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Ryan looked up at the little glow in the dark stars in the darkness above his bed and sighed. Even though he was almost 17, he just never felt like getting rid of them, they had a cute charm to them. He turned his head to look at the alarm clock on the bedside table: 11:54pm. Nice.
He wanted to sleep but something just wasn't sitting right with him.
When he had hung out with Matt after school, things felt right. Everything was good. Nothing really of note to recall, unless Ryan burning their bag of popcorn when they watched a movie in his living room as noteworthy. It was normal that after hanging out with people, Ryan would feel emotionally drained, that’s why he never went to parties and only kept up a small group of friends. But that didn’t seem like the reason for him feeling like this.
As he sat in his room alone without his friend, Ryan felt his heartbeat pick up. He thought back to when he first noticed it, when Matt started talking about how much he liked Alexandra:
”She’s literally the sweetest, I don’t know how she isn’t dating anyone yet,” Matt says, smiling as he types away on his phone. “I mean, look at her.” He turns his phone screen towards Ryan, showing him a picture of a beautiful dark-skinned girl with her friends at the beach.
“She’s pretty,” Ryan replies, but it feels wrong coming off of his tongue, as if he was trying to get himself to believe it.
Matt chuckles, “Damn right. And she’s a cheerleader, I’m so glad that you told me to talk to her at the game.” Suddenly, Ryan seems... upset at himself for saying that. He can barely remember saying it at the time, the statement not meaning much to him besides him just being a good friend; but for some reason, it matters greatly to Ryan now and he doesn’t like that.
“Go for it, man. No time like the present.”
Matt looks up from his phone at Ryan, “You know what? I think I will.” He smiles and grabs his backpack, “It’s getting dark so I think I’m gonna head home, but I’m definitely gonna make moves.” As he walks across Ryan’s room and opens his door, he looks over his shoulder to smile at him, “Thanks for the help, Ryan.”
Just by reliving the conversation, Ryan started feeling more and more of this feeling, more... anger? Why would he be angry at his friend for being interested in someone? This was good for Matt, he deserved someone who seemed to care about him a lot, and Ryan could tell that Alex was sweet and all around perfect for him.
But why, why couldn’t Ryan just be happy that Matt was happy?
Because Ryan wanted to be the reason why Matt was happy.
And when it hit him, he clapped a hand over his mouth, as if the words spilled out of him faster than he could stop them. Ryan started to breathe faster and faster as his brain went a mile a minute trying to understand what this meant. Without thinking, he rose to his feet, feeling himself walk out of his room and downstairs to his front door, stopping as he reached for the door handle.
Did he really want to do this? What was he even planning on doing? It was almost midnight, Matt left hours ago, was there any point in going out now?
Ryan didn’t know what he wanted, but he knew that he needed to talk to Matt right now, he couldn’t wait until tomorrow.
Having made up his mind, Ryan finally opened his door and stepped outside, closing it quietly behind him. He started walking down the street to Matt’s house, surprised by how spontaneous this was; he wasn’t thinking, he was just doing.
Ryan began thinking back on all of the times in the past that he’s felt this way, conflicted between being supportive of his friend and succumbing to the strange need in his heart that he couldn’t describe until now. He’d feel disappointed because Matt would go out with girls instead of go to the movies with him when they always have the best movie nights. He’d feel jealous when Matt would give all of his attention to a girl that he was talking to when Ryan knew that he could make Matt laugh harder than she ever could. Every time that Matt would get his heart broken, Ryan was by his side no matter what, and he always kept the thought in the back of his head that Matt deserved so much better and he would never break his heart. He cared a little too much for Matt to just call it being ‘best friends’, Ryan was-
Ryan was in love with Matt.
And when he realized that, he started running, both scared but exhilarated by his newfound thoughts and feelings, so glad to finally have a name for it: love. The chilly night breeze made his cheeks turn pink as he ran, a wide smile growing on his face.
When he finally saw the house in the view, Ryan slowed down his pace, his heart beating loudly through his ears. He caught his breath as he looked up at Matt’s bedroom window from the lawn, his lights having already gone out and the house being silent. Ryan picked up a pebble and threw it at his window, making a little dink sound before falling back down. He continued this a couple times before a dim light turned on in the room, with Matt appearing in the window only moments later.
Matt looked down at him, clearly pissed off, and he moved out of view for a second until Ryan felt his phone vibrate: he was getting a call from Matt.
“Hey, I-”
“Dude, you are aware that it’s past midnight, right?”
“Yeah, I know, I just-”
“Can this not wait until tomorrow?” Ryan thought about it, maybe this could wait. It was a school night and it’s not like he’d never see him again, they could just see each other tomorrow and talk about it then, right? But he knew himself too well, if he didn’t do it now it would never happen. It was like he said, ‘no time like the present.’
“Obviously if it could’ve waited until tomorrow, I wouldn’t have ran over here. Just get your ass down here, it’s important.”
Matt sighed, not as upset but not delighted either. “Be down in a minute,” and hung up.
This was it. Ryan couldn’t chicken out now, especially not when Matt already seemed mad at him. He waited anxiously, pacing back and forth and focusing on the crunch of the leaves under his feet and not the fact that his heart was about to beat out of his chest. Ryan only stopped when Matt came outside and started whisper-yelling as he walked towards him, “This better be good because I have a pre-calc test tomorrow!”
As he approached, Ryan froze, unable to focus on anything except for Matt’s face, and he never noticed how beautiful Matt looked in the moonlight until now.
Matt stopped in front of him, clearly waiting for a response, but Ryan was at a loss for words. “What do you want?”
Ryan knew what he wanted. But he wasn’t even sure if he could explain it.
He took a step closer to Matt, and when he didn’t move, he took his chance and put his right hand behind Matt’s neck, pulling him in for a kiss.
Matt didn’t move. Alarms started going off in Ryan’s head as he panicked and pulled away. Matt was still frozen, as if he hadn’t even comprehended what happened. It was silent between them, until Ryan whispered, “Matt?”
Matt met Ryan’s eyes and, without warning, pressed his lips to Ryan’s, setting off a dozen fireworks in Ryan’s head.
It was perfect. Matt was perfect. Everything felt so right and the warmth that filled his body as the seconds passed made him even more certain of that. Ryan brought his hands up to cradle Matt’s face, feeling the hot blush blooming on his cheeks.
Matt pulled away with a dorky smile and it made Ryan want to always be the reason why Matt smiled like that.
He was so happy, he could cry.
”Please don’t ask out Alexandra.”
Matt laughed, “Yeah, I don’t think it’ll work out anyway. I’ve been thinking about someone else.”
Matt’s front door was thrown open, and their little moment was ruined as Matt’s mom yelled out to them, “Boys, what are you doing? Matthew, get back inside, it’s almost 1am! Ryan you better get home unless you want me to tell your mother about this.”
“Sorry Ms. Watson!” Ryan called out, lowering his voice to whisper “see you tomorrow?” to Matt. He nodded and turned back to his mom as she shook her head and went inside, following her back into his home.
Just before Matt walked through the door, he looked back at Ryan and gave him the same smile as before, this time with a little wave. Ryan did the same, and once the door was shut, he started running home, excitement and happiness coursing through his veins. Once he thought he was far enough from Matt’s house, Ryan cheered into the quiet night like he was the main character in a teen coming of age movie; he never wanted the moment to end.
Ryan didn’t know what was going to happen next but that was a matter for another late night spent overthinking. Ryan was in love with his best friend and right now, that was all that he could think about.