Give Me A Chance (boyxboy)

Seventeen

This feels like some big movie moment. But that's not right. I don't get big movie moments.

For a second, I stand there, jaw dropped, and do nothing. My first instinct is to turn around and walk back in the house, but I know I can't do that. It would be ungrateful to Blaine, to Aydin, to mom, and most of all, ungrateful to myself. But I'm frozen in place. I don't know what to do. So I make the most terrifying decision I've made in my life.

I walk towards him.

"Hey," he says. And he's shivering. And he's so cute I almost can't handle it.

"Hi," I say. "What are you doing here?" I reach him and I stop in front of him. All I want to do is have the courage to say what I mean, and believe me, I'm trying, but him being incredibly attractive doesn't make it any easier.

"What do you mean?" he asks. "Did they not make it obvious I was invited?" He smiles a little, and I break a little inside. He notices my face. He takes a deep breath. "Why are you avoiding me?" he demands, and it's the coldest I've ever heard his voice. It chills me more than the rain. I can tell he didn't intend it that way, but that's how it comes across.

I don't say anything, but I know he sees the way my shoulders slump.

"What is it?" Blaine asks. "What did I do? Is it something I said? What have I done that could possibly warrant the pain I've felt these past five days? I just wanted to know that you were okay and I just wanted to talk to you. But you wouldn't even give me that privilege. Instead, you fell off the grid completely, and I know it was because of me." I notice that there's a tear in the corner of his eye. His voice is raised and I might cry too. "Look, if you don't want to be with me, I get it, but that doesn't mean you get to deprive me of my right to know why!" He points to accentuate his words. "If you're gonna reject me, do it here and now so at least I know why."

"I'm not gonna reject you," I say, hoping it's enough to quell his anger for a couple seconds. He has every right to be mad. After what I put him through.

"Then why string me along?" he demands. He's shivering and soaking and flushed in the face. "Why tell me you like me too and then brush me off? I sat with you at the hospital and I opened up to you. Then you went and threw it out the window like it was nothing!" Now he is crying. "Why would you do that to me? I trusted you with pieces of my life I've never trusted anybody with. I thought we had something."

"We did," I say.

"Then what did I do, Lyam?"

I'm soaked now too, soaked to the bone, but even that doesn't outweigh how empty I feel right now. I let the boy I like think that I was manipulating him. He thinks I'm a monster because I couldn't bring myself to talk to him.

But now, this is when I need courage. This is when I need to trust everyone around me and finally be able to say what I need to say.

"It's not you, Blaine," I say to him, meeting his eyes. "It's me."

He stops. The anger leaves his face and his shoulders slump a little bit. The signature look of concern comes over his face, but a little bit of the desperation stays. "What do you mean?"

Oh, jeez. Now I am crying.

"It's not anything you did. It's all me," I whisper into the rain. "I couldn't bring myself to talk to you. And I hate myself for it."

"Hey, hey," he says. "Back up a little. What do you mean you 'couldn't' talk to me?"

"This is gonna sound really silly," I mutter. He watches me expectantly. I breathe shakily. "I don't deserve you." I say, and I see now. I'm not having the big romantic movie moment. I'm having the dark, soul-crushing movie moment that makes everyone in the audience cry, but then they get to go home and forget about it. I'm stuck here, living it. "Someone like me can't be with you, because I'm this–" I say, gesturing to myself. "–and you're you, and you're perfect, and you're awesome, and you deserve someone more like you."