Well I've been afraid of changing 'cos I built my life around you.
***
Rye didn't get back to himself after the argument. He didn't bring up Mikey again, nor did he question why Brook was still coming round to the apartment. He didn't really engage in any kind of conversation with me at all. Not in the way of ignoring me, more so he just kept to himself. He went out often and when he was home he was rarely sober. I could smell it on him whenever I came home, the scent of weed or booze seeming to cling to him permanently, wafting ominously out of his room even when he wasn't home, as the laundry he wasn't doing piled up higher and higher. It was becoming obvious that there was something bigger at play here, something bothering him beyond our little spat. It scared me, because I had absolutely no clue what it was. Every time I tried to ask he would shut the conversation down before it even began, disappearing again shortly after.
I'd seen Rye spiral before. I knew that self-destructing was his coping mechanism, that he would throw himself into anything that made him feel numb. What made this time different was that he had never shut me out before. I always knew why he was falling apart, and he let me be there while it happened to make sure he didn't go too far into the darkness to return from, usually ending up crying it out in my arms eventually. But this time not only did I have no idea what was weighing on him, he didn't even want me near him at all.
I had no choice but to let him be, so I did my best to throw myself into productive things, as I'd resolved to. The circumstances weren't the best, but I was finally getting the distance from him that I had needed for a while. I couldn't shake the concern, or the love I had always felt for him, but at least I was getting a break from the wet dreams and the ill-timed boners.
Rehearsals were a weird vibe too, since Jack and Brook still weren't speaking. It took a few days for the others to cotton onto it as we'd just been going and going nonstop without much time for socialisation in between. But today the divide was painfully obvious as all of us principles had nothing to do while the director worked with the ensemble onstage. Jack was sitting by himself at one end of the theatre while the rest of us were clustered on the other, the miles of distance between us glaringly apparent in the otherwise empty gallery.
"He's staring at you, Brook," Olivia said, nudging Brook. I looked over at Jack whose wistful gaze was indeed shamelessly fixed on Brook, not seeming to give two shits that we'd all clearly noticed him.
"He needs to stop," Brook grumbled, refusing to look up from his phone.
"I don't think he's gonna," Olivia noted, "he's not blinking."
"It is a tad creepy," I added.
Brook stood up suddenly. "I need some fucking air," he announced, climbing past me to walk down the aisle, Jack's eyes following him the entire way.
"Looks like someone's been a bad dog," Olivia whispered slyly, sliding over into Brook's vacated seat beside me.
"Apparently so."
"What's the drama between them two then?" she smirked. "You have to tell me, Andy."
"I honestly don't know," I told her. She raised an eyebrow at me.
"Isn't that worrying?"
I shrugged. "Brook and I kind of have a 'don't ask, don't tell' thing going on at the moment."
"How romantic," Olivia observed dryly. "Just do us a favour and wait until after opening night for your showmance to fall apart."
"Trying," I muttered, the smirk dropping from Olivia's face as it was replaced with concern.
"Hey," she said, making me look at her. "I'm here to talk if you need, hun."
"Thank you," I replied with a tight smile, wishing I could take her up on the offer. It would be nice to have at least one friend who could be objective. But if Brook didn't want to know, I sure as hell wasn't going to tell anyone else.
***
Olivia and I had a break at the same time, deciding to wander into the central hub of campus for lunch instead of eating in the theatre, needing a break from the claustrophobia and the craziness. We found a little cafe, Olivia grabbing us a table while I went up to order coffees. A familiar sandy haired lad smiled at me from across the counter.
"Hey Andy," he greeted me.
"Harvey," I smiled back. "You work here?"
"Have to fund the parties somehow," he grinned. "How you doing?"
We caught up over exam and football schedules, Harvey commiserating with me over how busy I was between coursework and the musical before taking my coffee orders. He was just as friendly as he'd been at the party, and I stood around to chat with him while his coworker made the drinks.
"Hey, tell Rye he's welcome back on the team anytime by the way," he added casually, the comment throwing me.
"He's welcome back?"
"Yeah, I mean usually he'd have to wait until next season to retrial but between us, he's such a good player I know the coach would just let him straight back in," Harvey went on.
"Are you telling me Rye isn't on the football team anymore?" I wasn't quite understanding what I was hearing.
"He quit right after Christmas break," Harvey said. "He didn't tell you? I thought you two were super close."
"I uh... I guess he forgot to mention it," I mumbled, my brain spinning at this revelation.
"Ah, I get it, you're drifting," Harvey nodded knowingly. "It happens. I'm not friends with any of my old mates from college anymore. It's a thing."
"We're not drifting," I snapped back, my tone sharper than I intended. "We're just... I don't know... going through a rough patch."
"That's how it starts," Harvey grimaced. He hesitated as my face dropped, clearly realising that he'd hit a nerve. "I'm sure you two will sort it out though."
"We will," I said defiantly, though his words had definitely made me nervous. "Did he say why he was quitting?"
"Just said he'd lost interest," Harvey shrugged. "Here's your coffee anyway."
"Thanks," I murmured, walking them over to the table, my thoughts beginning to spiral.
"You okay?" Olivia asked. "You look very disturbed."
"I just need to check something," I said, pulling out my phone as I sat down. I pulled up our university intranet app, using Rye's Gmail and the password he used for everything to get access to his student profile without any trouble. I scrolled down his record of achievement, the dread within me increasing the further down the list I went. His last economics assignment; C+. Literature essay; not completed. Politics test; absent. I'd known about the commerce test he missed, the essay we'd worked on together being the last decent grade he'd achieved. But he'd said that was an isolated incident. And yet, at the rate he was going, he was dangerously close to flunking the year altogether.
"This is bad," I said out loud to myself, Olivia shooting me a concerned look.
"Everything okay?" she asked.
"Can you do me a favour and tell them I got sick and had to go home?"
"Andy, you can't skip rehearsal you're the lead," she pointed out.
"Please," I begged, looking desperately into her eyes. Her face softened.
"Okay, I will," she agreed with a sigh. "But promise you'll be back for tech week. We need you fully committed."
"I am," I assured her. "I just really have to deal with this."
I went straight home, my heart thumping in my chest because I knew Rye wasn't going to like the conversation I was about to have with him, but I couldn't just leave it. Not when things had gone this far already. Being a little off was one thing, but dropping out of football for no apparent reason and failing his courses? That wasn't Rye. Something was more wrong with him than I'd managed to clock onto, and it was time he stopped pushing me away and came clean about whatever it was.
"Rye!" I called as I entered our apartment. I took a seat on the couch as I noticed the sound of the shower running, waiting for him to come out.
"What?" Rye asked, making me jump out of my seat as he appeared in the doorway of his room, shirtless.
"Who the fuck is in the shower?" I asked.
Rye looked sheepish. "Weren't you supposed to be out until later?"
"Yeah, but I needed to talk to you about something so I came home. What's going on?" I didn't understand why he was looking so guilty. So what if he had a girl over? If it was someone like Liza I wouldn't be impressed, but casual sex was hardly out of character for him during one of his episodes, and he knew I knew that.
"Nothing, it's just" -the shower water turned off- "ah, fuck." I frowned, swivelling towards the bathroom door as it opened, my eyes widening as Sonny wandered out of it in a towel. A tiny selfish part of me was relieved that he didn't have a girl over, but a much louder part was utterly enraged that he'd let Sonny back into his life after what he'd done.
"What. The. Fuck?" I fumed, Sonny's eyebrows raising as he noticed me there. "You're really hanging out with him again?"
"There's no point asking you to be cool, is there?" Rye sighed.
"Not when he almost got you killed, Ryan, no!"
"I do feel really bad about that, for the record," Sonny cut in.
"I didn't fucking ask," I growled. "Get out of our apartment."
"He's my guest, Andy, you can't kick him out," Rye argued.
"It's his house too, Rye," Sonny said. "I'll go."
"That's my towel, by the way," I added pettily, Sonny turning around to raise an eyebrow at me.
"Sorry mate," he said, my jaw dropping as he unwrapped it from around his waist. "Here ya go." He winked as he it threw it at me, both Rye and I completely lost for words as he strolled through the living room stark naked into Rye's bedroom.
There was a long, awkward waiting period as Sonny got dressed in Rye's room, both Rye and I glaring at each other from opposite ends of the room. Sonny darted out of the apartment again once he was dressed, not pausing to say goodbye, most likely because the tension in the room was thick enough to choke on. As soon as the door closed behind him, I exploded.
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
"We've been over this," Rye groaned. "I can be friends with whoever the fuck I want. I make my own goddamn decisions and you don't get a say in them."
"Maybe if that was the only bad decision you were making," I returned.
"What are you talking about?"
"It's not just Sonny, is it? You think I wouldn't find out you quit the football team? Or that you're about to fail all your classes?" His chin quivered as I went on. "You need to tell me what the real problem is."
He screwed his face up. "Right now, it's you. This whole conversation in fact."
I cringed at myself, not having meant to attack him so aggressively. Seeing Sonny had just set it off in me. "Rye-"
"Jesus, what?"
"I can't watch you throw your life away like this."
"I'm not throwing anything away, Andy," he groaned, rolling his eyes in exasperation, "I'm thinking of dropping out anyway. I mean, you don't need a business degree to start your own business really, do you? I might as well not waste the money."
"What the hell?" I frowned, stunned by his words. "You can't drop out."
"Why not?"
"Because-" I searched my mind for a good reason, the only one I could fathom slipping out of my mouth first. "Because you can't leave me alone."
It sounded petty, but what he was saying didn't make any sense. We'd had this mapped out since we were kids; going to uni together, living together, graduating together. We'd designed our life plan together, we were supposed to be on parallel paths. Never drifting, never splitting apart. We weren't going to be those school friends who fell out of each other's lives as soon as uni came around. We were solid.
"Maybe I can't keep basing my life decisions around you, Andy," Rye spat venomously, and I flinched at his words, taking a step away from him.
"Really? That's how you feel?" The hurt caused tears to prick to my eyes but my anger wouldn't let them fall, not where he could see them.
"Yeah, that's how I feel." Emotionless. My warm best friend was gone, a cold stranger staring at me in his place.
"Fine," I said quietly, "I'm sorry for forcing you to get good enough grades so you could get into this school, and making you live with me, and caring about you enough to want you to succeed. I'm sorry for dragging you down with me."
He had the nerve to roll his eyes again. "Don't be like this, Andy."
"No, you don't want your clingy best friend nagging you anymore? Fine," I spat, my words laced with the pain of his betrayal. "I set you free, Ryan. I won't bother you anymore."
"Great. Thanks so much," he answered back sarcastically, and I could only shake my head in utter disbelief of the person he had become without me even realising it.
The tears were barely clinging to the precipice of my eyes by now, and I was in desperate need of an escape from the conversation. "I'm so done with you," I told him painfully, making my way towards my room and slamming the door behind me. I sat down on my bed, knees curled up to my chest, still refusing to let go. A few moments later, I heard his own door slam in the room next to mine, and even then I sat a few minutes and waited. We never left a fight like this. He would always come to me full of apologies, cuddling into me as we talked it out properly, letting the heat die down in each other's arms. But then again, we had never fought like this before.
When it became clear he wasn't going to open my door, and I simply couldn't hold on any longer, I allowed the first precariously dangling teardrop slide gently down my cheek. Once the dam broke, it was a waterfall, the tears falling in an uncontrollable stream, sobs wracking my body. At first I tried to let them out silently but the force of my sadness was too strong, and I just stopped caring and let myself just cry, not caring if the sound of my falling apart made its way through the thin wall that separated us. Maybe I even wanted him to hear, wanted him to feel bad about hurting me so badly, just in case there was still a small part of him left that cared about me at all.
A/N: posting a lil early again bc i'm sure we'll all be watching the doco tonight. i'm literally terrified for it and idek why eep 😂
also this chapter was sad af i know but it was also weirdly one of the first parts of this book that i wrote? must have been rly vibin that day