Like You Mean It

19. Hayden

It's been 9 days since Cam and I fought. I avoided him at the competition this past weekend, ducking into alcoves and down stairwells if I heard his voice or his laugh or saw his bright hair and freckled face. Or honestly anyone with ginger hair. Valley won, we got second. We didn't have a competition this coming weekend, but next weekend were the regional qualifiers. Then the weekend after that were regionals. And the weekend after that was nationals, if we were able to qualify for it.

I really couldn't be thinking about Cam right now, I had to practice through my music. Too much was relying on me getting this down. Too much was coming up for me to take a break. I needed to focus and stop thinking about Cam.

My phone buzzed, Jace was calling me. I picked up, "What's up?"

"Come outside, we're going to go get ice cream. You don't have a choice," He told me.

"I have to practice, dude." I groaned.

"No, you don't, you practiced for four hours straight yesterday, and we had rehearsal today. It's ice cream time!" Max exclaimed.

"Fine. I'm on my way out." I rolled my eyes, hanging up.

I headed downstairs, "Mom! I'm going out for ice cream with Jace, Max, and David. I'll be home by 9!"

"Ok, have fun. Love you!" She called from the living room.

"Love you too!"

I put on my sneakers and headed out to Jace's car. Him, Max, and David were all in the car. Max and David were in the backseat, so I got passenger. I sat down.

"Ok Max wants to go to O'Leary Farms, but I say we should go to Freezy's because it's obviously better. Jace wants to remain neutral because he's stupid. So where should we go?" David asked.

"O'Leary's obviously. It's way better than Freezy's." I buckled myself in.

"Nuh-uh." David pouted.

"It's true, babe." Max shrugged, "Freezy's is a franchise, not an amazing family-owned place like O'Leary's is."

"They are completely right." I nodded, "I think it's the only thing I will ever think Max is right about."

"Rude!" Max exclaimed as David laughed.

We listened to Jace's shitty music taste and talked about random things on the way there. It was nice to just exist again. To laugh with my friends without feeling like the world was caving down on top of my shoulders. Or like my heart was trying to claw its way out of my throat. Or like I was a mile underwater and didn't know which way was up. Or the shattering feeling when I saw the look on Cam's face after I brought up something he told me, in confidence, and I had leveraged against him in an argument that I really didn't mean. That look on his face had been laser-burnt into my memory, playing on repeat ever since the fight.

I got black raspberry in a cup. Jace insisted on paying for me while David and Max bickered over whose turn it was to pay. We sat down at an empty picnic table, far away from all of the families enjoying an unseasonably warm night in early October.

Probably the last warm night of the year.

"So...how are you?" Max asked me, "And don't say fine. Because we all know you're not fine but that's ok. We're your friends and we want to help you and we're worried about you."

I felt an overwhelming rush of emotion. I couldn't hold it down, it was like the truth wanted to bubble to the surface and crawl its way past my lips.

"It was all a lie. Cam and me. It was a lie from the start." They all looked a bit shocked.

I kept going, "We just went along with it so we could both get information about the other band. It was just for information, nothing else. And then I fucked up. I fell in love with him. Well, honestly, I've probably loved him for a while at this point, but that is a whole different thing I don't want to unpack right now. But I kept letting us pretend even though I knew, fuck I knew he was just there for information. And I just. I fucked up.

"I ghosted him. I tried to end things, but he didn't let me because of course he didn't. He saw right through me and tried to get me to talk to him. And I just couldn't. I said a lot of things I didn't mean to him, and I keep pretending like it's for the better that we stopped pretending and ended things, but I just really want him back. I can't sleep or eat or breathe without thinking about him and how I fumbled a chance to be happy. And I thought it was a good thing that we ended it. I thought everyone would be happy because they were all so mad when they thought I was dating him, and I thought it was distracting me from performing and I just." I sniffled.

"I want Cam back, but I think I fucked up way too badly to ever get him to be in the same room as me, let alone speak to me again." My chest felt so much lighter, "But I don't even think he even liked me like that. And if he did then I ruined it too much for anything to ever happen."

"You think Cam doesn't like you?" Jace asked.

I nodded, "Yeah."

"Oh my god, are you blind?" Max asked, "Like are you actually blind? There is no way you're this fucking oblivious!"

"What?" I wiped my face.

"Cam has been head over heels for you from the start. That's why we all believed it. The way he looked at you since his first football game was as if he was looking at a national trophy. It just seemed so obvious that you were both head over heels. That's why everyone believed it. He likes you, definitely fucking likes you dude," David explained, "Max, pull up a picture."

Max pulled up their phone and turned it over, showing a picture of me and Cam at our first home game. I was leaning over to him, telling a joke about the football team and he was looking at me with a goofy smile. With his stupid dimples and flushed cheeks and stupidly perfect yet messy ginger hair. And his eyes were so warm, and he was looking at me like....

Oh my god.

Cam liked me.

Did Cam actually like me?

When he came downstairs that morning, he didn't have to wrap his arms around me. He didn't have to kiss my cheek when I wished him a happy birthday. He didn't have to cuddle on the couch with me. Oh. Oh my god.

I really had fucked up. I was so blinded by my own insecurity that I didn't even realize he felt the same way about me. And then I went and fucked everything up.

He was never going to want to talk to me, let alone see me again.

"He's in love with you dude. It's a little disgusting to see how much he does," Jace said.

"Fuck." I sighed.

"Have you tried talking to him?" Max asked as they put away their phone.

"I don't think I can talk to him. I don't even think he wants to talk to me, like ever again. I said some really fucking mean things to him." I sniffed.

"You should at least try though," David said, "The worst thing you could do right now is not talk to him and try to keep living your life like this."

"You should talk to him. Even if you don't end up together, it might at least help you stop wallowing in this depression pit. It's sad seeing you like this dude," Max said.

Jace hit them upside the head, "What they were trying to say, I think, is that you should talk to him."

I sighed, "I can't."

"You can't or you're too scared to?" Jace asked.

"Both," I said softly.

"You have to, dude." David sighed, "It's the only way this can get better."

"But what if he won't talk to me?" I asked.

"He will," Jace promised, he sounded sure of it.