It's been a year since Clay, otherwise known as Porkchop, planned the graduation event in Newport Beach. The event where a handsome Tyler Hamilton caught Clay off guard by kissing him. Clay, up until that day, had never kissed a boy before.
At 24 ye...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I was clenching and unclenching my fists as I walked down the street. I felt comfortable in Atlanta now. With the people I'd met, the apartment I lived in, the online classes I was taking, with Clay. So it was annoying that, as I walked down Tech Boulevard, I was feeling even the slightest bit of discomfort. But I guess it made sense enough. And I was going to push that discomfort down as much as possible, because I wasn't bailing out on this, I was going to follow through and get it the hell over with.
There was a little breakfast place on the GT campus that I pushed my way into this morning. As expected, he was there, so I kept clenching and unclenching my fists until I got to where he was sitting. And then I sat down right across from him. He was in the middle of typing on his laptop, but when I sat down, he instantly looked up at me, and there was apparent surprise on his face.
Zach opened his mouth to speak, but I just wasn't gonna let him have the first word. Or really any word, at all.
"Listen," I said, "the only reason I'm even bothering with this is because if I don't, I might explode into a fiery ball of anger and hatred and fucked up emotions, and also because Alexander is my friend, no matter how stupid I think he is right now. Got it? Just nod if you got it."
Zach nodded.
"Good." I took a breath. "You are the world's biggest fucking asshole. Or, you were to me, at least, and I'm not just gonna forget about all of that cause you decided to go get with my ex, who's a really good person, who I think deserves a hell of a lot better than–"
I stopped myself. Zach was a shitty person, the shittiest, in my book, but I remembered what Clay said. Why would Alexander, an inherently good person, continue to be with Zach if he was still so bad? And maybe Zach was still the worst person in my book, but not in Alexander's. We didn't live on the same page anymore, or even the same chapter. So maybe, I didn't need to accuse him so rashly right now.
I huffed. "Whatever. You must be a better person than you were because Alexander deserves someone great, and in my world, that's not you, but in his world, you might be. So whatever. I care about him, and that's one of the reasons I'm bothering with this shit in the first place. But I'm not gonna hear you out, alright? It's gonna be the opposite. You're gonna hear me out. Sound good?"
Zach nodded again.
"I ... fucking despise you. So much. For everything you did to me, and yeah, whatever, it was a couple of years ago at this point, now. But that doesn't really matter because the things you did weren't things that someone can get over in a couple of weeks, or months, or years. They're the–the fucking huge shitty things that dig deep and stick with you. They've stuck with me like this fucking knife that's jabbing into my side, and I'm used to it now, so most of the time, I don't even feel it. But every time I reach over to pull it out, I'm reminded of how much it hurts. That's what it's like remembering the shit you did to me, all the fucked up things you did, and the pain you caused," I said.
