Asymptote (bxb)

Chapter 20: Helping

The colour drained from my face as I took the phone from Gemma's hands and read over the texts again. I couldn't even successfully try to put my life together without somehow being a shit-person. I should have just called him when I finished for the day like he asked me to, I shouldn't have taken it so damn personally that he didn't want to talk to me when I called him at lunch. He hurt my feelings, so I just left him ignored as retaliation and didn't even take a second to think that maybe the world was bigger than just me.

            "Are you going to text him back?" Gemma said, poking me in the arm and out of my self-loathing trance.

            "And say what? As if I was doing something more important that I couldn't have possibly answered him," I replied.

            Gemma crossed her legs under her on the chair and thought for a second. "I mean, the tone isn't exactly reading angry. If anything, seems like he thinks that you are angry with him."

            She was right and that was the worse part. I had spent the day thinking of Miles. Avoiding Miles. Feeling embarrassed because Cian cancelled, and Miles saw it. It all came back to Miles and that was wrong, and I knew that was wrong. So, I thought I could come home, focus on myself, and put everything else to the side just for a little while. And the thought that I had been so selfish and now had somehow put Cian in a place where he felt he had something to explain to me made me feel sick to my stomach. I didn't want to be this person. I was fine being the person silently in love with their best friend. But Cian had to come and try to pull me from it and make everything confusing. Now every thought of Miles was guilt-filled. Although, thinking back on it, Miles thoughts were always guilt-ridden. The only difference was that now I was disappointing more than just myself. Now I felt like I was keeping a secret every time he popped into my head, like it was cheating.

            "That really doesn't make me feel any better, if anything it just makes me feel like an even bigger asshole. As if he doesn't have enough going on with his life, he also has to deal with his 3-date situationship passive aggressively ignoring him." I tossed a pen that was sitting on the desk and watched it bounce across the ground. Gemma stared at the pen on the floor before comin back to me.

            "Remind me again- why are we passive aggressively ignoring him?"

            "Because he cancelled on our plans tonight and my friend saw the text and it was embarrassing." I felt the embarrassment reaching my cheeks even now, repeating the story. What I didn't know was whether it was because Miles saw, or because I cared that Miles saw.

            "Who cares what the hell Miles thinks. Is it really that surprising that the newly most outspoken homophobe in our school doesn't approve of the guy you are dating?"

            "I never said it was Miles, but also he's not a homophobe." I didn't know why I was attempting to defend him when it was so painfully true. His words in my mind saying I'm not like that.

            "He looked pretty homophobic from my view in the cafeteria."

             Every time I had a version of this conversation, I wanted to spill everything. What Miles and I were doing ever late night hanging around the school, or when I would go back to his house, or on the extremely rare occasion where I would sneak him through the laundry room window into my room. Despite everything that happened in Miles' home, it was still his safe space, and coaxing him out was impossible. The nights Miles had spent in my bed were probably the worst nights of Miles' life.

            Instead, I settled on, "You don't know him like I do."

            "I don't think I want to know him like you do. You know him so well you practically ran away from him in the parking lot this morning"