“Ayden goes home to her parents tomorrow,” Josiah said. “We gonna go see her?”
Carson shrugged his shoulders and opened the cupboard for the cups. He had to walk around the other man who was leaning back against the sink. His light-brown hands were gripping the edge of the counter on each side of his body. Josiah was the only thing standing in between Carson and the dishwasher that the brunet was now emptying.
“A shrug isn’t an answer,” the older man quipped.
“Sure it is. It’s a non-verbal answer. It’s used to show indifference to a situation or a question. Therefore, it’s an answer.”
Josiah rolled his eyes. “Alright that’s it,” he said as Carson maneuvered around him another time to put coffee mugs on the top shelf. “It’s been four days since we talked to Walt. I apologized for walking out, but come on, Carson. That was a lot of shit to take in.”
The brunet’s movements became stiff, but he never stopped working on the task at hand. He went back to the dishwasher, completely avoiding having to look at his boyfriend’s face.
“And I told you, I forgave you for it. I wasn’t mad, just worried about you.”
Josiah took in a heavy breath. “Why have you been so distant lately? Our conversations are just a bunch of bullshit. It’s like you don’t give a crap about me anymore.”
Carson felt a pain in his chest for a brief moment but forced it to go away. He grabbed a handful of glasses and took them back to the cupboard. When he was done, he shut the door and went to the other side, further away from Josiah, to put away the plates.
“Maybe I don’t.”
Josiah’s head snapped up and he stared straight at his boyfriend. He wasn’t sure if he was angry or hurt. Either way, he saw through the words and he didn’t believe them for a second.
“Don’t fucking say that,” he snapped.
The brunet turned to glare at him. “Why are you swearing so much? Jeez, you’re not a trucker or a pirate so cut it out.”
“Because you’re stressing me out! And when I get really stressed, I swear a lot. Fucking sue me if you don’t like it,” Josiah grumbled.
“I would, but you’re broke. You should get a job.”
Josiah laughed humorlessly. “Whatever. Why don’t you get one?”
“Fine,” Carson said, still not looking in the older man’s direction. “I will.”
That hadn’t been what Josiah wanted to hear. In fact, the entire conversation so far wasn’t what he wanted to hear. It was just more bickering, and they had both had enough of that in the last few days to last them a lifetime. He sighed.
“Why did you sleep on the couch last night?” The darker man asked.
Carson slipped and almost dropped a plate. He caught it at the last second and put it away. “I didn’t, I just got up early. I told you that this morning.”
“It’s Saturday, Carson,” Josiah stressed. “You never get up early on Saturdays and you most certainly don’t get up before me.”
“Today, I did.”
Josiah slapped his hand angrily against the counter and pushed off of it. “Stop lying! I woke up at one thirty because it was cold. You weren’t there, Carson. I saw you sleeping on the damn couch. What the hell did I do that’s got you so mad at me?”
Carson squeezed his eyes shut as he faced away from his boyfriend. It wasn’t really Josiah that he was upset with. It was himself. He hadn’t been able to stop his mind from going crazy with thoughts the last few days.
The brunet had been watching his boyfriend and best friend closely over the last week. Every time he had to see them kiss or hug or hold hands he wanted to scream. He wanted to cry every single time Josiah’s face lit up simply because Ayden was telling him something that wasn’t even funny.
Carson wanted to push it all away and not read into it. But the fact of the matter was that he knew Josiah and Ayden had chemistry. How do people date for over a year and not have it? With all the history those two had, Carson knew they made a great couple. He just didn’t want to be in the way of it anymore.
He was pissed at himself for ever starting anything with Josiah in the first place. There had to be some kind of code he was breaking here--girl code, bro code, gay best friend code...something. You don’t date your best friend’s boyfriend while they are still dating. And you definitely shouldn’t do it while your best friend is on the verge of death.
Everything was getting to him lately. He wanted what was best for both of his friends. Which was why he had to do what he was about to. It had taken a lot of hard thinking and it pained him, but he didn't want to ruin what Josiah and Ayden could have if he just let them be.
"I think we should take a break," Carson said. He let his indigo eyes bore into his friend's. His voice was calm and devoid of emotion.
Josiah froze for a moment, letting his brain catch up to what was hitting his ears. He shook his head and narrowed his eyes. "We're already on a break, remember?"
"Fine, then we should break up."
Josiah's mouth popped open in surprise. "What? Why? No!"
"I just can't do it anymore. I'm done, okay?"
Josiah shook his head a bit frantically. “No. No, I am not okay with that.” He stepped around the open dishwasher and got close to the younger man. “Why would you say that?”
The brunet backed up as much as he could and turned his head away. “Joe, just stop. We’re d--”
The darker man moved close again and grabbed Carson’s wrists just firmly enough to keep him from running away. “You stop. Talk to me! Is this about Ayden? Is it about how I’ve had to pretend like nothing has changed?”
Carson closed his eyes and shook his head. “No.”
Josiah’s eyes softened and his tone grew quiet and desperate. “I’ll stop. I promise. I’ll tell her everything and I’ll break up with her, I swear. Just please don’t do this, Carson. I want to be with you because I love you.”
“That’s not what I want,” the brunet said firmly. “I don’t want you to tell her. She will hate us and I don’t want that.”
“Then what do you want?” Josiah asked, nearly in hysterics. He was panicking and he knew it, but he couldn’t stop it; not when he was so close to losing the person he loved. “Please, tell me.”
Carson swallowed the lump in his throat and forced his expression back to neutral. This was already hard enough, and he knew that if he burst into tears it would get them nowhere. Well, actually, it would get Josiah exactly what he wanted because Carson would surely cave. But the brunet knew that the older man being with Ayden was better in the long run.
The brunet shook the hands off of his wrists. Keeping his voice steady, he said, “I want to break up with you. I told you, we’re done."
Josiah shook his head, curls flying around. “You don’t mean it.”
Carson sighed and eyed his friend carefully as he went back to the dishwasher. This conversation was bad enough that he needed to do something in order to keep from blowing up. He wished that Josiah would let it go.
“I do,” the younger man said.
Josiah licked his lips, thinking for a moment. Then he said, “Tell me you don’t love me, and I’ll let you go.”
“What?”
“Yeah, you heard me right,” Josiah said slowly. “I’ll leave you alone. Tell me you don’t want to be with me--that you hate me, and I’ll back off. But if you can’t do that, then I’m not going anywhere. Because I’m so in love with you it’s maddening, Carson. I don’t want to end things with you. I want to be with you for years and years.” He paused and walked back over to Carson on the other side of the kitchen. He stood in front of him and said, “So please just tell me what it is you actually want. I don’t want the lies, I want the truth so we can get this all figured out.”
Carson stared up at Josiah, speechless for a few moments. He hadn’t expected the other man to say things that...intense. It caught him off guard and that had him worried. He steeled himself and looked into the face of the man he loved so much he was willing to lose forever. He forced a hard glint into his bright blue eyes and gritted his teeth together.
“I don’t fucking want you anymore,” the brunet hissed slowly, making sure to enunciate every word. “We are through. I’m sick of you and all of this. We’re breaking up and I’m moving out.”
Josiah paled as the younger man spoke to him. Each word was like a knife in the chest or a punch to the gut. It hurt just to hear the words, but to know the meaning and feel the animosity behind them only made it that much worse.
The darker man blinked rapidly and licked his lips. He ran a shaky hand over his face and then back through his curls. “Fine,” he breathed. “If that’s what you want, then fine.” He pushed passed Carson and headed towards his room. Over his shoulder he called, “And you can sleep on the fucking couch until you leave!”
Three seconds later the bedroom door was being slammed shut, the noise reverberating all through the apartment and in both of the men’s ears. As Carson slammed the dishwasher door up and yelled out a few curse words in the kitchen, Josiah was stomping around his bedroom and throwing anything unbreakable onto the floor.
They were both distraught and not for dissimilar reasons. Because they knew what the sound of that door slamming shut meant. It was the sound of the end of a year-long friendship and a month-long chaotic relationship. But more than that, it was the sound of both of them losing their minds.
*
Carson spent the night packing up everything that was his. It was proven a little difficult since half of his things were in the bedroom that Josiah had so graciously locked himself inside of. It took five texts to get him to lock himself in the bathroom for a half hour instead so that Carson could retrieve all of his things.
By the time the brunet was done, he was wore out from all of the emotional stress he had been enduring for the last almost four months. He laid down on the couch with a meager pillow and throw blanket and was out within five minutes.
When Josiah woke up in the morning he tiptoed out of his bedroom and saw that Carson was still fast asleep on the couch. He was laying on his stomach and breathing so heavily that Josiah knew the younger man was definitely out. When the twenty-one year old looked over towards the door and saw everything Carson had piled up there, he felt sadness and regret pulsing through his veins all over again. He didn’t want him to go.
Josiah went back to his room to get ready for the day. He didn’t actually have any set plans, but he knew he was getting out of his apartment. It was one thing to see Carson while the guy was sleeping, but to have to face him and talk to him--or in their case, probably not talk and do a lot of glaring--was a completely different thing. Either way, it was a thing that Josiah wanted to avoid all together.
It was ten in the morning when Josiah finally left, and Carson was still sleeping as soundly as a baby. Josiah made his way down to the parking lot and went right over to his car. The sun was beating down on him, and the fact that his car was black wasn’t helping the heat, so the first thing he did when he got his car on was to crank the air conditioning.
While the older man stood outside, kicking the gravel around, and waiting for his car to cool down he decided to take the day to spend with Ayden and her family. She was finally getting to go home that day, so he figured he might as well help out and spend some time with her. After all, just because he didn’t want to date her anymore didn’t mean that he didn’t still care about her or want to be around her.
As Josiah eventually got into his car and started to drive north, Carson was just starting to stir from his dreamless sleep in the living room. The brunet rolled over and sat up, rubbing sleep from his eyes. He blinked and looked around, seeing nothing but blurry shapes. He slumped against the back of the couch for a minute, letting his eyes adjust to being open after a long night of sleep.
When Carson could finally see clearly again, the first thing he noticed was that Josiah’s bedroom door was wide open. The brunet quickly glanced around to try and locate the man, but he saw no one and he heard no sounds of another person being in the apartment.
Figuring Josiah had left since he was nowhere in sight, Carson raised his arms above his head and then laced his fingers behind his neck, stretching out the muscles. He groaned quietly at the relieved tension in his back and yawned, getting to his feet. As he made his way to the bathroom, Carson realized that he was right; he was home alone.
After finishing up in the bathroom, Carson went back out to the living room and retrieved his phone from where it sat on the coffee table. There were no missed calls or any texts. He fell back down onto the couch and searched his contacts for his mother.
He had to call his mom twice because for some reason she didn’t answer the first time and it went to voicemail. When she did answer, she said, “Hello?”
“What are you doing? You didn’t answer the first time,” Carson said.
“Oh,” Faith said, “Well, your father and I--”
“Okay, stop right there, I don’t need to know.”
Faith huffed, “Don’t be such a prude, Carson. Besides, we were just finishing up the breakfast dishes.”
Carson chuckled and smirked. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”
“Yes,” Faith said. “Anyway, what did you call for?”
“Can you or dad or both come pick me up from Josiah’s today?” Carson said, getting straight to the point. “I’m moving out and I was hoping I could come home for the summer until I can get a new dorm assignment for next year.”
Faith hesitated. “Uh, sure sweetie, we don’t have any plans. Are you two okay?”
“Yeah,” Carson said, keeping the emotion out of his voice. “I just don’t wanna talk about it. So what time can I expect you guys to be here?”
“I’ll have your father clean the truck out and then we’ll be on our way. Sound good, sweetie?”
Carson nodded. “Yeah, thanks mom. Love you.”
A few seconds later Faith hung up and Carson smiled sadly as he looked around the apartment. If there was anybody he could always depend on, it was his parents. And he was eternally grateful for them in that moment.