Goodbye, Evan

20

"Stop you from talking to us," Theo returns, still sounding drunk.

"Nah, they're not about that," Kyle says. "Plus, they already adore Amber and I can tell they like you, too."

"What about Evan?"

The way my name sounds coming from him makes me shiver and want to step into the room and hold him close and-

I stay put. It's the best I can do, considering I should be really far away from here.

"Sorry. Yes. Evan too. Sorry. God, I must be drunk as fuck if I'm forgetting entire people."

"It's not your fault." Theo sighs, then laughs lightly. "Plus, you're not half as drunk as Amber. I wouldn't be surprised if she forgot her own name by the end of tonight."

Kyle sniggers, obviously finding everything ten times funnier while intoxicated. When he speaks again, however, he sounds the soberest he has since we started drinking. "You know, I'm glad we're friends now, Theo."

I can't resist; I peek around the door. Kyle and Theo are sitting opposite one another, looking in each other's eyes like they're trying to the other's pupils. I feel a twist in my gut, one that makes it very hard to stay where I am.

"Why?"

Kyle laughs, pulling the tricoloured blanket over Theo's head and subsequently flattening his curls. Theo grins, shaking his head a little but not enough to shift the blanket.

"Well, I've liked you since probably the end of year ten, when I joined the school. When I sat down next to you in English class and you looked at me like you didn't know where you were because you were so lost in your own thoughts. And then you went back to writing

Troye Sivan lyrics on your textbook because you obviously had no idea how to talk to people."

Theo laughs, then frowns in that way he does where he's taking a second to figure out what you just said. "So, by 'like' do you mean

platonic like, or, like, like like-"

Kyle laughs, fiddling with the ring in his lip. He looks at Theo sideways. "What are you, six?"

Then he wraps his hands around Theo's neck - Theo doesn't move, doesn't push him away, just looks at him with wide eyes - and

leans forward and closes the gap between them and kisses him.

And this was what I wanted, and this was my plan, but no amount of preparation and letting go and forcing distance between us could've prepared me for the pain I'm feeling now as I see another boy's lips pressed against Theo's.

(It isn't me, it isn't me, it isn't me.)

Theo closes his eyes. He kisses him back. (It isn't me and it hurts so fucking bad.) But it's just for a second, because now he's opening his eyes and he's pushing Kyle away gently and he says a word, he says a word that fills me with such relief that I actually stumble.

"Evan," he mutters, breathless.

Kyle opens his eyes and his face seems to crumple in on itself with confusion and hurt. And even though I do genuinely like Kyle and

I've been trying to set them up for a while, I feel an awful, cruel surge of joy.

"I... I'm sorry," the other boy says. He touches his lips, looking up at Theo with wide eyes. "I... I didn't know-" Theo stands up and the blanket falls to the floor. "I'm sorry. I should go."