Dreams of 18

I’m not budging. I’m not giving up and taking the easy road. I’ve done that enough.

I’m brave.

“Yeah, I needed a friend,” I whisper to Brian when I open my eyes. “I was kinda… hurting.”

“What happened?” he asks, all concerned.

“He didn’t tell you?”

Shoving a hand through his hair, he replies, “No. He called me from Denver. He said he had to do something. But he told me that you were gone and that he needed me to go see you. That’s all. I came as soon as I could.”

Denver?

“What’s he doing in Denver?” I think out loud.

Brian shrugs. “I’ve got no clue. I’ve literally got no clue about anything right now.”

Despite myself, his exasperation makes me chuckle. “It doesn’t matter what happened. I’m here and he’s not.”

Not yet.

He goes silent for a few moments.

We watch the water together and I try not to cry, I try not to tear up at the pain in my chest when he says, “I should’ve asked you out.”

“What?”

He faces me, his features open and raw, kind of a younger version of Graham’s. Although Graham is a master of the blank expression. It’s very rare for him to show anything. Well, except the day he sent me away.

That day he looked like he had nothing to live for.

He looked like a man without hope.

Now, Brian sighs next to me and I see his turbulent hazel eyes that remind me of his dad.

“I should’ve asked you out long before that night. I should’ve made my move,” he says.

I search his features. “Yeah, but it’s irrelevant now, right? Even if you did, you would’ve realized that you didn’t like me so it’s kinda moot. Isn’t it?”

I was about to chuckle, but then he looks away and it hits me.

Oh God.

It fucking hits me, and momentarily, all the heartbreak, all the pain I’ve been feeling for the past week, gets buried down under this… thing that I’ve discovered.

“You still… You still like me,” I breathe out, horrified.

He clenches his jaw and that is such a perfect mimic of how Graham does it that I feel dazed. Both by what I’ve discovered and the fact that I love his dad.

I see his dad in every move he makes and it’s gotten worse now, after living with Graham for weeks.

Brian’s still looking away from me when I ask, “Why did you… Why did you say that you didn’t? That it was over.”

Finally, he gives me his eyes, pain-riddled. “Because I hurt you. I hurt you in the worst way possible and I wanted to make up for it. I wanted you to be with him. I wanted you to be with someone you loved and I wanted you to do it without the guilt. And I wanted him to be with you. I hurt him a lot, too. I wanted to take care of him for once, like he took care of me.”

“Brian, I-I don’t… know what to say.”

He smiles sadly. “You don’t have to say anything. You love my dad and that’s okay. And at the end of the day, you’re right. Even if I did ask you out, you would’ve said no because you’ve always been in love with him. I just…”

Brian completely faces me and says urgently, “Vi, I don’t know what happened. Between you and my dad. Why you’re here and he’s in Denver but Vi… he’s not cut out for this. He’s not a relationship kind of a guy and I don’t want you to –”

I reach out and take his hand to make him stop. “He is cut out for this.”

After that, there’s no talk of Graham.

Except when Brian tells me not to say anything to him. Brian says it will hurt his dad and he’s done hurting the man who raised him over something that was never his to begin with.

I don’t know how everything became so tangled and tragic. I don’t know how me loving one man turned into the pain of another guy but I promise Brian. I promise to never tell Graham about it.

So at night when I go up to the roof, I write a wish, a dream I have for Brian. I wish he finds someone, someone who will take away his pain.

I don’t want my best friend to hurt. Especially not from a lovesick heart.

I know how that feels.

I know how it aches and makes you cry while you sit on the roof of your house and watch the moon at midnight and wish for the man you love to come back.

You wish for it so much that when it happens, you don’t believe it.

And I don’t.

When I hear a violent screeching of tires on the road and see someone jump out of a black truck, someone who doesn’t even wait to close the door behind him, I don’t believe what I’m seeing.