You Plus Me Equals - Chapter 34

Now every time he gasped and a deep, sharp intake of breath that felt like a stab to the chest happened, he almost enjoyed the feeling. It almost made him feel better. Because for a split second it distracted him from the pain, he was feeling in his heart.

So instead he ran towards the dorms with tears streaming from his face.

‘Max had kissed… Someone… No, not someone, Sam. He had kissed Sam and that’s what was best for him, no that’s who was best for him.’

Leo knew that once he got to the dorms, he would for sure feel like death itself. He knew he would collapse into his bed and the dark abyss that waited to envelop him there if he didn’t take his inhalers.

But still he jogged anyway.

Past the newly blooming trees and the freshly bright world around him that had magically cleared to be almost blindingly bright while he was having his heart shredded like a pile of mulch. It shone on him in its newly awoken true colors.

The reds, blues, yellows the greens all a bit more vibrant each day as new things sprung to life. And the rain that happened at least twice a week. Caused things to bloom and grow.

And in all that beauty was his despair. Now wrapped in a flower blossom at springtime. Along with his wish, that he could reverse time and pretend none of these things had ever happened. Spring was supposed to be a time of new beginnings.

He had thought it was the beginning of this first love.

He had been wrong.

‘It was the beginnings of his first heartbreak.’

Leo stewed on everything. Letting it eat him inside.

‘Out of everybody on campus… Why had it been Sam, the one person he was most like, the one person who cast a shadow on him. A perfect shadow he felt like he would have to swim to get out of. It was a feeling he hadn’t felt since Caspian broke the law. Before then he had been their parents glowing child, swoon worthy, academically pleasing, brilliant, overachiever someone Leo aspired to be, but also drowned inside his shadow. The one person who reminded him of what struggling inside that shadow felt like, who he instinctively compared himself to. The one person who was closer to Max in every way he wanted to be and wasn’t.’

Leo knew he should be rational.

That he should try to think of it from Max’s view.

‘From the fact that he was scared, confused, and worried about being attracted to a man, that he was turning into some and he was just trying to make sure he wasn’t someone who could just kiss anyone and feel that adrenaline rush, and that it made sense to kiss Sam to test it.’

But that made him feel even worse. ‘Why hadn’t he come to him, why didn’t he tell him he felt that way?’

“I could have helped him.” Leo cried out loud quietly in the empty parking lot in front of his dorm.

‘Why wasn’t it me he trusted and confided in about his worries and fears?’ Leo sighed.

‘It hurt so much to think about it, but the truth was they just weren’t that close yet, they hadn’t built that rapport and with how he had reacted to something like this, now there wouldn’t be that chance.’

‘But would you ask the very person who was making you feel like the monster, the freak, the weirdo for help?’

Leo froze. His whole body broke and battered internally at that thought.

He had done that to Max.

‘He had made him feel like some monster for being attracted to him. And when Max was just trying to figure out what to do. He had snapped, thrown a fit and ran away all because of his own inferiority complex!’

Leo stood outside his door, feeling utterly inhumane and terrible.

He turned the key in the lock and walked into his room defeated.

“There you are, I have been wondering where you wen…” Evan’s voice knocked out as Leo threw his hollow shell of a body at Evan and into his arms.

“I hurt him, I hurt him, because of my own insecurities, and I ran away.” He whined and sobbed into Evan’s shirt.

Leo felt Evan pat him on the back like a worried parent, confusion on his face, but silent in his comfort.

They stood there for a long time, while Leo just cried before Evan maneuvered His crying heap onto the bed. Leo’s mind went to Evan, trying to leave. To desert him as Max had. But then he sat and placed Leo’s head firmly into his lap.

Leo gasped, sobbed and felt miserable for and at Max, at Sam… But mostly at himself. At some point, he had stopped cursing both of them in his head and had just continued yelling, insulting things at himself inside his own mind. All while continuing to drip tears into Evan’s lap.

He knew it was a vicious cycle.

But he continued to do it until Evan’s soft tapping brought him out of his stupor. He looked up at him, surprised to see that his best friend was handing him a cup of warm tea.

He took it with a grateful grimace and a soft nod that rattled his aching brain cells, and he realized his throat was hoarse, his eyes red and raw. He was now lying with his head on the bed instead of Evan’s lap.

“When did you leave to make tea?” He asked quietly, making sure to talk outside the vocal range that hurt.

Evan smiled gently, painfully at him. “You were an unhappy ball crying and swearing at yourself and I had to go to the bathroom. I told you and you nodded. But when I came back and you were still saying. Why did I do that? Like some sort of mantra. I figured you hadn’t even noticed I was gone. Also, I also knew you would need your favorite tea.”

He nodded at the identical cup in his own hands. He sipped on it lightly and Leo looked at the cup he was holding still. His face colored happily as the warmth soaked into his fingers.

“Drink it… Or else.” Evan snapped and glared at Leo. Leo nodded sheepishly and took a sip.

The way it soaked into him and both warmed while soothing his aching throat felt so, amazingly, good, it went and warmed places he didn’t know had been hurt until it oozed down coating it removing the burning sensation from the dryness. When pain becomes so all-encompassing, it’s hard to notice all the little hurts until something points them out.

“Thanks.” He said softly. He felt exhausted. He didn’t know how long he had been angry and crying for but the lighting had changed outside and so he knew for a fact that the races were over.

That like some hero of a novel, he would come back and choose him, admit he had made a mistake and that it had all been a stupid mistake.

But a small voice in his head reminded him he was the one who told Max to go away and that he was the one who had told Max he couldn’t trust him anymore.

‘If Max hadn’t been able to pick up the very blatant rude way of telling him to stay away from him, well then he was an idiot. And Max might be a bit too eager to please people, but he wasn’t any sort of idiot.’

‘No, the silence was no one’s fault but his own.’ And Leo knew it.

‘But still didn’t he want to prove his innocence to me in person, or ask for forgiveness?’ Leo sipped the tea again while looking out the window.

“Did he hurt you, Leo?” Evan asked, leaning over and started gently patting and rubbing Leo’s back in large circles.

The silence drew out. Leo took another sip and he sighed.

“We both hurt each other… But I think I might have hurt him worse.” Leo sniffed, chugged the last bit of tea and enjoyed the way it almost scalded going down, then set the empty cup down on the floor.

Evan fell down, deflating onto the bed in front of Leo, and Leo scooted over then placed his head gently back in Evan’s lap.

Evan stroked his bangs away and out of his face. In a repeated petting motion.

“Why?” he asked.

“He kissed someone else…” Leo felt Evan’s legs stiffen underneath him in an automatic reaction. He loved that his friend was ready to fight for him, but also cautious enough to wait to hear the reason he was about to go off to do battle first, and if it was even necessary to do so.

“He was trying to find out if he was gay or not…” Leo mumbled.