The ceiling light painfully burned clarity back into my eyes like the sun burning through a thick fog that had set early in a spring morning. I sat there, with two boys staring at me in a foreign room. My blurry vision allowed me to barely make out a Phillies poster hanging next to a desk with a MacBook laying neatly closed.
"Hey buddy," Finn whispered, soothingly. At first, my forehead felt cold, but I couldn't tell what from. Slowly as I regained my senses, I could feel a weight on my forehead, ice. But that wasn't the only feeling, just as I could feel the weight of ice pressing against my forehead, a painful thumping sensation bore through every sense that had come back to me.
"Hey, I hope none of you had to kiss me or some shit," I said trying to push past the pain. I held the cold pack on my forehead and tried sitting up which caused Jaeden and Finn to freak out. They gently helped me back down onto the bed.
"No, you should lay down," Jaeden said with a seriousness in his voice.
"Okay, doctor OZ" I quipped with a bit of frustration. "What happened, anyway?"
"Well, you fell, hard. Did you eat anything today?" Finn said pushing the hair away from my forehead. He looked at me with sweet eyes. They looked at me so focused that Jaeden could literally die and he wouldn't even notice.
I was starting to eat less and less because I wanted to lose weight for Finn. I was thin, but not as thin as him. He would always tell me that he loved the way tummy looked, but to be honest, I hated it. I hated that whenever he would cuddle with me, I would hate every second he rubbed my stomach. Even though at the same time I loved it. I just wanted him to be able to feel abs or something, something we could be proud of.
"No, I forgot to," I said with my vision finally focusing. Jaeden was wearing Pajamas already, and Finn had this cute little beanie on now pushing his brown curly hair out and around the bottom of his beanie. I reached for a strand to touch it, but I completely missed, my vision might have been clear, but I was not accurate, yet.
Wyatt walked in with four sandwiches that he made with ham, mayo, cheese, and lettuce. I felt my stomach growl and rumble as he got closer. The monster in my tummy was hungry, but I couldn't feed it. I shouldn't feed it.
"If you keep forgetting to eat you're going to kill yourself," Finn said grabbing the sandwich and handing it to me. "I've noticed that you've stopped eating as much since we..." Finn looked around remembering that we had an audience. Jaeden's eyes widened as he noticed Finn choked up. I wondered what he thought since he just stared at us like we committed a crime and got away with it.
"Since what?" Jaeden smiled, he now had something to tease us about, he just didn't know what yet. Finn wouldn't say anything, and I didn't know what he was talking about either which kind of scared me because if we did it and I don't remember....well....fuck.
"Wait I'm in his boat. I have no idea what you're talking about" I asked as confused as Jaeden. Shit, did we do something I didn't even know about?
"Jack, remember when I sent you that..." he said trying to jog my memory. Wyatt was on his gaming laptop playing something called OverWatch. He had a fancy headset and mouse that lit up when you clicked it. He mumbled something to players over the internet, commanding them to attack there and defend to the right.
"I don't remember." I plainly said. Jaeden's smirk widened as we got closer to the truth.
"Fuck, really babe? Are you seriously going to make me say this out loud?" He paused, and I nodded wanting him to say it out loud. Jaedens smile was almost creeping off of his face by now. Finn noticed Jaeden's grin which caused him to take in a deep breath hoping to find the courage to say whatever we did in front of Jaeden, "Since I sent you that shirtless picture you've stopped eating as much."
My eyes widened in embarrassment. I couldn't believe I forced Finn to say that. I mean it wasn't a big deal, but given the circumstances we were in with Jaeden, it was best to keep conversations like this to a minimum. Jaeden, on the other hand, must have been doing somersaults in his head because he spit out air like a person spitting out coffee after learning that their 34-year-old boss has a secret collection of Spiderman underwear.
"I'm so sorry my head is just pounding, I just didn't remem-" I said before he cut me off.
"It's okay, Jack, just make sure you eat that," he said pointing to my sandwich. I gave him a look of agreement and took a bite. "Just, don't stop eating okay?"
It's true after he sent me the picture I began to look at myself differently, even worse than I ever had before. I loved him, all of him, but couldn't see how he could love all of me. He likes to take me out to eat a lot, which I love because I enjoy spending time with him, but every bite I take feels like it's another pound of fat being scooped into my body. I can feel my body morphing as I move the two or three leaves of salad into my mouth, and I sit there pretending I'm okay except on the inside I'm freaking out because I'm so fucking fat and I don't want him to hate my body.
And I hate when he looks at me and checks me out because that means he's looking at my fat thighs and my man boobs, though he says I don't have boobs. But our fans on Instagram, a couple of days before, made a couple jokes about how their boobs weren't as big as mine on our lake picture we posted together. Shit like that hurts.
And at the same time, I don't want him to look at anyone else; I love it when he tells me how handsome I am. I love feeling his arms wrap around me but I hate knowing that he's feeling the fat that I and everyone else despise so much.
"You're not fat okay?" Finn said pulling me from the thoughts that had begun to make my chest sink into the mattress. He looked at me and added, "You're so, so cute, adorable and handsome. Right Jaeden?" Finn looked up at Jaeden
Jaeden who was quietly listening behind him was shocked back into reality after Finn hit his leg, "Oh yeah, you're so handsome. I love all of you too." He said as quickly as possible
Finn turned around and said, "All of him?" furrowing his eyebrows. That must have been too far for Finn's liking.
"Yeah? all of him?" Wyatt added as he returned to the conversation. But, something was weird: Why would Wyatt care that Jaeden liked all of me?
"Wait, why do you care?" I asked Wyatt, moving on from everything else that was said.
"uhhhh....I-I ummm-I don't" Wyatt was astonished, for some reason this flustered him. Jaeden turned red, but not because he was blushing. He was mad. Something was going on, and Finn and I had no fucking idea what we were in the middle of.
"Ok," Jaeden said shaking his head, angry. It was as if he were a radio that was receiving a signal that we weren't aware of. Finn tightly gripped my basketball shorts in an effort to say, get a load of this without verbally saying it. "You fucking asshole."
"Woah, what?" Wyatt sat there in complete confusion, "What the fuck, Jaeden?"
"You should care about things like that," Jaeden said walking towards his door while sucking in a sob. "...you should fucking care about shit like that."
"Jaeden you know I care--" Wyatt said as Jaeden tripped over a skateboard that was lodged halfway underneath the part of Jaeden's bed nearest the door. He hit the ground on his elbows and knees, seething in pain, "Urrrrggggghhhh" Seeing his whole body flail in midair as he fought for control was scary. For a moment it looked like he was going to hit his head on the door or the side of the cabinet just shy of the door.
By the time he was on the ground holding his right elbow in pain, Wyatt had already run by him grabbing an ice pack from the fridge. Finn knelt next to him and asked if he was okay. I tried getting up, but as if Jaeden's pain stopped and everything was alright both Jaeden and Finn yelled, "NO!" signaling for me to lay back down.
"Fuck" I mumbled while feeling very unhelpful. Finn was careful with Jaeden, rubbing his back and asking if he needed anything. Jaeden had been crying, and I'm not sure that it was from the pain of hitting his knees and elbows directly on the hardwood floor. Finn whispered something else in his ear, and Jaeden started crying even more, and I just sat there useless.
Wyatt came back with four ice packs and some dish towels which he used to secure the ice packs to his elbows and knees. Jaeden looked like a 6-year-old kid learning to skateboard for the first time, except instead of pads the kid would be sporting black pads.
Wyatt kneeled down next to Jaeden, grabbing his hand, caressing it with both of his hands like one would do when they were grabbing their girlfriend's hand. Their girlfriend's hand. Then everything fell into place. They were...dating? Finn looked back at me noticing the way Wyatt holding his hand.
Finn retreated onto the bed next to me. "Are you seeing what I am right now?" He whispered unable to keep from looking at them.
My jaw was on the floor. I couldn't stop looking either, "yes." I whispered. For some reason, I felt jealous, really jealous. I think this is what Jaeden felt. Now I know why he was so hurt. I hated seeing him with someone else, but I also was happy for him at the same time. I started to cry, and a couple of tears ran down my face.
Finn noticed, "What's wrong?"
"I have a fucking headache it hurts to bad." I lied. I just didn't want him to know that I was jealous. My jealousy must've been hiding deep inside me, so far that I had lost it and forgot about it. Now it returned all at once, and it hurt, it burned and smoldered inside me as I sat next to my extinguisher, the person who was supposed to keep that jealousy in check because he was supposed to be the only person I got jealous over.
Finn kissed my cheek, "we can go home ya know? Mom won't care if you spend the night again." which helped pull me back from getting lost in the depths of my mind. I hated that in that moment of weakness, complete jealousy had control over my thoughts. I forgot about the most beautiful human being in my life. Jealous sucked everything good from my memory and left me with the shit.
I loved Jaeden, but I loved Finn more. I knew that, but for a moment I had forgotten about the metaphorical map of Finn I spent weeks drawing. I forgot about all of his roads and lakes and rivers and my secret little paper towns. I forgot about how the red in his cheeks would overheat when things were cold out and the way his white teeth would shine brightly behind his red lips. I forgot about the way he would hold my coat for me when I got hot and always make me smile when I was sad. I forgot about him all because I was jealous. I wanted to punish myself forever betraying Finn like that.
"It's fine babe. It's not too bad." I said faking a smile back and laying my head on his warm shoulder. My forehead was still chilly from the ice pack that was now more of a cold sack of water. He slid his hand down to mine as we leaned onto Jaedens headboard and intertwined our hands like honeysuckle vines crawling up the side of a pergola in a summer vineyard. Finn had climbed back into my heart and put out the fire that jealousy had set to destroy everything we had together.
"Okay," he said planting a kiss on my temple.
Jaeden sat up and stared at us, apologizing for their small fight. Finn told them it was alright and Wyatt said to us that he had something special to tell us.
"We're dating," Wyatt said with high anxiety, I could tell by the way his hand shook. He faked a smile though, and it was kind of cute seeing Jaeden happy as he peeled off the ice packs from his body. Jaeden didn't hit the floor hard enough for him to bruise, but it was adorable seeing how fast Wyatt worked to make sure he was okay.
"We know," I said with a giggle, I was happy for them. Yes, I had personal shit to work through, but I wouldn't let that get in the way of their happiness or mine. "Can we watch a movie or something?!" I asked.
To be continued.