs consume me. I can’t fight them anymore, can’t keep my head above water. I’ve been treading water for far too long.
I drown.
twelve
Maddox
Atremorbuildsinmy body as I listen to Easton’s message. It starts small, a light trembling as the pain slowly infiltrates my veins. It leeches deeper, the shaking growing more aggressive, until my body shudders violently. The muscles in my legs give out, and I fall to a crouch, holding on to my mattress to keep myself from completely crumbling.
But it’s too late. I clutch my chest while Easton hurls every broken shard of himself at me through the phone. I take them, each one like a jagged splinter of glass, piercing through my skin straight to the broken organ inside me. I did that to him. I’m the reason for the misery bleeding in his voice, the wild, near-manic pleading.
Oh God. How could I do this to him? Tears stream down my face, my breath hiccupping from me. The air is choking me instead of keeping me alive. He’s right. I’m a coward. I’m weak. I didn’t know any other way. I’ve tried for so long to get over him. I’ve tried so fucking hard. But I can’t move on. I thought if I could just find someone else, fall in love with someone else, then I’d move past it. Be free of this torture.
No one has ever come close. I’m terrified no one ever will.
This distance isn’t even working. All it’s done is show me how bad I’ve truly become. He’s gone, and there’s a gaping Easton-sized hole inside me. I’ve given so much of myself to him over the years, there’s barely any of me left now. This is so bad. So unhealthy. He returns in a few weeks, and I’m not going to be over him. Not even close.
I don’t know how to do this without destroying us both.
An unfamiliar man’s voice murmurs something, and I still. Then the worst sound I’ve ever heard fills my ears. It ricochets through my mind, determined to make sure I feel every ounce of pain I deserve. Easton’s sobs. Strangled. Raw. Like a wounded animal. And that’s what he is. That’s what I’ve reduced him to.
“Easy, Cowboy. I’ve got you,” the man’s muffled voice says.
I swallow hard, and the bitter, briny tang of my sorrow floods my mouth. Every tear scorches, corrosive and caustic. At least there’s that small boon: East’s not alone. He has someone else who can take care of him. Do the job I can’t any longer.
I am the epitome of every broken gay boy who has ached for the straight best friend he can never have.
Those stories only end in heartbreak.
That’s how our story is ending.
Both of us broken.
And it’s all my fault, because I couldn’t control my heart.
thirteen
Easton
Myknucklesarewhitewhere my hands are fisted in a death-grip around my steering wheel. It’s approaching ten at night, and I’ve been sitting in front of Maddox’s apartment for twenty minutes trying to work up the courage to storm in there and give him a piece of my mind. In person. Where he can’t ignore me.
He never responded to my drunken word-vomit voicemail. I don’t know if I’m more embarrassed or pissed off. I can’t believe I said those things to him, admitted how much he’s hurting me. And then he had the audacity to not respond. You don’t get any clearer proof than that. If you care about a person, you don’t leave them bleeding out on the floor alone. But that’s what Maddy did to me.
The only reason I’m here right now is because Shane bullied me into doing so. I turn and glare at his shadowed form. He smiles his easy grin at me, and I want to punch it off his face. After I’d bawled all over him like a child—can you say absolutely fuckingmortified?—he got the whole story out of me. Every agonizing page.
