Chapter Text
You found Spot Conlon at lunch, in the line to get something to eat. Mustering up all the courage that you could find, you tapped him on the shoulder. When he turned around, he looked shocked for a moment, but he recovered quickly, retreating back into a practiced bravado.
“Something the matter, Y/LN?”
You sighed. You should have expected that he wouldn’t make this easy.
“Spot, we need to talk.”
“Right here? I’m kind of busy.”
“Well, this can’t wait. Are you gonna follow me outside or do you want to have this conversation here?”
For a moment, it looked as though he wouldn’t back down and you felt your confidence waver. Then, he sighed and put his tray down on a table and followed you out of the cafeteria. You stopped in the first empty corridor that you could find, and you turned to him. You had him where you wanted him, but you had no idea how to do this. He stood with his arms crossed, looking for all the world like the boy he pretended to be, the one who made most of your classmates (and some of your teachers) quake in their boots. And, then, you saw his eyes flicker down to his feet, in a moment of uncertainty, and you remembered the Spot you had grown up with. You saw the cheerful seven-year-old who you used to follow through the jungle gym, the vicious eleven-year-old who would defend you against any boy who looked at you for a little too long, the friend you had once had, and you asked yourself: what had changed?
“You know, I meant to confront you about the locker thing, but, I just-,” you lost your words for a moment. “You were my best friend, Spot. What happened?”
He sighed, and the façade that had been cracking fell away altogether.
“Do you really not know?”
He sounded vulnerable.
“You know, you were the first person that I ever came out to,” he went on.
You remembered the moment, of course you did. You were twelve, and sweaty from chasing one another around a park in an impression of some TV show that you had watched. You crashed down on the grass, and he crashed next to you. You were silent for a moment and he asked you if you’d ever kissed a boy. No, you answered, because it was true, and he was silent for a little bit.
“I think I’d like to,” you remember him saying, his voice almost too weak to hear.
“Kiss a boy?”
“Yeah,” he answered, “But, maybe not anyone. Like, only some boys, y’know? Like maybe Tony Higgins.”
“Yeah,” you agreed. “He looks like he’d be a good kisser.”
And you both giggled a little, and the topic changed to something he’d seen in a video game or the fruit cake his grandmother had baked. You couldn’t really remember the details, after that.
It hadn’t occurred to you until you were much older that Spot was brave. You thought that maybe that’s why he was so scary all the time, to cover up his own fear.
“You were the first person who had any idea that I was even interested in boys.”
You were brought back into the moment, and you had a little trouble reconciling the Spot in your memories with the boy in front of you. Sure, he was still a little tiny for his age and, sure, he still had that thick accent, but somewhere along the way he had changed.
“I-I didn’t know that, Spot.”
“Yeah, I figured you didn’t. You were the first person that I ever came out to, and, you kissed the boy that I liked.”
Was he being serious?
“It was spin the bottle, Spot. It wasn’t like I had much choice.”
“Of course, you had a choice! You could have said no! But, you didn’t. And, now, you wonder why I don’t want to be your friend?”
“Is that what this whole thing’s been about? I kissed Race when we were twelve, and you’ve waited until now to get back at me for it?”
“It’s not just that. I trusted you, and you let that go, and now you’re dating him. The same boy that I’ve always liked.”
“We were children, Spot. If that’s what this is about, then you need to grow up. This isn’t the Disney Channel, you can’t just lash out at me like this is some shitty teen movie. Grow up. If Race was really what this was all about, then you can have him. He’s all yours.”
You turned to walk away, having said all that you needed to say, when Spot’s hand reached out to grab your arm.
“He’s probably not going to be mine, ever again. That night, he came up to my room to tell me that,” he hesitated, and his voice sounded a little water-y, like he was about to cry. “He told me that nothing would ever happen again between the two of us. Because of you.”
He dropped your arm, and now his gaze was fixed on the ground. You wanted to say something, tell him that people had their hearts broken all the time and that that didn’t justify what he did. You wanted to tell him that you had missed being his friend all that time. You wanted to ask him if he meant it, if Race really wanted you. Instead, you wrapped your arms around his shoulder and hugged him. Everyone needed a little kindness, right? He hugged you back, and pulled away after a moment, dusting himself off and retreating back into his regular bravado. He scoffed, and swaggered off, but his steps looked a little more uncertain. Spot wasn’t the villain that you had expected, but, then, no one really was. He was just another kid, who wanted to love and to be loved. He had a rotten way of showing it, but he was probably just as scared as you. You couldn’t blame him for that.
You turned to walk back to the cafeteria, and there was Race. He looked a little shocked, so you assumed he had seen what had just happened.
“I,” he started to say, before stopping and shaking his head. “You’re not scared of Spot like everyone else is.”
You wanted to tell Race everything. You wanted to say that you had missed him, and you wanted him, too, and that he meant so much more to you than you had expected him to. But, the words got caught in your throat. You just nodded, scared to meet his eyes. You had slipped and fallen in love with their blue, and you knew, from memory, that they looked like the colour of the sea kissing the sky. But, that blue, beautiful as it was, terrified you. So, you just nodded.
“No point in being scared of him, I guess.”
Race nodded back, once, twice, and then he straightened his shoulders, lowered his head, jammed his hands in his front pockets, and kept walking, down the hall and away from you.
That afternoon, you arrived home a little later than usual and were met with the sight of Jack Kelly, sitting on your porch. Your mind flashed back to a few months before, when his presence at your house was a nightmare come true, and you smiled to yourself.
“Hi,” you said, dropping your bag and sitting down next to him.
“Hey, you’re not gonna invite me inside?”
“I mean, you can come on in, but Kath left this weekend, so there wouldn’t be much for you to do.”
“What if I told you, and this may sound crazy, but what if I told you that I’m not here to see her?”
Oh. You hoped that he wasn’t implying what you thought he was implying. He must have seen something change in your expression.
“No, no, no, no, not like that! I just,” he looked a little sheepish. “Before I was dating Katherine, we were best friends. I just want to hang out with my best friend again.”
You smiled, you had missed him too. You got up, opened the door and soon he was sitting on your couch, looking as comfortable as the furniture. You talked for a little, not saying much. You caught one another up on your lives and you felt good being his friend again. Things had never ended between you, not like they had with Spot, but the feeling that someone close to you was fading away had hurt just as much. It felt good to be with him again.
“How did it feel,” you started to ask, “when you and Katherine ended things?”
You weren’t sure why you were wondering. Maybe, you wanted to find out if ending a relationship – if what you and Race had had could even be called that – was supposed to keep hurting for this long.
“I guess, I was angry, at first. I always did feel like she was a little too smart for me, so her picking college over me felt like she was proving all my shitty insecurities right. But, the longer she was away, the more it made sense. Some people can do long-distance, but we wouldn’t have made it. She was the smart one, after all, I guess.”
He nudged you, gently, with his shoulder.
“What about you? How are things with Higgins?”
You laughed, drily.
“Things are non-existent. I miss him, though, a lot. Sorry, I know you’re not his biggest fan.”
He shook his head.
“You don’t need to apologise for the way you feel. And, I don’t hate him, or anything. I liked how he stood up for you, yesterday. He should have done it way earlier, but he is jock and they’re slow learners.”
His eyes twinkled with mirth. You supposed this was Jack’s way of accepting Race, of saying that he was okay with the two of you. Not that there was anything for him to be okay with.
“I just, I know he likes me, that’s the worst part of it all.”
“That doesn’t sound like a downside to me.”
“No, it just… It makes everything more real, I guess. I just still feel like second-best, or fake-best, and it sucks. I’ve written letters all my life. I just, I guess I wish I could be like the girls in the books that I read. Like, instead of writing love letters, I wish that I could get one.”
Jack reached across the couch and wrapped you in a hug.
“Well, what about the notes he wrote you?”
“You know about those?”
“I mean, everyone in school who’s into guys has mentioned how cute it is. Race Higgins, the popular jock, is just a big softie at heart.”
You giggled a little, and then remembered that the letters were probably still in your room. You hadn’t read all of them, but you saved most of them and they were sitting there, in the top drawer of your desk. You told Jack as much and went to retrieve them. There were more than you’d realised. Your fake relationship had lasted longer than you’d expected.
You sat back down on the couch and began to unfold a couple, and read the words, in his messy chicken scratch.
Your presentation in world lit was great!! I bet this whole school’s jealous of my smarty pants fake gf
I really like talking to you, it feels like we can talk about anything
I’m happy you can’t drive for shit. You make my car look way cuter
You looked really pretty today.
Jack read a couple too.
“So, you still think that you haven’t gotten a love letter?”
Something inside you was stirring. It felt like butterflies, but warmer. You felt like your face was permanently frozen in a smile.
“Jack, um, I don’t want to be rude, but I think I should probably go find Race. I-I need to talk to him.”
Jack nodded and picked up his bag. On his way to the door, he stopped and turned to you.
“He makes you happy. You deserve that.”
You smiled. You were so glad to have your best friend back.
Fifteen minutes later, you climbed into your car, a white piece of paper folded up in your trembling hands. You didn’t have time to wait for the bus, today. It was Wednesday, and you were sure Race wouldn’t be at school for track practice for much longer. The drive felt longer than usual, but that was probably because you couldn’t hear anything except for your heart beating in your ears – it was louder than the top forty song that played on the radio and louder than your thoughts. You were scared, but you thought that maybe, that was what courage was. Courage could not ever erase your fear, it was the act of facing it.
You pulled into the school parking lot. Your car was still intact, but your nerves were shattered. You could see boys running around the red track that ringed your school field and, after a deep breath, you walked towards them.
You spotted Race soon enough, his blond hair seemed to glow in the afternoon sun. He was running, effortlessly, like it was easy, and, for him, it probably was. He told you once, in the early stages of your not-relationship, that running let him to turn off his brain for a little bit, to focus on the world around him and ‘all of the other noise’. He was so unfocused that he didn’t see you approaching at first. When he did, his jaw dropped a little and he stumbled.
“Hey, Higgins, I can’t believe you’re falling for me,” you joked, raising your voice so he heard you from a distance.
Maybe it was a little too soon for humour, because he didn’t laugh, or even smile.
“I have something to tell you,” you tried again.
“Uh, okay,” he replied this time.
He walked a little nearer and you got a little lost in his eyes.
“Um, I drove here!”, you blurted out.
His steps stopped short.
“Really? Wow, that’s, uh, so great, um, congrats.”
“Thanks!”
You looked into his eyes and lost all your nerve, turning to walk away. You weren’t feeling that courageous with him in front of you.
“Wait,” he shouted after you. “What’s that in your hand?”
It was a hastily folded piece of paper, and your knuckles hurt a little from how tightly you were gripping it. You slowly turned back to him and took a deep breath and a few steps nearer to him.
“Oh, uh, nothing.”
“It’s nothing, is it?”
He was near enough now that he could reach to pull it out of your hands, but he stopped and dropped his hand almost as soon as he reached for it. He must have seen his name scrawled in capital letters on the back.
RACE HIGGINS.
It looked almost mocking now.
“If, uh, if you really want me to read that, you’re going to have to give it to me. It doesn’t look like the kind of thing that should be taken without permission.”
Your hands were trembling as you unfolded it and lifted it to eye-level.
“Do you think that you could, uh, turn around?”
He smiled a crooked half-grin and turned, slowly.
“Anthony Higgins, I,” you took a deep breath. “I, I can’t do this.”
His shoulders tensed up, a little. You rose your hand and tapped him lightly. He turned around, as graceful as a startled animal.
“I think this is the kind of thing that will be easier to say if I can see you, while I say it.”
He nodded, and you took another deep breath.
“Race Higgins,” he chuckled a little at your correction. “I need you to know that five years ago, I wrote you a love letter and I didn’t mean any of it.”
He was frowning, so you continued, quickly.
“But, today, I wrote another one. And, I meant every word. I, I like you, Higgins.” The hand that had been holding the letter dropped down to your side. You needed to go off-script, for this. “I like you, maybe even more than like you, and it’s terrifying, but it’s so, so real. And, um, that’s what I came here to say.”
You turned again, ready to actually leave this time. A hand reached out and wrapped itself around your waist, and you spun into Race’s chest.
“Not so fast, Y/L/N.”
He was a little sweaty, but, just then, you didn’t mind at all.
“I only went to Spot’s room that night to tell him that he and I were over. For good. Because,” he exhaled and then his lips twisted back into that familiar smirk, “because I’m in love with you, Y/N. Only you.”
“You’re what?”
He grinned, and you wrapped your arms around his neck, kissing him with all of the passion and pain that rested in your heart. This was real, you kept repeating in your head. Race loved you, you loved him, and it was the most real thing you’d ever felt. You had always dreamed of being kissed like girls got kissed in the books that you read. You may not have expected it to happen on a red tar track, surrounded by sweaty boys, but this was your moment. It felt like you were living in a cheesy teen romcom, but, just then, when you felt Race smile into the kiss and tighten his grip on your waist, you didn’t mind one bit. This was as real as anything could get, and you wouldn’t have had it any other way.