The Damage Of Denial

Chapter 3

~The night before classes begin (10 weeks before the prologue)~

    The four boys were hanging out in Ryan and Spencer's room playing Xbox. They'd started with Call of Duty, and had moved on to Fallout. Currently, Ryan and Brendon were kicked back on the two beds, watching Jon and Spencer play, and talking shit to them about how bad they were.

  Their little group had become fast friends. They were all into so many of the same things, especially music. They all had a deep love and appreciation for music, and enjoyed debating the finer points of bands they were really into, like Radiohead and Smashing Pumpkins. Brendon would get especially passionate in his arguments, since he was a music major and all.

  Ryan and Brendon seemed to really hit it off. Despite having very different personalities, they got along amazingly, and constantly made each other laugh. Ryan appreciated the immense musical talent he'd found out Brendon possessed: he could play multiple instruments and had an amazing singing voice. Brendon thought Ryan's gift with words and metaphors was extremely clever. They just instantly had an easy friendship.

  Unfortunately for Ryan, this wasn't helping the highly inconvenient crush he was developing on Brendon. No one else knew about it, and Ryan would take the information to the grave if he could. No one else needed to know that Ryan thought Brendon was handsome, funny, sweet, smart, talented, and sexy...basically, the total package. If Brendon had been a girl, he would have been perfect. Except for the part where Ryan wasn't at all attracted to girls...

  So Brendon plagued Ryan's thoughts even more. And in the last couple of days, Brendon had begun to make his way into Ryan's dreams.  It was nothing specific so far, but when Ryan woke the last couple of mornings, he felt a distinct sense of unease in his belly, knowing that Brendon was there in his subconscious.

  "Ry?...RYAN!" Ryan snapped back to reality. Brendon had apparently been calling to him.

  Ryan chuckled. "Sorry, Bren. I spaced out!"

  Brendon laughed. "I can see that! I asked if you want to come down to our room with me. I'm gonna go watch some Netflix."

  "Oh yeah? What are you gonna watch?" Ryan asked.

  "Queer Eye!" Brendon enthused. "It's like my favorite show and the new season is out."

  Ryan furrowed his brow. "Queer Eye? What's that? Never heard of it."

  Brendon stared incredulously at Ryan. "Are you serious?? You're missing out! So it's like these 5 gay men. And they are like life experts in all these different areas like fashion, food, interior design. And people nominate other people who need a pick-me-up in their life, so these five dudes come to help them better their lives. All the guys are so sweet, and a few of them are super hot too!"

  Ryan stared blankly back at Brendon. "You...think the guys that run the show are hot?"

  Brendon blinked, and looked back at Ryan, puzzled. "Uh, yeah...why wouldn't I?"

  Ryan shrugged. "I just...I didn't know you looked at guys that way."

  Brendon frowned a little. "Um, yeah? Did you not know that I'm gay?"

  Ryan felt himself pale a little. "Oh! No, I didn't know that." Ryan felt super uncomfortable now.

  Brendon frowned more deeply. "That's not gonna be a problem for you is it?"

  Ryan shook his head quickly, and noticed that both Spencer and Jon were watching them. "Oh no, Brendon, of course not!"

  Finally, Brendon smiled again. "Ok, cool. Sorry, I thought you knew! It's nothing I hide or keep secret. I just forget that not everyone around here knows. By senior year of high school, everyone there knew, so I guess I'm still operating like everyone else does too. So do you wanna come watch with me? You might like it!"