by Emery Lee
“Because Devin’s my friend,” I say.
Matt laughs. “You need cooler friends, dude.”
“Apparently, what I need is a boyfriend who keeps his promises, but I’m not so sure I’ll find one here,” I snap.
The table falls quiet, and it’s kind of a relief. If any one of them spat out another round of bullshit, there was a pretty good chance I’d punch someone’s teeth out.
Drew sets his cards down on the table before standing up and guiding me over to the railing as someone shouts, “Wait, I wanna see the fight!”
“Are you mad at me?” Drew asks.
And I don’t even know why he’s asking it because I’m pretty clearly mad at him. “I promised Devin we’d be at eir party, so let’s just go. We already divided our time.”
“Yeah, okay, but it’s a recycling party. It’s not like Devin needs us there.”
“And your drunk-ass friends need you here because . . . ?”
Drew rolls his eyes. “You see Devin every day at work, right? I see these guys once every few months, and with everything that’s been going on lately, it’s really refreshing, you know? It’s the first time I’ve been able to really let loose since my parents told us they were separating.”
“I get that, but—”
“Can’t you just be happy for me for a little while? I need this,” Drew says, dropping his voice low.
And I sigh because I don’t want to be the shitty boyfriend who tears him away from his one night of happiness in a while, but I also don’t want to be the shitty friend who cancels on Devin last minute. Especially after how excited e seemed when I told em I’d go to eir party.
And now I know all of Drew’s friends are watching me to make sure I’m going to be the “cool boyfriend” and give him exactly what he wants, but why does it have to come at my expense? Hell, we worked all this out beforehand so it wouldn’t come to me being put on the spot in front of a bunch of drunk people, but now it’s coming to that anyway.
“Look, if you don’t want to be here, maybe you should just go by yourself,” Drew says. “I mean, if you don’t want to be with me—”
“This has nothing to do with whether or not I want to be with you,” I say. “I want to be with you, okay? But I made a promise, and now you’re asking me to break it so you can have a few more illegal beers. Why does that make me the bad guy?”
But I already know what’s happening here, and I know how this is going to end. Drew’s not going to Devin’s party tonight. Hell, he was probably planning on bailing all along, and if I try to go on my own, he’ll use it to break up with me and claim the whole thing’s my fault.
And if Drew breaks up with me, I’ll lose the last anchor keeping my fans with the Diary. So many of them have said that Drew’s the main reason they stick around anyway, and with the Bunfrees troll scaring people away, there’s no way it’ll survive without him.
“Just a few more hands, okay?” Drew says, and I nod even though we both know it won’t be just a few more hands.
I slink back to my seat and pull out my phone to text Devin, but my fingers shake as I type out the message. I don’t want to send it. I don’t want to finalize the fact that I won’t be there—that I’m stuck here for the rest of the night. But I send it anyway.
A few minutes later, I get the response: No problem! I hope everything’s okay. See you at work :).
And I find myself fighting back tears because I’d rather be at work than here. Hell, I’d rather be anywhere else.
Sunday morning, I stay in bed late because I’m still hungover from the beers I downed after my fight with Drew. And like, that means a lot because I fucking hate beer.
I finally come out of the closet just after one and find a sticky note on the front door that says, Went out with some friends. Take out the trash.
Great.
Usually, if I was in this shitty of a mood, I’d call Drew and ask him to hang out, but that’s definitely not going to happen. I don’t know if he’s going to apologize for last night or not, but I don’t want to see him, even if he is still reeling from his parents’ divorce.
And then there’s the fact that today’s the first morning I didn’t get a “good morning” text from him, and I’m pretty sure he didn’t just forget.
I call Becca, hoping she can help me out with the Diary. To my utter surprise, she answers on the third ring, her voice low as she says, “Hello?”
“Oh my God, Becca, you are not going to believe—”
“Noah,” she cuts me off, and I freeze because something in her voice just doesn’t sound right. It doesn’t sound Becca.
We sit in silence for a moment before she says, “I don’t want to talk to you right now.”
“I—” Honestly, I don’t think she’s ever said anything like that to me before, and I’m not even sure how to respond. Finally, I say, “Did something happen? Are you mad at me?”
She sighs. “It’s kind of rich how you always ask if I’m mad at you instead of asking how I’m doing.”
Which, yeah, she’s right. I haven’t actually done that. “I’m sorry. I’ve just been really busy with Drew and—”
“And I don’t need you to finish that. It’s always the same thing with you. Our friendship is always a one-way street, and I just—I just can’t deal with that right now, okay? I need space.”
My heart lurches, and I feel like I’m going to be sick. “So, what? You’re saying you don’t want to be friends anymore?”
“Of course not. I’m just saying—” Becca pauses, her voice fading out. Crackling static comes between us for a moment before she says, “When you told me you were moving across the country, I cried for three days.”
“So did I.” I’m not sure where this is going, but I let her speak.
“But not for the same reasons, okay? I was terrified. It’s like I couldn’t remember who I was before we were friends or who I am without you. I felt like all of me was disappearing.”
“You think I didn’t feel the same?”
“Of course you didn’t, Noah. I mean, yeah, you’ll miss me and you’ll have to make new friends and learn how to navigate a new school, but you know who you are. You’ve always known who you are, and more than anything, I’ve always just been Noah’s best friend.”
I don’t speak. I can’t. How do you respond to something like that?
The idea that Becca’s nothing but my sidekick is honestly so preposterous. She’s been my shield since we became friends, the person jumping in front of me every time something went wrong. She was the one keeping me from doing reckless things and the one guiding me to make the smart decision.
But maybe that’s the problem. I’ve always put myself so far into the spotlight that her only choice was to work the curtains.
“We’re growing up, you know?” Becca says, her voice low like she’s worried I’ll get mad. “You’re moving away, and soon we’ll be going to college. It’s naive to think we could be latched together forever. There was always going to come a day when you didn’t answer the phone.”
“So you stopped answering first?”
“Isn’t that what you would do?”
And of course, it’s exactly what I would do! That’s the problem!
Becca’s supposed to be the mature one, the glue. While I threw a fit and acted like a child, she was supposed to be the foundation making sure I didn’t tumble into some endless abyss. What was I supposed to do when she just stopped being there?
But her fears are my fears, and I’ve been so afraid of all the things I’ll lose, it never occurred to me that Becca would be afraid of losing the same things.
Because I’m always putting myself first.
“So what do you want me to do, then?” I ask, trying to keep my voice level.
“You’re pissed,” she says.
“No,” I say, and it honestly blows my mind that I mean it. I’m not mad. I’m just—well, I guess I just want to learn how to work the curtains for a little while so mayb
e she can take a break. “I want to give you the same support you’ve always given me, so just tell me how, I guess.”
Becca lets out a breath. “I just need some space. Some time to figure stuff out.”
“Okay.”
“And Noah?”
“Yeah.”
“You’ll always be my best friend. I promise.”
And I know she means it, but I also know that things don’t last forever. Whatever we were, it’s changing, and I just have to hold on to the hope that our new something will be enough.
When we hang up, I immediately turn to the Diary. I know I promised her I wouldn’t take action without talking to her first, but she was the one who said she didn’t want to talk, so . . .
Sunday, July 1
MeetCuteDiary posted:
There’s a rumor going around that the Diary is posting stolen stories without getting permission to use them. I don’t know who started this rumor, or why you hate the Diary so much, but can you please just DM me and we can figure something out? You’re going to hurt so many people over a rumor you know isn’t even true. Please just contact me, and we’ll fix this. Please.
Step 10: The Release
The big bad conflict that tries to pry you both apart, the moment you think maybe the relationship won’t survive.
Monday, July 2
Itwasntme posted:
Anybody else see that Meet Cute Diary post and get a little apprehensive? Do y’all believe the Diary’s really innocent here? Idk if I want to keep supporting them with all this drama.
Undeservedpressure replied: The Diary’s definitely at fault here. Just look at the power imbalance. That blog’s huge!
FOBwrotethissongaboutme replied: I don’t know either, but I’m probably just gonna bail. This is too stressful for me.
Barelybaileye replied: Noah and Drew are so cute tho! Who cares what happened with the meet cutes.
Load more comments . . .
I’m not looking forward to Monday, so when it comes around, I’m disappointed but not surprised. I reach the rehearsal hall after spending ten minutes waiting in the parking lot to avoid Devin. I expect em to yell at me for bailing on em on Saturday, but when I step over the threshold, I find em working as usual. E looks up and says, “Hey, can you grab the crayons from the cabinet?”
I oblige, passing em the crate full of little crayon boxes, but e doesn’t say anything else.
Time to rip off the Band-Aid. “Are you mad at me?” I ask.
“Mad? Why?”
I roll my eyes. “Because I bailed on your party.”
Devin looks up at me from the floor and smiles. “I figured you had a reason.”
And yeah, I did have a reason, but I still feel like I’m getting let off the hook too easily. I mean, shouldn’t e care that I didn’t show up? Or does e care so little about me that it didn’t seem important?
“I did,” I say, “but I still made you a promise and then bailed on it. As a friend, that’s a pretty shitty thing to do.”
Devin shrugs. “Yeah, I guess so, but you can’t help it if something came up, and I’m not going to hold that against you.”
“Damn it, Devin!” I shout, and e flinches like e didn’t think my voice could get that loud. “Do you seriously not get mad about anything?”
“I get mad,” e says. “I’m just not mad at you. I don’t see how that makes me the bad guy in this situation.”
And really, I don’t either, but I’m mad and I don’t know who else to take it out on. Really, I guess my anger should be directed at Drew, but I don’t know how to do that without scaring him off. And I can’t be mad at Becca because I’m the one who chased her away, and even if I hadn’t, she won’t answer the phone for me to tell her how infuriating it is that she never answers the phone. And I can’t take it out on whoever’s messing with the Diary because if they ever answer me back, I have to try to be civil so they don’t tank everything I’ve worked so hard on.
So I can’t say I’m really mad at Devin, but unfortunately, e’s the only one around to experience my wrath.
I sigh, sitting down next to em on the floor. “I’m sorry,” I say.
“What happened?” e asks.
“That I didn’t come?”
“Sure, if that’s what’s got you so stressed out.”
And a part of me wants to tell em about the Diary because I don’t have anyone else to talk to, and it’s not like there’s any reason I should feel like I can’t trust em. Hell, e’s like the sweetest person I’ve ever met, and at the very least, I feel like I owe em some sort of explanation for why I’ve been such a terrible friend.
“It’s a really long story,” I say.
E nods. “I get that.”
“I want to tell you about it, though. I just—well, it’s gonna be super awkward to cut off halfway through when the kids come in.”
Devin looks at me with wide eyes like e never thought I’d actually take em up on eir offer. “You can tell me after work if you want.”
I nod, a small smile on my face. “Yeah, I’d like that. Thanks.” Silence falls over us for a second before I say, “So, I take it the party went well?”
“It would’ve been better if you were there,” Devin says before turning to look down at eir hands. “I mean, um, well, you know I don’t really have a lot of friends, so it was mostly my parents’ friends and just some people from camp who work with my mom.”
“Oh,” I say. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”
Devin smiles. “No, I mean, it wasn’t. We made some cool stuff. Wait, I’ll show you pictures.”
E reaches for eir phone, pulling up a photo album of little paper crafts and passing it to me. Some of eir attendees were obviously better than others. There are some kids holding little flowers made out of book pages, bound notebooks crafted from newspaper, a plastic bottle turned vase.
I sigh, passing the phone back. “Sorry I missed it.”
Devin smiles. “It’s okay, really. I mostly hosted it for the kids anyway. Their parents work with my mom and are always looking for fun activities for them.”
“Where does your mom work?” I ask.
“The high school that runs the camp. She teaches Spanish,” e says.
And wow, there feels like so much more I should ask em about—how e learned eir artistic skill, how long eir mom has been a teacher, all the little things I guess we never really talk about—but I can already hear the kids clambering down the hall for the day, so I guess it’s time to get to work.
As the kids spill into the room, I do my best to push my personal problems out of my head even though it’s really not that easy. I’m already starting to get nervous about talking to Devin—what if I made a mistake thinking I can trust em?—which only feeds into more nerves about how my DMs might look.
As we finish off our shift for the day, Devin taps me on the shoulder and says, “Do you want to get tea or something, and we can talk?”
It’s such a simple request, but it feels almost loaded. Is it bad to go out with a friend when I’m fighting with my boyfriend? It shouldn’t be, right? So why do I feel guilty about saying yes?
“I just have to let Brian know I won’t be going home with him,” I say.
Devin smiles. “No worries. I’ll drop you off at home afterward.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You drive?”
“Why is that so suspicious to you?”
And really, it shouldn’t be, but I guess somewhere in my mind I’ve sectioned Devin off as this innocent kid in need of protecting even though e’s a year older than me.
I text Brian, and once I get the okay, we head out to Devin’s car. E drives a little Honda that I’m pretty sure would be swallowed up by the snow in an instant.
I climb into the passenger seat and find myself surrounded by a soft layer of . . . lavender?
“What’s that smell?” I ask, half expecting em to say e has a full garden growing in eir trunk.
“Essential oils,” Devin says, pluggi
ng in eir phone to play music. “I’ve been really into them lately.”
I’m not really sure what to say to that, so I just sit back as we pull out onto the street. Devin drives a lot more confidently than I’d expect from someone with eir level of anxiety. E doesn’t tailgate or anything, but e does drive a little over the speed limit, quickly cutting a turn before the light changes.
“How are you more confident driving than you are with human interaction?” I ask.
E smirks. “I guess that just tells you how terrifying humans can be.”
We pull into the parking lot of a little café. I’m not really sure what attracted Devin to this place, but I catch the words “boba” and “tea” on their sign, and wonder if this is some sort of trap to lure me in and keep me stuck here forever, like in the Percy Jackson books.
“I hope this is okay,” Devin says. “We can go somewhere else if you don’t like it.”
I flash em a smile and say, “Be confident in your choice, Devin.”
E blushes and turns off the car.
The café’s mostly empty, which is great. It’s just after three thirty on a weekday, so I guess it’s not too surprising. There’s a short Asian woman behind the counter, and I start bouncing on my heels because this might be my first authentic boba tea since getting to Colorado. Amazing.
It doesn’t take us long to order, and as I sip down a glorious Thai tea, Devin says, “So, what did you want to talk about?”
And I choke on a little tapioca ball as everything hits me at once. Right. The reason we came here.
“It’s a really long story,” I say again, mostly so I can put off telling it. E’s looking back at me with open eyes, and I know I should just start talking, and I’ll probably feel better once it’s all laid out. But what if I don’t?
“If you’re having second thoughts, you don’t have to tell me,” e says, playing with the straw of eir own taro milk tea. “I won’t be upset.”
“Because you’re never upset about anything,” I say.
“Because this is obviously something really personal for you, and if you don’t want to talk about it, you shouldn’t feel pressured to do so.”
