Chapter Text
Sunday, October 1st
As the chills of October reared their head I was once again excited for class. Kayla, Lucy, Grace and I had all been hanging out over the weekend and I’d been enjoying their company. My mind had been swirling ever since the kiss. I hadn’t told anyone about it, unless you counted my diary, no one knew. I wasn’t quite sure where me and Ryan stood, he held no resentment towards me, but hadn’t made any moves or even mentioned the last time we were together. I hoped it wasn’t just a one-off thing.
We hadn’t really spoken, there were no messages, and no encounters at the dorms. It all left me to wonder. I found myself lost in thought again while washing the dishes and a cup slipped from my hands into the sink. It made a loud clattering sound and water splashed its way onto my shirt. Shit.
“Shit Y/N are you okay?” Amanda called over from the sofa, she and Jared were cuddling, they had since come out about their newfound relationship. I found them sweet, but also quite sickly, the PDA over the weekend was getting a bit much for my tastes. On the bright side, ever since they started going out the dorms were so much cleaner since Jared had been taking better care to clean up after himself. I even saw him hoovering once.
“Yeah I’m fine, just got my shirt wet.” I respond, grabbing a hand towel and wiping myself dry, I ought to change my top. I finished up with my dishes and went to my dorm room.
It was Sunday evening, I changed into my pyjamas early and lay in bed, as I had no one to see, and nowhere to be. That’s what I had thought at least. Once I had changed into my pyjamas I received a text,
Spencer:
“Hey Y/N sorry about how I shouted last I saw you. Heard you guys sorted it out, wanna come down and play some videogames?”
I had literally just changed, but sure, I was down for some games.
Y/N:
“Yeah I’ll be down asap”
With that I headed down, still in my pyjamas, and knocked on the door. I don’t know why I was surprised to see Ryan, I had let it slip my mind that he and Spencer shared a room. Butterflies soared around my stomach when I saw him standing just off to the side, he was looking at me, but trying to disguise it. One thing he failed to hide was the grin planted happily on his face.
Spencer opened the door from me to enter. They had tidied up and their window was open, presumably to let some air in. Ryans side of the room was immaculate, complete with a made bed. Spencer’s was a little rough around the edges, with a cluttered desk and some textbooks lay open on the floor by his unmade bed, it was clean at the very least. Spencer closed the door behind me and he guided me to sit on his bed, he grabbed his desk chair and sat on it, beside me.
“I wanted to apologise for shouting on Friday, it’s not like me to get worked up like that.” Spencer said shyly, he looked at me while he spoke, sincerity laced its way into every word.
I shook my head and reached out to place my hand on his, “It’s okay Spence, you were right after all.” Ryan nodded from across the room, pretending to be reading a book to himself to mask his eavesdropping. “Besides, I came down to play some video games, what did you have in mind?”
Upon hearing this, Spencer perked up and grabbed his switch. He showed me a couple of new games he had gotten, and I let him talk through a single-player game he had been obsessing over recently. He had already amassed over 100 hours despite it coming out just a couple of weeks ago, that explains what he does outside of classes and the band , I thought. We settled on playing some more Smash, I was determined to get better at it, despite being beaten by Spencer every game we had played last time around. Ryans ears perked up.
Spencer called him over, Ryan practically jumped out of bed but tried to play it off cooly. We made eye contact as he walked toward me, and I watched his face start to redden before he looked away.
He took a seat beside me, leaving ample space which somehow made the whole situation feel even more awkward, Spencer handed him a controller and filled the empty gap between us, easing the tension. Ryan was pretty good, he gave Spencer a decently hard time, harder than I had been at least, each game seemed to turn into a 1v1 between the two of them.
I had noticed while playing that Ryan never attacked my character, not unless I was the only one around anyway, maybe I was reading too much into it, but it felt like there was some other reason he might’ve been holding back his virtual rage.
Spencer won the fifth game in a row, I was getting bored by the monotony though those two seemed to want to keep going. I saw Ryan hesitate as I got up to leave. “What?” I asked him casually.
Ryan looked up at me, his eyes peeked toward the door before resting back on my face. He was stammering before he had even begun to speak. “Nothing.” The words meekly fell from his lips and wavered in the air before I took a moment to process. I nodded after a moment had passed and left their room, once the door shut, an ambiguous feeling churned in my stomach. I couldn’t read him. Before Ryan had made me confused countless times, but now, my gut was telling me that getting him back would be no easy feat. I slumped onto my bed and fell asleep atop the covers.
Monday, October 2nd
When I approached the school gates I wasn’t really sure who I would find myself spending the day with, the day after the kiss Ryan hung out with Jon and Spencer, he seemed to be keeping his distance. This morning led to more of the same as Ryan was nowhere to be found, Grace was chatting with Kayla and Lucy in our usual spot.
They all waved me over with a smile, it felt like a relief that I had such good friends to lean on, despite just meeting Kayla and Lucy not long before. We walked to class together and when I entered I saw Ryan sitting by the front by himself, he was looking down at his books, flicking through various notes. I saw Grace’s expression grow muted, the corners of her lips slicked down almost into a frown when we walked past, she took the lead and guided us to seats on the other side, a considerable distance from Ryan.
The thought crossed my mind, maybe it wasn’t Ryan being distant, but Grace . I didn’t want to re-hash something that had only just started to heal, especially at the expense of my relationships with both people. However, something about my two first friends suddenly moving apart irked me, on top of that, Ryan was sitting alone in classes now, it didn’t feel right.
I whispered to Grace during the lesson whilst people were busy typing away at their laptops, “Grace are you avoiding Ryan?” There was no point in being subtle about it, we both knew what happened. I noticed Kaylas typing slow once we started talking.
Grace seemed fazed by my question, she took a moment to compose herself before responding with a hesitant, “Maybe…” She seemed to want to say more, but something wouldn’t let her.
I tried to come off as comforting and figured now may not have been the best time to talk about it. “Do you wanna talk about it at lunch?” I suggested, looking into her eyes in an attempt to disarm her. She nodded and we each went back to our respective typing. I kept watching the back of Ryan’s head. He didn’t seem too down about being alone, though there wasn’t much I could gather in the way of feelings just from the tufts of waves of his hair.
Lunch came about, Ryan had gone off to practice so I hadn’t seen him, I went with the others to our Lunch Club spot. It was such a luxury to have, getting to talk to new people in a calmer environment that was the lunch hall, noise would bounce and cascade off of every wall and fall into unsuspecting ears. Here there was calm, we all sat around a large wooden table, there was a desk and projector, it was seemingly an unused meeting room for staff that they must have allowed us to use during lunch breaks. I was aware of the existence of various clubs, though I hadn’t looked into any so I wasn’t quite sure where any others resided.
Kayla and Lucy had founded the club and thusly sat on the chairs closest to the desk, I gathered that there must be times when they like to make use of the projector, today, Kayla had a subject of discussion in mind.
As the others sat and started chatting amongst themselves while taking out their lunches, Kayla leaned over to me and Grace. “Okay, so what’s up with the whole ‘avoiding Ryan’ thing?” Kayla asked, staring intently at both Grace and me.
Grace fumbles to take her lunch out of her bag, I sigh, “Well I wasn’t planning on turning this into an intervention of sorts…” I raised an eyebrow at Kayla for her lack of tact, “But I worry that Grace hasn’t forgiven herself for what happened, and now she’s letting her friendship with Ryan slip.” I look directly at Grace now, aiming my words at her, “Grace he’s been your friend for so long, you can’t let this eat away at your friendship.”
She looked around at us all watching her, waiting for a response. It seemed as if it had turned into an intervention, whether that was intended or not. She looked down at her hands and let her thumbs twiddle as she spoke, “I don’t know what to do about it, the whole thing seems solved so I don’t want to bring it back up again but…” she trailed off before regaining her composure, Grace looked at me, “I can’t bring myself to be friends with him knowing what I did–”
“You didn’t do anything wrong! You didn’t know, Grace.” Kayla interrupted, vehemently defending Grace from herself.
Lucy places a hand on Kayla's shoulder to get her to calm down and allow Grace some space to speak, “I know. It wasn’t my fault. But it still doesn’t make it any easier, if I told him what happened I’d be admitting to two things, both of which I don’t feel ready for.”
“If I can interject?” Lucy now spoke softly, “You don’t have to admit to either thing, he seems fine now. The only person a confession could benefit would be yourself so consider if that’s something you need. Like Y/N says, it’d be a shame to lose such a close friend. Not to mention, he would be left wondering what for.”
We let Lucy's words coat the air, the soothing tone was cooling, and I could feel the tension melting away, clammy hands and sweating foreheads drying up in her ease of comfort. We all nodded slowly in agreement.
“I’d like to tell him.” Grace broke off the silence, “Maybe not about the moment in the car, you’re right, there’s no need for him to know about that. But I want to tell him…” Grace was getting nervous again, she looked around at us for support, “I want to come out to my friend as a lesbian.” She finished confidently, the others in the room were now listening in, our conversation seeming to outweigh theirs in terms of importance.
“That’s huge!” Kayla squealed and hugged Grace tightly in solidarity, Lucy stroked Kayla's arm lovingly and smiled. “Okay.” Kayla stood up and grabbed everyones full attention, “Time to plan your coming out!” She declared.
Lucy pulled her back down to her seat, “I don’t think plans are how this works.” Lucy shook her head.
“I made a plan for my coming out.” Kayla mumbled.
“Yes and I love your dedication sweetheart but most people aren’t like that, I think Grace just needs us to support her as she has this conversation with Ryan alone.” Lucy and Kayla were engrossed in their own conversation at this point, both coming from different perspectives. Grace looked relieved that the attention had been drawn while the two mumbled their own ideas.
Grace turned to me, “Do you think I should tell him?”
“I think that’s your choice to make, but it could make you two closer. I mean, what are you gonna do when you get a girlfriend?”
Grace let the thought swirl through her mind and she nodded. She seemed more relaxed now.
At the end of the school day Grace called after Ryan to wait for her before he went off, I saw Spencer and Jon talking to some guy, I approached them just as he walked away.
“Who’s that?” I asked, watching the tall guy disappear around a corner, his hair was brown with a cowlick flicking the parting to one side atop his head, all I could make out of his face was his chiselled jaw from the side as he turned off.
Jon scratched the back of his neck awkwardly and looked away, Spencer answered, “We’re looking for your replacement. Jon said he talked to this guy back during our first gig, do you remember watching him perform? He’s pretty good!”
I thought back to the day of our gig at the coffee shop, all I really remembered were nerves and adrenaline, but he seemed vaguely familiar, Spencer continued, “Well his band split up, he said they just came together for that one gig and he’s been looking for a new band to join, so Jon hit him up!” Spencer smiled, I smiled back at him, Jon looked uncomfortable.
“It’s nothing personal, we just needed a new member.” Jon spoke with uncertainty.
I laughed, “I think it’s great you guys are getting a new member!.” I punched Jon on the arm gently and he loosened up.
“Suppose you’ll meet him at our next gig then.” Jon smiled, not as tense as before.
“Suppose I will.”
Grace texted me once I got back to my dorm.
Grace:
“I told him, he was really supportive up until I kinda let it slip that I was the one that kissed you”
“I might’ve fucked up, he said he needed ‘time’”
Y/N:
“On the bright side, you got both things off your chest, I’m sure he’ll come around.”
Grace:
“I hope so.”
I heard a knock on my door, Ryan was stood in the hall.
“Can I come in?”