Chapter 16
1310 Words
Then Titus said something that shocked me.
“You know, that’s okay.”
I went quiet.
I wasn’t even sure what we were talking about anymore.
I certainly wasn’t ready to come out to a guy I barely knew—especially when that guy was sitting in my room in nothing but his underwear, looking like a god while somehow acting like a therapist.
“I don’t really think it is,” I said.
“No, it is. I think they both care about you.”
“I just care too much. That’s my problem.” I looked down at my hands. “That’s why I shouldn’t get close to people. I care too much, and no one will ever reciprocate what I want. Not really.”
“That’s sad, Augie.”
I stiffened.
“And it isn’t true,” he added.
“I know.”
Titus tilted his head. “You know?”
I realized too late that I had said too much.
His eyes stayed on me.
“What’s really going on, Augie?”
“Nothing.”
He gave me a look that made it clear he didn’t believe me.
“We don’t need to get into it, Titus. It could ruin everything.”
“It’s okay, you know.”
I didn’t look at him.
He continued anyway.
“If you’re gay.”
My head snapped toward him.
Then I immediately looked away again.
My thoughts started spiraling.
He knew.
He probably wanted to leave now. Who wanted to spend the night trapped in a room with an injured gay guy who had already been staring at him too much?
This was all becoming too much.
I could feel tears threatening again.
Titus kept talking.
“You obviously care about both of them a lot. It’s hard when they don’t reciprocate, especially when they both have girlfriends.” He paused. “Do they even know?”
I stayed quiet for a moment.
“Cal doesn’t.”
Titus nodded.
Then his expression shifted.
“Wait. Bryson does?”
I looked down.
“It’s complicated.”
“You said Bryson keeps getting called away by Kelly, even when he wants to spend time with you instead.” Titus watched me carefully. “Are the two of you—”
“Oh, you just jump right to it.”
He waited.
I took a breath.
“Bryson and I have been secretly together for three years.”
Titus didn’t interrupt.
“Our friendship is complicated,” I continued. “Then he started dating Kelly to ‘keep up appearances.’”
I put the last part in quotation marks with my fingers.
“Their families are close. His father is friends with hers, and apparently dating Kelly makes everything easier for him.”
“And where does that leave you?”
“On the back burner.” I gave a bitter laugh. “That’s probably generous. Someone on the back burner still gets more attention than I do.”
The words kept coming now that I had started.
“Why am I even telling you this? We haven’t told anyone. Bryson is going to kill me when he finds out. I’m going to ruin his image.”
“He doesn’t want to be open with you?”
“He tells me I’m the only person he truly cares about.” I wiped at my eyes before the tears could fall. “Pathetic, right? I can hear how it sounds now. I should be done with him.”
“No,” Titus said. “Keep going.”
I looked at him.
“What else does he say?”
“He’s promised me for three years that he’s waiting for the right time to come out and be open about us. And I understand that it’s scary.” I swallowed. “Cal doesn’t even know about me. He doesn’t really understand gay people.”
“What do you mean?”
“He went on a double date with Margie and some friends of hers. Two women who were together. He kept talking about how different it was and how they weren’t anything like the stereotypes.” I shook my head. “I don’t even know why I’m bringing that up.”
“Because Cal matters too.”
I looked down again.
“But Bryson,” Titus prompted.
“Yeah. Bryson.”
My voice cracked.
“He says he loves me, but he always chooses her.”
Saying it aloud didn’t make it easier.
It made it real.
The tears returned, and Titus must have noticed because the next thing I knew, he was getting up from the other cot and sitting beside me.
“You probably shouldn’t do that,” I said.
“Why?”
“Comforting a gay guy on his bed? What would people say?”
“I don’t care what people say.” His voice softened. “You’re hurting. You’re in an impossible situation.”
He paused.
“Or at least one that feels impossible.”
“That it does.”
Titus looked at me for a moment.
“What did Bryson do tonight?”
“It’s stupid.”
“Tell me anyway.”
I hesitated.
“Bryson is really particular about who gets to call him Bryce. It was always something between us. Then Kelly started calling him that too, and I called him out on it. He got angry.”
Titus listened without reacting.
“And the day we ran into each other on the walking path, I had been sitting with them for a few minutes. I made a joke about my weight. I opened the door, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when Kelly walked through it.”
“What happened?”
“She invited me to get ice cream. I said I was too chubby for it and that I was walking to lose weight.”
Recognition crossed his face.
He remembered the comment I had made when we first met.
“I make jokes about it, okay?”
“I remember,” he said. “What did Kelly and Bryson say?”
“Bryson called me husky. He thought he was making it sound better.”
Titus frowned.
“Then tonight, Kelly made another comment about how I looked more put together than usual. I brought up the husky thing in front of Cal and Margie. Pointedly.”
“You were trying to embarrass Bryson.”
“A little.”
“What did he do?”
“He looked at Kelly and said husky and chubby were basically the same thing. He said it in this condescending way, and they both laughed.”
Titus’s expression hardened.
“Then he kissed her. A big, dramatic kiss.” I looked at him. “And he stared directly at me while he did it.”
“That was deliberate.”
“Yeah.”
I took another breath.
“But that wasn’t the worst part.”
“What was?”
“They were playing some stupid game. Someone told Bryson to make a romantic gesture toward the person who held his heart now and forever.”
Titus stayed completely still.
“He looked directly at me,” I said. “For a second, I thought…”
My voice faded.
“You thought he would choose you,” Titus said.
I nodded.
“Then he walked over to Kelly, kissed her, and told her she was his forever and always. That she was the one.”
My eyes burned again.
“And then he looked at me.”
Titus said nothing.
“The rest is history.” I laughed weakly. “I feel stupid. I sound like a middle school girl crying over some boy. I shouldn’t care. It was only a game.”
Titus’s face remained serious.
“No,” he said. “It wasn’t only a game.”
- Writer
