About an hour later, Amber is shitfaced and also high, Kyle is too giggly and tipsy to stop her from taking hits and Theo, two shots and half a screwdriver down and somebody who we all discover is not a fun drunk, has wrapped himself in Kyle's bisexual blanket and is sipping his screwdriver while making evil eyes at Amber.
I'm pretty much sober and finding it all pretty funny.
"You're all pussssies," Amber slurs, taking another shot. "You men are all about your dicks and how big... and how big they are, but you never - never, never, never, never - man up!"
"I don't care how big my dick is," Kyle says, causing Amber to laugh for the millionth time tonight. "You should have been born bi," he
adds, putting his head in her lap. She flicks his nose, giggling. "You should've! If you were a beautiful biromantic such as myself, you could've kissed pretty, small, giggly girls, or, or, you could kiss steady, strong, forbidden man lips-"
Theo scowls at both of them. "Shut up with all your romance talk. I've only kissed one boy and he sucked."
"Oo, who's the lucky fuck?" Amber coos, poking Kyle's dark brown freckles one by one. "Was it your Hungarian windowsill friend?"
She points at me as if she needs to, her light brown eyes even hazier than they normally would be from the drink. I look at Theo, hoping the lack of a moon will hide how much I'm blushing.
"No." Theo cranes his head, glaring at me and pouting like a child. "No, I kissed Jack. Which is why I didn't want you fucks to get me drunk!"
Amber gasps: "Holy fuck, were you on something?" at the same time that Kyle yelps: "You snogged the homophobe?"
"No," Theo snaps. "No, I got pissed and did something stupid and he outed me to the whole school." He glares around the room an all three of us. "I'm not drinking anymore."
He leans over Kyle and slams his glass down on the bedside table.
Amber looks like she's about to protest, but Kyle just nods, smiles at him drunkenly and says: "Understandable."
Theo smiles at him and Kyle smiles back. That's when I make up my mind.
"I'm not gonna puke," Amber hisses, hiccoughing and swaying a little. Kyle scrambles out of her lap and rests on the wall next to Theo, clearly aware of the danger zone.
"Yes, you are!" Kyle returns.
"No, I'm not! I can hold my drink better than you three pussies combined."
"Sure, sweetie."
"...Okay, I think I'm gonna puke."
"Told you so!"
"Fuck you!"
Amber scrambles off the bed and runs down to the hall, her hand over her mouth. Kyle sniggers and Theo and I crack grins. Mine,
however, fades quickly when I look down at Kyle and Theo and remember my resolution.
"I'll go see if she's okay," I say, sliding off the windowsill and onto the bed. "You two keep the party going while we're gone."
Kyle raises his glass like he's toasting as I pass through the door.
Walk down the hall, I tell myself. Walk down the hall and find Amber and leave them to it.
Instead, I find myself hiding on the other side of the door, listening in on their conversation.
"My parents are going to kill me," I hear Kyle say. "But you know what? Fuck it. What's the worst they can do?"
"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."
"Theo..." Kyle mumbles, twisting his ring violently. "Theo, I'm-"
But he doesn't manage to get a word in because Theo's already heading towards the door. Towards me, I realize a second too late.
I jump back but he's already seen me. I expect affection in his gaze, or something more, something like what I'm feeling. Instead, I'm met with anger.
Theo looks at me like he's hoping his gaze will set me on fire. He touches his lips, first gently, then wiping them with the back of his hand. Then he strides down the hall. I follow him, because of course I do.
When he reaches the stairs, Amber stumbles out of the bathroom. She looks between us. "What's up?"
"Nothing," Theo says in a voice clearly conveying that something is up. "Nothing. I'm going home. Tell Kyle... tell him I'm sorry." He looks over his shoulder at me. "Come on, Evan."
Ifollow, even though a part of his voice makes me want to run.
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We step outside and the cold night air is like a cruel slap to the face. Theo walks off the Thapa property and down the road a little before turning to me, his pupils black in the moonless sky.
"Explain," he hisses.
I find myself taking a step back, shocked at the fury in his tone. "Explain what?"
Theo laughs angrily. "Explain what," he repeats, stepping forward so we're face to face. "Explain the last five days. Explain why you'll barely so much as look at me anymore, why I woke up Monday morning with you on the other side of the house. Explain why you won't so much as touch me since we went to see my mum. Explain why you've lead Kyle into thinking he ever, ever had a chance with you here!"
With me here. "Well I won't be here for long, will I?" I snap, even though the last thing I want to do is fight him. "Or have you conveniently forgotten that I could vanish any second now?"
"Forgotten? Of course I haven't fucking forgotten!" He steps away from me again and pushes his hand through his hair. "Oh, so that's
it, is it? You've decided it's going to end either way, so you're just getting it over with, like I'm some magazine subscription you're quitting?"
I feel like stamping my foot. "Yes, that's exactly it. It's going to end, Theo, because that's how it always does. Kids like you call me and weave their way into my existence and then the threads are cut and I'm back to being alone again. And I won't, I won't go through that fresh pain again. In case you've forgotten, I'm a sixty-one-year-old dead guy who-"
"Oh, you're so wise," Theo snarls. "Yes, you're sixty-one years old and you totally act like it, because all sixty-one-year-olds flick paint and get in fist fights and sleep side by side with 'kids like me'. Stop creating conflicts that don't exist just because you're a coward."
My eyes prick with tears. "So you expect me – want me – to go through the pain of watching you grow up and fall in love and leave me without even knowing my name? You want me to watch you from afar every day, wishing I could lie in bed with you and watch the sunsets, wishing I could watch stupid films with you and hold your hand, while every day you walk right through me, not even remembering I exist? You want me to go through that?"
Theo opens his mouth and then closes it, looking pained. On my behalf or his, I don't know.
When he speaks again, his voice is barely a whisper. "So am I not worth it? Am I not worth the pain of losing me? Because guess what, Evan-" He takes my hand, squeezes it, then drops it like I've burned him, looking down at his shoes, "you would be worth it to me. If our roles were reversed, if I was the ghost, I would take every second of pain that would come with losing you. I would be able to if it meant that I would be able to look back on every second we spent together, every sunset and every hand hold and every paint fight and every kiss - if you would let me kiss you."
He pauses, wiping his dark eyes furiously. "You're worth it to me. You would be worth it."
I open my mouth but there's nothing I can say. It's no use, anyway, because he cuts over me before I can even think of forming words.
"But whatever," he mutters, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "You've already decided I'm not worth it. You've made your choice. So stick with it."
He turns his back on me. I start after him, put a foot forward, hold my hand out to him, hope I can fix things.
But then I blink - and when I open my eyes, the night air and the moon and Theo, Theo is gone.
I'm stood in the middle of a dark hallway, my hand outstretched for the boy who is no longer there. Moonlight shines through the window and it doesn't catch my skin.
I'm back in school. And Theo is gone, gone from me forever.