“Yeah, I guess. Except, um… Not really.”
“Not really?” Jay repeats, his tone flat and unimpressed.
“Jay, stop it,” Aaron whisper-shouts.
Jay throws up his hands. “What? He can’t say out loud why he’s suddenly so interested in Brody’s well-being, and I’m just supposed to feel sorry for him?” Jay whispers back.
I watch them bicker back and forth, whispering loud enough for the next dorm to hear, right in front of me.
“Um. You realize I’m right here, right?”
Aaron huffs out a breath and makes a face at Jay. Jay rolls his lips and looks pointedly away from us.
I haven’t spent a ton of time with Aaron and Jay outside of wrestling and the dining hall, and I’ve probably only sat close to them because I was trying to get closer to Brody. They’ve been good friends to him. And I definitely have not. Especially from their perspective.
“Brody and I are…friends.”
“Friends,” Jay deadpans.
“Will you shut up?” Aaron hisses at Jay. He looks back at me. “Look, Beck, Brody is our friend, and he hasn’t called us either.But I did find his friend Leo on Instagram, and I’m hoping he’ll see my message.”
“Maybe you should tryEric,” I mutter, and make a mental note to find everyone Brody knows on social media. I didn’t think about that because Brody doesn’t do social media.
“Maybe you should try being a little less obvious,” Jay says, not unkindly. I look up and find him watching me with a soft, understanding expression.
“I love him, okay?”
Aaron gasps. Pulls a hand up to his mouth and everything.
“I know it’s a shock. I, uh, I’m gay. And you already know Brody is too, and we?—”
“No, we already knew that part,” Aaron says. “But youlovehim? Like for real?”
My mouth clamps shut so hard I nearly bite my tongue. What does he mean theyknew? Did Brody tell them? I don’t know how to feel about that. Am I allowed to be angry if I’m trying to get him back?
Does the fact that I am a little angry, but I also still want him back mean something?
“He didn’t tell us,” Jay says, because I’m transparent. “We figured it out.”
“When?”
Aaron clears his throat. “Um, we didn’t know for sure until last… Wednesday, was it?”
Jay nods. “Yeah. After finals.”
After finals.
My eyes drop to my lap, then dart to Brody’s bedroom door. Where we were when we… For the first time…. After finals.
I take a deep breath, and when I’m finally able to meet Aaron and Jay’s eyes, they’re both smiling. It’s a weird smile, though. It’s not jeering. It’s sweet? Like they’re happy for me, or like they approve or something. I don’t know. It’s weird, and I’m uncomfortable.
“I desperately need to see him. I need him to know I didn’t betray him. He thinks I told Pierce those things about his family. Things he never wanted him to know.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Jay says, shaking his head.
“It’s so much worse than you know,” I tell him, imploring him with my eyes to understand.
Jay flicks his eyes over to Aaron, and they give each other a barely there nod that has me sucking in a grateful breath and almost tearing up.
