Chapter Text
Oh.
Oh.
There he was.
Andy.
My Andy.
Shit.
What.
No.
Fuck.
He’s my friend Andy.
Ya.
“Well, Tom, what do you think?”
Wow.
His voice was so..silky.
“Tom?”
Tom.
That’s your fucking name, dumbass.
“Hello! Earth to Tom!”
Fucking answer him, dickhead.
“Oh, uh, sorry, uh, I was just…in my own thoughts.”
He laughed.
Andy laughed.
“I could tell.”
He glided over to the mirror.
Yes.
Glided.
Oh my fuck he looked so ethereal.
No.
Stop it.
“I don’t know,” Andy said, checking himself out in the mirror.
“What don’t you know about?” I asked, making my way over to him.
“I just..I just don’t think I suit blue,” he sighed.
He thought he didn’t suit blue.
What.
He looked nothing but breathtaking in the suit. He had on a tight white shirt buttoned up bar the two buttons at the top. The blazer was powder blue, as were the pants.
Stop looking at his pants.
Weirdo.
“No, Andy, what, you look great in blue!” I gushed.
I fucking gushed over him.
Fuck sake.
He grinned.
I made Andy grin.
“Really? You think so?”
I nodded.
He laughed, “Thanks Tom, you’ve really been such a good friend.”
Friend.
Friend.
Yes, you’re fucking friends dumbass is that news to you?
Of course we were.
I didn’t expect anything less.
Or more.
Fuck.
“This wedding is actually going to be the death of me,” Andy said, playing with his hair in the mirror.
His fucking tangled up sandy coloured hair.
So…
Perfect.
Platonically.
Obviously.
Why would it be any other way?
“I just don’t understand why my uncle would decide all the groomsmen need to wear blue of all colours,” Andy continued, jolting me back to the present, “Like, don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice idea and all, but what about just regular navy. Or black? Something traditional.”
Traditional.
“Well,” I smiled, “I think the blue’s nice. When’s your uncle’s wedding again? I totally forgot.”
“Well you better not of!” Andy chuckled, “Because you’re coming, remember?”
How could I forget.
“Yes, yes, I know, but just, uh, just remind me quickly.”
Andy started laughing.
It sounded like gold twinkling in the Sun.
What are you saying.
Shut up
Shut up
Shut up.
“Fourteenth of May, three months from now.”
“Oh yes I remember now.”
“Good,” Andy giggled, “I wouldn’t want you forgetting to show up on the day.”
He wants you there.
He wants you.
No.
Shut.
Up.
“Okay, I think I’m done now,” Andy said, finally stepping back from the mirror. “I’m just gonna change and pay and then we can get out of this
mangy dump.”
He wasn’t wrong.
There were two rooms in the whole haberdashery, both were filled with cobwebs and dust and were so old that there was still a bell on the door that rang when people walked in. The front room consisted of racks of blazers, shirts, pants, ties and basically everything you could need for a suit, as well as the main desk where an elderly woman sat, answering the two calls a decade that came from the old style telephone. You know, the ones that you have to use the dial to call the number. She smiled at us when we came in and Andy had made his way over to her to ask for the suit his uncle had put aside for him. She was nice enough, spoke few words but had encouraged Andy to try the suit on before taking it away so she could make alterations if necessary. She had then showed him to the second room which was pretty much bare apart from one large mirror and one small cubicle to change in privacy. I hadn’t expected to be there for so long. Andy had said it would be a quick in and out job before we went to his house.
“Sorry,” he had said sheepishly when she had left us, “I seriously was planning to leave straight away but I should probably try this on.”
“What, no, it’s no problem, take your time,” I had blabbered.
Fuck sake.
So anyway here I was, pacing around the room while Andy took off his suit in the cubicle.
He was probably naked right now.
I wonder what he looked like naked…
SHUT UP
SHUT UP
SHUT UP
I felt my face blush at that very thought.
I had to stop thinking these thoughts.
I had to stop thinking of him.
——————————————————
We made our way out of the shop into the blinding light of the day. We both shaded our eyes with our hands.
“God, it’s sunny for February,” Andy remarked.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
‘Yeah’
‘Oh my goodness Tom, you’re so interesting!’
Fucking say something else dick.
“Uh, what do you want to do at your house?”
Oh my fuck.
We all know what you want to do mate.
Fuck.
Fuck.
“Um, I don’t mind, what do you want to do?”
Kiss you.
Make out.
Fuck you.
Oh.
My.
God.
Shut.
The.
Fuck.
Up.
“Uhh…whatever?” I answered, unsure.
“Um, same,” Andy said.
If I didn’t know any better, I could’ve sworn he was wearing a flush of pink on his cheeks.
Just the sun, Tom.
Just the sun.
We laughed awkwardly for a few moments.
I hated how awkward it was now.
It was never like this before.
And it’s probably all my fault it’s like this now.
A few months ago we went to our buddy Alan’s party. He was having a bash while his parents were out of town and everyone got extremely drunk. He invited, like, everyone he could think of so there were hundreds of people there. Andy and I were just chilling together outside to get away from the crowd, the noise and the sweatiness of inside. It was always so refreshing to hang out with Andy. Since we had started secondary together we had more or less been joint at the hip. We had come from different schools, in fact, I had actually moved that summer before we started first year. I was so nervous on my first day but none other than the charming Andrew Byrne had come up to me and had just started talking to me with ease. I was so surprised. I had never been one to just go up to people and become friends but he did that with me and so our friendship began. I could always talk to him about anything, he was so easy to talk to. From school, to family, to other friends and crushes.
Crushes.
That’s where it got complicated. See, Andy was incredibly attractive, a blind man could tell you that, and girls were always asking him out, left, right and
centre.
But he always said no.
I asked him about this when we were about fourteen and he’d simply said he just didn’t like them back. I’d just accepted his answer, what more could I say, you know, and we just continued playing Fortnite or whatever it was on his PlayStation. A few months later he had asked me why I never talked about my crushes. I said I didn’t have any, which was true (at the time) and like I had for him, he simply just accepted it. That’s why we clicked so well. We knew when to push but also knew when to leave things.
So, there we were, outside Alan Curry’s house, in drunken conversation.
“You see Alan and Selena?” Andy had slurred.
“His tongue was so far down her mouth I swear it must’ve been in her stomach,” I had laughed out.
Andy laughed manically at this before quietening down and going somewhat serious.
“Have you ever made out with anyone?” he asked me.
“No,” I said, momentarily feeling sorry for myself. I was sixteen, yet I had not even had a kiss.
“Same.”
Wait.
Andy had never made out with anyone.
Andrew Hughes had never made out with anyone.
“What?!” I had exclaimed, “Andrew, the ladies man, has never made out with anyone?”
“Ha,” he said sarcastically, “Very funny. No, I haven’t actually, haven’t even kissed one.”
“Really?” I asked, genuinely shocked.
“Nope,” he shook his head.
Then he started laughing hysterically.
I looked at him, so confused.
“What’s so funny?”
“You-you, you wanna know why I haven’t kissed any girls,” he spluttered out.
“Um ok.”
He was so drunk.
He had this weird loopy smile on his face.
“Come here,” he said, gesturing for me to lower my head to whisper something into my ear.
“Andy, what are you doing?” I asked, knowing out of the two of us I was the most sober.
He whispered into my ear.
“Cause I don’t like ‘em.”
“Yes, Andy, I know, you told me before that you weren’t into the girls who asked you out.”
“No, no. I’m not into girls full stop.”
I froze.
What.
Did my drunk best friend just come out to me.
He giggled before flopping onto my shoulder and passing out.
——————————————————
What Andy had said was never brought up again. I wasn’t sure did he even remember what happened and I sure as hell didn’t want to open up a can of worms.
So I just kind of lived with it.
It didn’t make me see Andy any differently but I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Was it weird that because my best friend was gay suddenly I wanted to be too?
I had never thought of guys like that before but to be fair I’d never thought of girls like that before either. I just presumed I was straight because that’s default, right?
Right?
And so I just tried to put it out of mind, and just went on with life, distracting myself whenever those thoughts came back.
Until I couldn’t.
A few weeks after the drunken coming out, I was at Andy’s house. We were messing around and I remember we were both very giddy that day for no particular reason. We were in the middle of pissing ourselves laughing over some emote a character had just done on Fortnite, which wasn’t even that funny but like I said, we were very giddy that day. His older sister, Stacey, popped her head in around his door.
“Andy, I’m leaving now so don’t do anything stupid, alright?”
She turned to leave before turning around again,
“Oh! Almost forgot. I think Jen is dropping over my dress for the wedding in a few minutes so just take it from her and leave it in my room, ok? Seriously, Andy, I swear to God if you do anything to it.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know, ok, bye bye.”
He had then collapsed onto the bed in mock exhaustion.
“Sorry about her, she’s under the impression that the whole world revolves around her and that my main goal is to sabotage her.”
I merely laughed.
“Is Jen your uncle’s fiancé?” I asked.
“Yup. She’s nice, don’t really know her much.”
“Is Stacey a bridesmaid?”
“Yeah. Jen doesn’t have any sisters and she has like, three friends or something so they asked Stacey to be one.”
“Ah.”
The doorbell rang.
“That would probably be Jen, I’ll just run down and get it, I doubt she’ll stay long when Stacey isn’t here.”
“Yeah, sure, of course.”
He smiled before exiting the room.
I sighed contently before flopping down on his bed and taking in the full view of his room. It was a typical teenage boys room, he had his PlayStation in the corner connected to his television with two beanbags in front of it. His bed was in the centre of the room and was made surprisingly neatly with dark blue bed covers. There was a chair in the other corner of his room beside his wardrobe which had a mountain of clothes on it, which I had no clue whether they were dirty or clean or what. Apart from the pile of clothes sprawled on the chair, his room was pretty tidy.
I could hear him talking to Jen downstairs but I couldn’t make out what they were saying, just their voices. Then I heard the doors close and the sound
of feet pounding against the stairs.
The door swung open
“Tom I had the funniest fucking idea just stay here one sec!”
He had the door shut again before I could get a word out.
The fuck.
I mean I’m all here for funny ideas but with Andy there was a thin line between funny and ‘ok this is insane, possibly illegal and probably offensive to many different ethnic groups’.
But I decided to not dwell on it too much and wait for him to come back. Andy always made me feel happy. I'm sure it wouldn’t be different this time.
Oh boy.
Oh boy oh boy oh boy.
Fucking hell did he make me feel SOMETHING anyway.
Andrew Hughes stepped into the room wearing his sister’s bridesmaid dress.
What.
The.
Fuck.
“Jen should’ve picked me to be a bridesmaid, this suits me so much!” he exclaimed in a squeaky voice followed by a fake squeal. He even was moving his hands in that way stereotypical American girls seem to when they’re excited to really get into the part.
And what did I do?
Nothing.
I could’ve replied with a funny remark, I could’ve played along but for some reason I went completely mute.
I was dumbstruck.
Why oh why did Andy do that?
Because this confirmed my worst fucking fears.
The only girl I’ve ever loved was Andrew in drag.