"Why are you hiding alone in the closet, weirdo?" James asks, crawling in the tight space to join the curly-haired boy. Brad frowns at the seventeen-year-old's intrusive presence, wondering what's so hard to understand about 'I'm fine, you can go home.'
"I'm not alone," Brad disagrees, running a hand through his dog's golden fur. "Jesse is with me."
James closes the door behind himself and plops down beside him. It's strange being behind a closed door due to Brad's unbearable lack of privacy for eight months. Open doors are all he's been surrounded by. It hasn't dawned on him until now how much he misses being able to close his door and lock it whenever he walks into a bedroom, or closing and locking the door behind himself whenever he heads to the toilet.
"Is this really what you do every time you're sad?" he questions, allowing Jesse to sniff his hand. "Just sit in your closet with your dog?"
"Most times," the sixteen-year-old honestly replies. If he were still the insanely self-conscious boy he was before, he would've been too afraid to admit that to anyone, but Brad doesn't really care about anyone's opinion on him right now.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Brad shrugs in response, not wanting to bother anyone with his stupid problems. Especially James. He's not oblivious to how he feels about him, just like how everyone else feels about him. It's obvious he's a dick in any breathing soul's opinion, and it most likely wouldn't surprise James that he fucked everything up between Tristan and him, ruining any chances between the two boys.
But isn't this what I wanted? Brad questions himself. He remembers wanting so badly to rid himself of any attachments, convinced it'd make life easier for him. And in the scenarios in his head, Brad always walked away from the blond, feeling like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. But when the scene actually played out, Tristan had been the one to walk away, and Brad only left the medical center feeling like an extra weight had been harshly dropped on top of him.
He doesn't know how he's supposed to make any of this better, and he doesn't know if he should make it better, anyway. Maybe Tristan's just better off without him.
"I fuck everything up," Brad mumbles, burying his face in Jesse's fur. "I make terrible decisions that I think are better for me without thinking how it'll affect other people, and then everything turns out shit."
"I'm sorry," James apologises after a period of silence.
"It's not your fault." It's mine, he thinks, tears filling his eyes as he replays everything he'd said to Tristan two hours ago. Brad doesn't understand why this hurts so bad. A person shouldn't have the power to make someone feel this pathetic and empty. Tristan shouldn't even be on his mind, and his opinions shouldn't hurt him. He wishes he could be the boy he was before he entered the medical center. The emotionless and simple boy who wanted no attachments, and only cared about returning to his real life. Now there's so many confusing emotions inside of him, so many new parts of him he doesn't understand, and they're all fighting against each other. Brad's so frustrated with himself.
"I don't know what to say," James admits.
"It's okay, I don't want you to say anything." The sixteen-year-old wishes James'll leave before he starts crying. He hates crying, especially in front of people, but he doesn't know how to kindly tell him to leave. "Hey," he says, pulling his face away from Jesse, "I know something you can do for me."
The older boy kind of seems relieved. "What is it?"
"Ask my mum or dad for painkillers," he instructs. "Or a heating pad. Wait, ask her for painkillers and a heating pad."
"Okay." James nods and crawls out of the closet, pushing the door closed again behind him. As soon as he's gone, Brad buries his face back into Jesse's fur and allows the tears he's been holding back since he left the visiting room fall. He feels pathetic, crying two days in a row, and it makes him cry harder. He's tired of crying and being angry every waking minute. Why is it so difficult to be happy? he wonders. Real happiness has been so rare to find for too long, and whenever he feels like he's found it, he ends up running it away.
"I ran away my only chance at happiness," Brad quietly vents to Jesse. "I do this all the time. I'm a - I'm a t-terrible person."
A lump forms in his throat after the same words Tristan said to him a few hours ago escape his own lips. They sting just the same as when the seventeen-year-old told him. Maybe worse, he's not sure. All he knows is it hurts, because it's true. And saying that out loud is the most truth that's came out of his mouth since he started his diet.
"Miss Lillian was right. I'm a self-centered, moody liar," he mumbles. He's not sure where that came from, but after contemplating the sentence, he realises that's true also. "I'm a dick," the sixteen-year-old adds, wiping his face on the back of his hand. "I'm a dick and a terrible person, and maybe that's why no one can stand me. Maybe that's why I'll never be happy -"
"Brad," he hears James call him from outside the closet door. The curly-haired boy quickly dries his face on the sleeves of his jumper and attempts smoothing out the matted, wet patch he created on his dog's fur. James pulls the door open, a bottle of painkillers, water, a red heating pad, and a protein bar in his hands. "You okay?" he asks, eyeing Brad's face.
Brad honestly shakes his head. James plops down beside him and extends the protein bar to him. "I'm not hungry," the younger boy automatically says.
"I know." James laughs. "Your mum handed it to me, and I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do with it."
"She probably wanted you to give it to me," Brad assumes, shrugging and dropping the bar in an empty shoebox. "Thanks for bringing me all this, though."
"No problem."
Brad forces a smile and downs two painkillers with the bottle of water before ripping open the heating pad. "Hey, James?"
"If you tell me to get up again, I'm slapping you."
"No." Brad laughs and pulls Jesse off his lap as he straps the red heating pad around his leg. "It's just - I want to change myself."
"Like, how?"
"I want to be nicer," he sheepishly explains, looking down at his lap. "But I'm afraid it's too late."
James shakes his head. "Time is endless." Brad stares at him blankly before he rolls his blue eyes and says: "It's never too late."
. . .
The curly-haired boy settles on a wooden bench near the school's entrance, searching for one person in the crowd of chatty students excitedly spilling out onto the staircase. He doesn't quite understand why he's doing this, and he doesn't know how well it's going to turn out, but it's worth a shot. Brad woke up this morning prepared to start over, even though it's a Thursday and he's surrounded by the same faces he saw yesterday. But ever since he sunk out for his morning run, he's felt so refreshed, and it gave him enough time to think about life and himself and Tristan. Mostly Tristan. But there's not a lot Brad can do about his situation with the seventeen-year-old at the moment, according to their unfortunate situation with the older boy in a medical center and all. And anyway, Brad has no contact with him. Even if Tristan was released any time soon, there's no way of him knowing.
Anxiety twists in his stomach as he spots the boy he's been waiting for, surrounded by his large group of friends. He gulps and jumps up from the bench, readjusting his tie before jogging towards the group of teenagers, anxiously tucking his tie back into his jumper. As soon as he approaches them, they all pause and look at him weirdly, like he's an alien just arriving to earth.
"I - uh. Hi, Jack," Brad pathetically greets. He tries looking at him, but he silently panics and redirects his eyes towards the tie he's wearing, identical to his.
"Um, hi?" Jack questions. He glances around at his group of friends, confused, somehow causing them to burst out into laughter.
Wiping his sweaty hands on his jumper, Brad quickly asks: "Can we talk?"
"I'm not interested anymore, man," he quickly replies. His friends laugh again causing Brad to feel pathetic. He wishes he could find the humour in this, too.
He nervously shakes up his hair. "I wasn't going to ask about that. I just wanted to talk to you about something -"
"Hey, didn't I tell you to get out of my life a few months ago?"
Brad pauses, taken a back. He's not sure how he's supposed to reply to that. How does he expect him to reply? "I - um."
"What part of that did you not understand?" his ex-boyfriend suddenly snaps. Brad jumps, widening his eyes at the tone of his voice. He expected a lot of things to come out of this, but he never expected him to get upset. He thought he was over being angry, and all he cared about was making Brad miserable. But apparently that's not entirely true.
The curly-haired boy attempts uttering out something else that doesn't make him seem any more pathetic than he already seems, but the lump in his throat keeps him quiet.
"Listen," Jack says, slowly and carefully, like Brad's a confused, little child, "fuck off."
"I - um."
"Why are you still here? Is loss of hearing a side effect of anorexia?"
Unwanted tears fill Brad's eyes, and he wants to hit himself for wanting to cry over every little thing. He used to be so well with holding back his emotions and forcing himself to feel nothing. He suddenly hates his parents all over again for sending him to the medical center.
"Seriously, Ana Boy, don't you understand English? Leave!" And then he shoves Brad in the chest, hard, sending his body flying into someone.
One of Jack's friends catch him, laughing at the smaller boy. "I don't think he does," he comments before Brad feels himself being roughly shoved again.
His backpack flies off his back and hits the grass as he stumbles into someone else who only shoves him back into the little circle they formed, and all he can hear is laughter as he's pushed around the group back and forth, the world spinning in a blur of smiling faces before he's tripping and his face plants into the frosted grass.
Brad just lies there, listening to the sound of his heavy breathing as they walk away, leaving him lying on the ground, alone. He wonders how he could've ever thought this would be a good idea. He wonders how he could've ever thought he could manage to get anyone to like him again. He's annoying and self-centered and an asshole and a liar and the list just goes on and on. No one wants to surround themselves around someone like that, even if the sixteen-year-old becomes a better person, people will still be repulsed by him.
Sucking in a breath, he peels himself from the ground and pulls himself onto his Converse, brushing off his uniform. Don't cry, Brad reminds himself, repeating the words he told himself when people decided that he wasn't "cool enough" to hang around anymore. And remember to breathe.
Brad forces himself to run to the park, even though he feels too drained to run and his legs still burn from Wednesday despite the heating pad he's still wearing and the painkillers. He convinces himself it'll make him feel better, and he can easily outrun his embarrassment just like everything else (and when he gets to the park, he just ignores the fact he doesn't feel any better than before.)
James's car is already waiting for him, and a small part of him is thankful that he doesn't have the chance to run around the park like he planned. He slides into the backseat, noticing the older boy invited Connor along with them again, and roughly neglects his backpack, slamming the car door closed.
"Bad day again?" James asks.
"I don't want to talk about it," Brad quickly says. "Let's just buy a sub so I can go home."
"Um, okay," the older boy mumbles before pulling out of the park and heading towards the direction of the closest deli shop.
When Brad gets home he feels like crawling back into his closet and crying until there's enough tears to drown himself in. But when he makes it to his bedroom, he pulls the memoir Tristan gave him off his desk and crawls into his closet instead. He quietly closes the door behind Jesse and lies down on the carpeted floor, propping his head up with a sleeping bag and flipping to the first page Jack interrupted him on on Tuesday.
As he sits there, his reading pace quickening with each page, he loses track of time and only pays attention to finishing the graphic novel. He's not sure how long he's been inside of the closet before there's a knock on the door causing him to jump and lose his grip on the graphic novel.
"Brad?" The sixteen-year-old pushes the door open to his dad, suspiciously glancing around the closet, like he's searching for a freaking treadmill or something. "You okay?"
"Yeah...?" he slowly replies, looking down at the carpeted floor where his book had fallen. It's flipped to the last page. Brad furrows his eyebrows, noticing there's handwriting all over it.
"Just making sure," his dad says after confirming that Brad's not trying to figure out a way to lose weight behind his parents' backs.
Brad rolls his eyes and picks up the graphic novel. "Could you leave me alone right now? I'll keep the door open."
His dad distrustfully scans his eyes around his son's closet again and nods his head. "Okay, yeah, that's fine."
It still takes forever for him to finally get his dad to leave. As soon as he's positive his dad made it to his own room, he glances back down at his lap to inspect the last page of the graphic novel. In Tristan's familiar, sloppy handwriting it says: I'm going to miss you so much (but you have to call me or I'll haunt you down.) Brad's chest tightens at the sentence and his brown eyes travel down to the numbers beneath it.
Tristan's number.
Brad's had a link to Tristan for nearly three weeks and he hadn't even realised it. How did he not realise that he'd written his number?
But it doesn't matter, Brad reminds himself. Tristan hates you, and he's most likely still in the medical center.
The sixteen-year-old lets out a sigh, hating the universe for making his life so unfortunate. He scans his eyes over the page again and pauses, noticing the 'to brad' on it in capital, swirly letters. The same capital, swirly letters that said his smile could bring world peace. Brad stomach churns. He knows his smile could never do that, but he wonders how he could hurt someone that says that about him, and he wonders if Tristan even still thinks that about him.
Screaming out of frustration, he throws the graphic book to the wall causing Jesse to run at full speed out of the closet. He blinks away the tears filling his eyes and pulls his legs to his chest. Stupid, he says to himself. You're so fucking stupid.
Why does he have to be so heartless and inconsiderate when it comes to everyone else's feelings? Why did he think running away someone as perfect as Tristan Evans from him was a good idea? Why did he think running away someone who always puts everyone else before himself would be better for him? Why couldn't he have been more like Tristan and think about how he'd feel about this? Why does he have to be so afraid of everything and push everyone that cares about him away and think it'd be better for him? Why does he never think what'll be better for someone else?
I hate me, Brad decides, surprising himself by his words. Suddenly he feels like the little friendless, insecure boy he was after Jack broke up with him. As he thinks about it, this is the exact position he sat in after his ex-boyfriend ended things in front of everyone. This is the exact place he hid with the closet door closed. The exact place he was sitting, hungry, because he lied to his parents and said he'd already eaten dinner at the party.
I hate me. I hate me. I hate me.
Pulling himself onto his hands and knees, he takes the graphic novel into his hand and pathetically crawls out of the closet to his nightstand where he'd carelessly thrown his phone when he entered his bedroom. He doesn't really understand what he's doing, but he needs to talk to him, even if there's a chance he won't answer.
He sucks in a breath after he quickly types in his passcode before going to dial his number into his phone. He stares blankly at his number, wondering if he really wants to do this, and wondering if he really is doing this. He's sure it's going to turn out shit or he's going to either be sent to voicemail, but he presses call, anyway.
Bringing his phone to his ear, he crawls back into the closet and pulls his legs to his chest, listening to it ring. He nervously nibbles on his bottom lip, each ring bringing him closer to hearing his voice or maybe not. Brad closes his eyes, deciding to count them. On the third ring, he just accepts no one's going to answer and he pulls it away from his face, ready to end the call until he hears his voice.
"Hello?"
Brad pauses, staring wide-eyed at the phone in his hand. He brings it to his ear again, wondering what he's supposed to say to him. There's just so much.
"Helloooo?" Tristan repeats, dragging out the last syllable.
Before Brad has a chance to force himself to say anything, he pulls the phone away from his ear and anxiously hangs up.
. . .
this sucks oops?? i've been just inexplicably sad this whole week and i know that's not an excuse but whatever i'm really sorry. hopefully next chapter will be better :/ (and i also apologise for the extreme lack of tradley ugh pls bear with me i'm trying my best to make this story not terrible oH and i didn't proofread this oops !)