"I need space." Those were the words Jacky said to Ryan the night before they both left for separate colleges. Now, each of them will try to learn who they are without the other. Will their paths lead them back together?
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Jacky
Two sleepless hours later, Jacky lost the battle and checked his phone. No new text.
He sighed and held the phone to his chest for a moment, the spots blooming in his night vision. Trying to sleep was useless. He turned on his side lamp and opened his phone again. Of course it opened right to the text, and saw a tiny little update: Seen 2:46 p.m.
Ryan had opened the text, but that was over an hour ago! Jacky's heart had ramped up and he tried to talk it down. "He'll probably take a little while to respond, Ryan's careful like that." Then he stared at the time stamp. "What's Ryan even doing awake at this hour?"
He hoped Ryan was okay. There had been a lot of sleepovers when Jacky had been awakened in the middle of the night by Ryan's quiet sobbing, but it had been a while since that had happened. Shit, the anniversary of Ryan's mother's death was coming up. Not until after Halloween, but still. This year was all new, and Jacky had no idea how Ryan was handling the stress of college. Aside from that pic with Charlie, and a couple pics with Monica, all on other people's profiles, Ryan had been silent on social media. Not that Jacky had been any better. Neither of them were social media people. In all his research with Billy, Jacky had never thought to question whether or not Ryan might be doing something other than dating every single gay man in Boston.
Ryan had always been a good student. He'd been in the top ten of their graduating class. And he was pre-med, which was probably a competitive courseload. Ryan had probably been up all night studying and worrying about his grades and dealing with his grief, and now Jacky had hit him with a Let's get back together text at the worst possible time.
As a means of dealing with this onslaught of feelings, Jacky opened up TikTok and started scrolling.
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Ryan
When the 4 a.m. alarm went off, Ryan half-heartedly reached for his nerf gun, only to discover that Harper and Jordan had fallen asleep, as had Pete.
The remaining zombies – Ryan, Sam, and Charlie – converged on the coffee pot, forming a ritualistic circle to the god of caffeine. "The floor is moving," Charlie murmured.
"I feel nauseous," Sam concurred.
"You guys can go to bed if you want," Ryan said. "You don't need to stay up on my account."
Sam peeled her gaze away from the coffee. "We want to support you on your first all-nighter."
"Yeah." Charlie clinked their mug against Ryan's. "Solidarity."
"I won't hold it against you if you take a nap," Ryan said. "I'm almost finished. Maybe if I bang this out I can get a couple hours of shut eye before my first class."
"Bad idea," Sam said. "A couple of hours of sleep is worse than no sleep at all."
He finished his paper at 5:22 a.m. and sat there for a moment in relief. He had done it.
All that was left was Jacky's text message.
He couldn't ask Charlie for advice – Charlie was resting their head on their arms and scrolling the internet, and the last he'd seen of Pete, he had those telltale blooms of red on his cheeks. Hopefully he had gone to bed and passed out. Despite the teams that had formed during the last study break, Ryan knew Sam had been friends with Charlie for longer and he didn't want to put her in the middle of what could be a bad situation. Ryan and Charlie had only been on a couple of dates, but Ryan knew this relationship, however new, wasn't just a fling for Charlie.
Ryan opened his phone and stared at the text message again. He stared long enough that his eyes started to slip shut and suddenly he was falling forward. He jerked awake, then stood up and closed his laptop. "I'm done. I gotta go to bed."
"Noooo, don't do it," Sam mumbled from the couch. She was sandwiched between Harper, curled up in a corner of the couch, and Jordan, spread eagle with her mouth open. Jordan was clearly asleep, and Ryan suspected Harper was as well.
Charlie just blinked at him sleepily.
"I'm doing it," Ryan said. He staggered off the stool.
"Noooo," Sam said again. This time her eyes were closed.
Ryan knew Charlie didn't live far, and the streets at this hour were full of early morning commuters. Still, Ryan had to offer. "You can share my bed, if you want. It'd be better than that gnarly armchair."
"I think Harper's bed is open," Charlie said, also standing. "But thank you."
With a nod, Ryan left them to sleep wherever they wanted. He hadn't really expected Charlie to not want to sleep with him, even if it was only for an hour and a half. His disappointment confused him. Either he wanted Charlie, or he wanted Jacky.
As he dropped into bed, he realized he just didn't want to deal with responding to Jacky's text. At least not when he was this tired. He needed to have a clear head, to think, instead of immediately trying to get back with Jacky.
Still, when he closed his eyes, he saw the words of that text on the backs of his eyelids: I was thinking about you.
---
I'm taking bets: how long until Ryan responds to Jacky's text?
