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“Sure”. The word rings like a distant car alarm, ricocheting between Clay’s ears. “Sure” and the silence, the silence before and the silence after. And in the thickness of the silence, a feeling as though he had been missing out on something, like there was something he should have known. And now he knew he should know it, but didn’t know what it was.
Frustrating.
In the months following the release of the tapes, everything at school seemed to stop, still. Like the eye of the storm. Alex was in hospital, Justin was homeless, everyone seemed a little broken. It was difficult to find some kind of rhythm, impossible to find a way to move on and regain normality. Everything was foreign and distant and if it wasn’t for Tony and Skye, able to make jokes, and have fun and just live, Clay wasn’t sure that Alex would’ve been the only one.
In the times when time froze, and reality got a little blurry, Tony always managed to bring Clay back to- “Clay!”
Clay shook his head, gumballs rattled in his eye-sockets before his vision provided him with a familiar face. “Hmm?”
“It’s one thing to not like a song when I play it for you, but if you’re going to ask me about it, it’d be nice for you to actually listen. Not just go off to wherever you went to”
“Sorry, Tony. It wasn’t that I just wasn’t paying attention, I just…”
“Wasn’t paying attention” Tony finished, laughing a little, “don’t worry. I get you Clay. You don’t have to apologise to me”
Clay soon assimilated to the familiar smell of worn leather, and the ripping sound of Tony’s pride and joy – his car. The boy sat next to him smiled brilliantly, his eyes lighting up and threatening to drown Clay in them. His stomach seized and flipped, his mind went blank. But that was just how it was with Tony sometimes, it wasn’t anything more than that.
“I’m sorry. I’m back.” Clay smiled “so where are you taking me this time?”
“Guess” Tony said, adorably excited.
“I’m going to guess that you’re not going to tell me.”
“You know me so well, Clay. How am I supposed to be mysterious if you keep reading my mind?”
“I still think you’re pretty mysterious.” Clay mumbled.
Tony was a fairly quiet person most of the time; one of those people that you felt could convey speeches with a single look. For someone a little oblivious like Clay, this made it infuriatingly difficult to understand what he was thinking at any time, ever. But there was something so comfortable about Tony’s silences. Something very homely with the little things he could say with a smile or a wink, and it made Clay wonder if everyone was able to understand Tony this well. He hoped that wasn’t the case.
The car engine cut off and with the final glimpses of the sun sinking behind the city it was clear to Clay that they were somewhere very high. As always with Tony, this meant that something serious was about to be said.
Since that one time when Clay almost died, there have only been two other occasions where Tony had brought him somewhere ridiculously high: one was just after he broke up with Brad, and the other was when Clay wanted to talk about Alex. There was something about high places, maybe something to do with the thinness of the air or the fleeting sense of danger you could get when you stood a little too close to the edge. Maybe it was because everything seemed smaller when you were up there and your problems suddenly seemed less important, or because it was quiet and you knew you were alone.
“Beautiful.” Tony said, his feet hanging of the edge of a well-positioned rock.
“Who?” Clay said, obliviously.
“Well I was talking about the view”
“Oh right,” Clay swallowed, “so what are we doing up here Tony?”
“I thought we could just sit for a bit. Just the two of us.”
Clay couldn’t help but smile a little. “That sounds nice. It’s been a while.”
“How are you feeling about everything, Clay?” Tony asked, his eyes glistening.
“I’m okay. You know? It’s a lot but I’m okay. I should thank you for being around these past few months, but you don’t have to babysit me, or stalk me anymore. Like you used to.”
“You think I spend time with you because I think you need babysitting? You’re a year younger than me.”
“No I just mean I don’t want you to think like that you need to hang around all the time in case I have a mental breakdown. Cause I think my Mum’s got that one covered.”
“She just worries about you. You’re kind of hard to get a read on, Clay”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing, just that it’s hard to know what you’re thinking.”
“Coming from you, wow. You’re the most confusing person I’ve ever met.”
“If this is still about before, you know I was only doing what Hannah wanted and-“ Tony was interrupted.
“What does ‘sure’ mean?” Clay blurted. And then silence. It was the same kind of after silence, that thick, heavy, want-it-to-be-over-before-you-knew-it-began kind of silence. Fuck, Clay thought.
“What do you mean by that?” Tony asked, confused.
“Nothing, don’t worry about it.” Clay was flustered, feelings of panic were rising in his chest, he might vomit. All he could think was fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Clay.” Tony looked into his eyes, and Clay felt there was no escaping this one.
“When you made me climb that rock and we talked about Hannah and you and Brad and you said sure” Clay raced through the words, hoping that the faster he said it, the faster this whole ordeal would be over.
“Oh, um, Clay. I just wanted to make you feel comfortable.”
It was painful. Everything about it was painful. It was painful to not be able to just say what he wanted to say, or ask what he wanted to ask. It was painful to feel the heat radiating from Tony’s body from a distance that seemed altogether too close and too far, and the all-too-slight press of his thigh against Clay’s. It was excruciating and the silence stretched for miles.
“Well, to be honest with you, Tony, it hasn’t made me comfortable. Because I don’t understand.”
Tony’s eyes didn’t leave Clay’s face, they begged him look at me. Clay’s eyes were fixated on the ground.
“What don’t you understand, Clay?” Tony seemed so calm, which seemed so frightening because Clay was not calm. In fact this was probably in the top 5 of moments in which Clay has felt the least calm.
His hands were sweaty, which made him nervous, and he was nervous which made speaking exceptionally difficult and he couldn’t speak which made Tony keep looking at him which made his hands sweaty.
“You.”
“What do you want me to say? Ask me a question.”
“I don’t know what I want you to say.”
“Okay, how about I ask you a question?” Tony smiled a little bit, and Clay thought he looked so beautiful. Which is a totally normal thing to think about your friend of course. He straightened up, looked Tony in the eyes, and said "sure".
It all happened very quick but suddenly there was a pair of warm, soft lips on his. He felt he only just realized it was happening before Tony pulled away.
“Was that okay?” Tony asked.
Clay was speechless, his lips felt tingly and a little cold. His body felt weightless and it was all the strength he had to lean his face in and hope Tony understood that his answer was “so much more than okay.”
Everything felt like it was on fire, when his lips were locked with Tony’s. The kiss started tentative and became more and more passionate as each boy fought to get more of one another. Tony placed his hands on either side of Clay’s face and stopped the kiss.
“We should slow down” Tony said. Clay immediately felt mortified, and shuffled himself away. Tony followed. “Don’t run away from me, Clay.”
“Clay, I’ve been in love with you for longer than I can say. You’re the reason it didn’t work with Ryan or with Brad; you’re the reason that it won’t work with anyone. And I’ve waited too long for you to rush this. I said ‘sure’ that day because it was all I could think to say without lying or saying too much. You were going through too much.”
The dumb, shocked look on Clay’s face turned ever so slightly into a smile before he just said “sure”
“I’m so glad you brought this up, because I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever have the guts.”
And for the first time in a long time, Clay felt like everything was falling into place and that it all made sense.
Tony leaned in and kissed him again, barely able to believe that after all these years, he finally could.