The Love We Breathe

by Adelia Everett

  “Oh, okay.” I said.

  “And then once everyone knew I was gay,” He continued, “I started making new friends who were much more accepting. I mean... these people are great, but they’re not necessarily my best friends. They’re really fun to hang out with, but they don’t really know me that well.”

  “Huh.” I said, “So who’s gonna be at this little gathering?”

  “Well, there’s Kelly, who’s really nice.” He said, “And Jenny, who can be kind of annoying sometimes. Then there’s Callie, Wes, and Carson.”

  “And Wes and Carson are dating?” I asked.

  “I’m not really sure.” He said, laughing a bit, “They used to like each other, but I don’t know if they’re actually together.”

  “Well this should be fun.” I said.

  “Yeah!” He exclaimed, “I’m so excited for them to meet you! They’re gonna love you. The girls will just adore you, I promise.”

  I laughed.

  When we arrived to Kelly’s house, Ryan knocked on the door. The girl who answered was a skinny petite brunette with very stylish clothing and a stud in her nose. Her extremely dark brown hair did not look natural, but it suited her well enough. She immediately squealed upon seeing Ryan and jumped up to wrap her arms around his neck. She must’ve held onto him for a full fifteen seconds.

  “Kell!” Ryan exclaimed.

  “I missed you!” She said to him in a high-pitched voice.

  He laughed and squeezed her back. “Missed you too.”

  When she finally let go of him, she looked at me with wide eyes and a smile.

  “This is James.” Ryan said, “And this is Kelly.”

  “Oh my God! It’s so nice to meet you!” She squealed, giving me a tight hug as well. She smelled of some kind of strong girly perfume. When she let go of me she turned to Ryan and said, “Oh, he’s cute, Ry.”

  He blushed and giggled, taking my hand.

  “Come in, come in!” Kelly said, leading us into her house, “Everyone’s in the kitchen.”

  Apparently Ryan knew exactly where the kitchen was. He led me there while Kelly closed the front door.

  “Hey guys!” He greeted as soon as we arrived in the kitchen.

  A skinny, flamboyant-looking boy in a polo shirt and tight pants was the first to hug Ryan. My first impulse was to tell him to back off, but I knew he probably didn’t have any romantic feelings for Ryan.

  Ryan introduced me to everyone in the room. The flamboyant-looking boy was Wes. Apparently he and Carson were dating, because they held hands constantly. Carson was a bit more muscular than Wes, and looked friendly yet quiet. Jenny was a tall girl with short, straight, brown hair. She wore boots and had her shirt tucked into her tight jeans. Callie was a slightly bigger girl with a Hispanic look to her. She was short, with pale skin and dark brown hair.

  We all made small talk for a while, and everyone seemed to be very excited about meeting Ryan’s boyfriend. They asked me a lot of questions but they seemed pretty friendly.

  After a little while we heard the doorbell ring.

  “Who else is coming?” Ryan asked Jenny as Kelly went to go answer the door.

  Jenny merely shrugged.

  Everyone was still chatting and snacking on various foods that Kelly had laid out for us. Suddenly a boy with dark brown hair came strutting into the kitchen. I waited to be introduced to this new person, but Ryan was staring at him with a shocked expression.

  “Hey!” The boy said to Ryan, immediately grabbing him by the waist and pulling him in for a hug.

  At first I didn’t think much of it. It was just Ryan hugging one of his friends. But I had to do a double take, because I quickly realized that they seemed to be more than friends. The boy was practically groping Ryan, squeezing him tightly and rubbing his waist. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all.

  I wanted to shout, hello I’m standing right here! But I stayed quiet and waited for Ryan to explain. I folded my arms angrily.

  And this guy had no intention of letting go of Ryan right away. In fact, they stayed locked in an embrace for at least a full minute. Thankfully, I did notice that Ryan wasn’t exactly hugging the guy back. He was just standing there, and he looked tense. Maybe Ryan didn’t like this guy or something. That sent a bit of relief through me.

  But I almost went over the edge when the guy actually said in Ryan’s ear, “I missed you.” He was smiling devilishly while he said it, and it made me practically snarl at him.

  Oh, you missed Ryan, did you? Well too bad. Get your hands off of him. He’s mine.

  Finally, he let go of my boyfriend and held onto his shoulders instead. He stared at Ryan’s face for a few seconds. Ryan looked completely shocked, with wide eyes and a gaping mouth.

  “What’s the matter?” The boy asked Ryan, “Didn’t you miss me?”

  Ryan didn’t respond. By then I decided it was time for me to butt into this little love fest.

  “I don’t believe we’ve met.” I said to the boy passive-aggressively, thrusting my hand out for a shake.

  “Hi...” He said, looking confused at why I would suddenly butt into their conversation. But he shook my hand anyway.

  I turned to Ryan, expecting him to introduce us to each other, but he was staring at the ground, still in shock. I had no idea who this guy was or what he was doing here, but he was obviously upsetting Ryan and he obviously wanted Ryan in more ways than one. I didn’t like him one bit.

  I introduced myself. “I’m James.”

  “Adam.” He said.

  Adam. I suddenly remembered. It was like a jolt of electricity to my heart. Adam was Ryan’s ex-boyfriend. The guy who treated Ryan perfectly, just long enough to take his virginity. The guy who broke Ryan’s heart. That Adam. That’s why Ryan looked so upset. That’s why this guy had hugged Ryan so sensually.

  It took all the strength in my body not to punch this asshole in the face. I suddenly remembered how pained Ryan had looked when he told me the story of how Adam broke his heart. He’d told me that story so long ago. In fact it was right before he and I had sex for the very first time. But I still remembered it very well.

  “Huh.” I said, mocking a thoughtful tone, “Adam. Nice to meet you.”

  “So are you one of Ryan’s friends from school or something?” Adam asked me.

  I was about to laugh in his face and tell him that I was Ryan’s boyfriend, but before I had a chance to say anything, Ryan snapped out of his shocked stupor and intervened.

  “Yes!” Ryan said in response to Adam’s question, “Yeah. A friend from school.”

  “Oh, cool.” Adam said, smiling at me in a friendly manner.

  I did my best not to glare. But by now there was another bout of anger raging inside of me. Why the fuck would Ryan lie and tell Adam that we were just friends? Apparently he didn’t want Adam to know that he had a boyfriend. That infuriated me ten thousand times more than seeing Adam in the first place. How could Ryan stand there and pretend that our relationship meant nothing to him? Did part of him still love Adam? Did part of him want Adam to want him?

  I couldn’t tell whether I wanted to cry or scream. Or perhaps both.

  Adam then turned away from both of us to greet the others. I’d almost forgotten that they were all there. Luckily, none of them seemed to have noticed the little exchange between Adam, Ryan, and me. They’d all been too busy talking to each other.

  As soon as Adam walked away, I turned to stare at Ryan. I tried as best I could to spell my emotions out on my face. I could tell it was difficult for him to look at me, but he did. The expression on his face could only be described as guilty.

  The eight of us all gathered in Kelly’s living room, which I guess doubled as kind of an entertainment center. She had an enormous television screen and surround sound speakers. I guess we were having sort of a movie night. We all voted on a movie to watch and ended up picking some modern horror film. Kelly popped us some popcorn and gave us all sodas to drink.

  The
entire time, the anger inside of me did not fade. I refused to touch Ryan, and it appeared as though he didn’t want to touch me. He wanted Adam to think we were just friends.

  When we all settled onto the various couches and love seats, Adam ended up sitting next to Ryan. And although I was on the other side of Ryan, he scooted closer to Adam than to me. My heart nearly cracked in two and my eyes started to water a bit, but I let my emotions boil inside of me instead of expressing them.

  Before the movie started, everyone was still chatting away. But it all seemed like pointless small talk compared to the thoughts raging inside my head. A few times when Ryan’s friends asked me questions, I was almost too distracted to answer them.

  Ryan doesn’t want Adam to know that he has a boyfriend. He wants to pretend like he’s single. Maybe he wants Adam back. Well, he did love Adam at one point. He lost his virginity to Adam. Maybe he’s gonna break up with me and go back to Adam. But why the fuck would he want to do that? I thought he loved me. And Adam is probably the biggest asshole in the entire world from everything I’ve heard about him. Fuck this.

  While the opening credits of the movie were rolling, I decided to excuse myself and use the restroom. Kelly was nice enough to show me where it was. As soon as I entered the small bathroom and closed the door, the tears started flowing. I sat on the tile floor and let them fall.

  Why the fuck am I so sensitive about all this?

  I couldn’t remember ever crying over something so trivial. I felt like a whiny sixteen-year-old girl with boy problems. And I hated those types of girls.

  I just didn’t understand how Ryan could lie to Adam about our relationship like that. Right in front of my face, no less! I tried to think of a plausible reason as to why he wouldn’t want his ex-boyfriend to know about his new boyfriend. The only reason I could come up with was that Ryan still loved Adam. At least a little bit.

  But I thought he loved me...

  Maybe he does. Maybe it’s possible for him to love two people at the same time. But fuck that! I’m not sharing him with someone else! Especially not a jackass like Adam. Why would he love Adam anyway?

  That was something I couldn’t wrap my head around. Why would someone as decent and incredible as Ryan fall for someone as terrible as Adam? Although I didn’t know Adam very well, I knew the stories that Ryan told me. While they were dating, Adam treated Ryan perfectly, took his virginity, then broke his heart, in that order. Why would anyone still love someone like that, when they had someone new now?

  And what about me? If Ryan ended up breaking up with me, wouldn’t he be doing almost exactly what Adam did to him? That would make him the biggest fucking hypocrite in the world. I wouldn’t stand for it.

  As I sat on the floor and let my tears dry, I realized that I had to say something. Why was I just sitting back and watching this play out in the first place? Why didn’t I intervene?

  I had to let Adam know that Ryan was most definitely taken.

  I checked my reflection in the mirror to make sure that my eyes weren’t red. When I deemed my appearance acceptable, I stepped out of the bathroom and walked back into the living room. I sat in my same spot on the couch next to Ryan. While the movie played, I felt the instinctive urge to put my arm around Ryan or snuggle up close to him. But I refrained from doing so. He still sat closer to Adam than to me, but I pretended that it didn’t bother me.

  I looked around the room at everyone else. Kelly, Jenny, and Callie were all sitting on a couch extremely close together with their arms locked, as if they were protecting each other from the scary movie. Wes and Carson were snuggling up together on the love seat, exchanging kisses every few minutes. When Wes was startled by the movie, Carson was sure to hold him close. Then I looked over at Adam and Ryan. Strangely enough, it appeared as though they were the ones who were dating, and I was the awkward third wheel. I wanted to cuddle with Ryan like Wes and Carson were. I wanted to protect him from the scary movie. Goddamn it, I wanted my boyfriend to sit closer to me. Why did Adam have to show up here in the first place?

  A few times during the movie, I caught Ryan glancing over at me guiltily, as if he wished I would hold his hand. But I kept my hands to myself and refused. After all, he was pretending we were just friends, right?

  At an intensely scary part of the film, Ryan instinctively reached over to grab my hand in fear. It gave me a glimmer of hope, knowing that it was my hand that he was reaching for and not Adam’s. But that hope disappeared when Ryan quickly let go of my hand, checking to make sure Adam hadn’t noticed. My anger nearly doubled.

  Finally the movie ended, and everyone else took a moment to exclaim how scary it was. I guess I was the only person in the room who hadn’t been paying much attention to the film.

  Without any input from me, the rest of the group decided to migrate into the kitchen and play a board game on the giant table in there. It was only a five-player game, but some people partnered up.

  “Ryan, be my partner!” Adam whined.

  “No... I’m gonna be James’ partner.” He said, sounding a little uncertain.

  My head immediately shot up at the sound of my name, and part of my anger lifted. At least he wanted to be my partner, even though he sounded uncertain.

  “Oh... okay.” Adam said, sounding disappointed.

  Yeah, fuck you Adam.

  Yet still, Ryan somehow ended up sitting between me and Adam again. Ryan and I still kept our hands to ourselves. I found it strange that everyone else in the room knew that we were a couple, and yet Ryan still wouldn’t let Adam know.

  The game was fun and I ended up getting into it a bit, laughing with Ryan and his friends even though I still felt a surge of anger every few minutes.

  At one point, we all paused the game so that Jenny could use the restroom. We all chatted while we waited. And of course, Adam and Ryan started up a conversation.

  “So... you guys met at school?” Adam asked Ryan, motioning to me. He talked about me like I wasn’t here.

  “Yup.” Ryan nodded, apparently not wanting to talk about me.

  “How’d you guys become friends?” He asked.

  This was my chance. If I wanted Adam to know I that Ryan was mine, I had to do it now. While Ryan was about to speak up, I interrupted him.

  “Actually we’re not just friends.” I said, leaning over to butt into the conversation.

  “What?” Adam asked, confused.

  “I’m Ryan’s boyfriend.” I smiled sardonically.

  Adam’s expression appeared surprised, but I knew it was just a mask. Perhaps underneath that mask he was angry, disappointed, or even uncaring. Maybe he didn’t care about any relationship that Ryan was in. Maybe he was determined to get into Ryan’s pants anyway.

  “Oh.” Adam said simply, “Then why did you tell me you guys were just friends?” He directed the question at Ryan.

  “That’s a very good question, Adam!” I said with sarcastic enthusiasm, “But I don’t think Ryan has an answer for that. Do you?” I turned to him.

  At first Ryan just stared that the ground and blushed fiercely. But then he suddenly jolted his head up and turned to face me.

  “No, I guess not, James.” He said confidently. I could sense some sort of fire inside him. Maybe it pissed him off that I’d revealed our relationship to Adam.

  Adam just tried to laugh off the situation, and was fairly successful. It was interesting how socially confident he was.

  Later that night when Ryan and I were leaving, we both hugged almost everyone goodbye. Although I’d only spent a few hours with these people, they seemed nice enough and I was completely comfortable giving them each a hug. The exception, of course, was Adam. In fact, he and I didn’t even look at each other during the goodbyes. Ryan, however, practically ran up to hug him. Once again, it appeared much more than friendly. Ryan seemed perfectly comfortable in his arms, and Adam was sensually stroking Ryan’s waist and back. It took all the strength in my body not to intervene. I wanted so badly to just push th
em apart and shout that Ryan was mine. In fact, I don’t know why I didn’t.

  Once Ryan and I were finally in the car alone, I immediately spoke up.

  “What the hell was that?” I asked him, as soon as his car door was shut.

  “What do you mean?” He asked, pretending to play dumb. I had to admit, he was pretty good at acting.

  “Oh come on, Ryan.” I said, my anger reaching it’s climax, “That was the same Adam you told me about right? The one that fucked you and then broke your heart?”

  “Well...”

  “He’s your ex-boyfriend, and you led him to believe that you were single even though you aren’t!” I shouted, “You have a boyfriend! Hello! I’m sitting right here! I exist!”

  “James...”

  “And what the fuck is with you hugging him?” I asked, “You looked like you were about to start feeling each other up!”

  “James!” Ryan shouted, sounding scandalized.

  “Oh come on! Don’t deny it!”

  “Whatever.” He started the car and drove away from Kelly’s house. We just made it out of her neighborhood when our fighting erupted again.

  “I just don’t get it, Ryan.” I said, “You were acting like he was your boyfriend instead of me.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I’m not!” I shouted, “You were sitting close to him for the whole movie and you refused to touch me the entire time!”

  “Well...” He hesitated, trying to find an excuse for his behavior but apparently he couldn’t come up with one.

  “I can’t believe you just let him hug you like that.” I said, “He had his hands all over you, and you did nothing to stop him. In fact, when you hugged him goodbye it looked like you liked it.”

  He stammered, trying to act like the victim in this situation, but it just didn’t fly.

  “I was standing right there, Ryan! Don’t pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about.” I said, “But you know what. That’s not the thing that bothers me. It’s the fact that you lied to him and pretended that I was just your friend! That’s bullshit!”