Breathing Room (Waiting Room #2)

Chapter 12: Study Group (Part 2)

Jacky

When Jacky returned to his dorm room after his classes, he was ready for a nap. Instead, he found Billy standing in the center of the room surrounded by piles of clothing. It took only as long as setting his bag down near his desk to realize what was wrong with this picture.

"Are these all MY clothes?" he demanded.

Billy pressed his palms together. "I'm staging an intervention."

"No," Jacky said. He grabbed at the nearest pile of clothing, which by the bright patterns and prints he knew were his underwear. "Whatever this is, no."

"It is so clear to me," Billy began, speaking over Jacky's protests, "that you have an inner diva just dying to emerge."

Jacky shook a fistful of boxer shorts at him. "These are my underwear."

"Exactly!" Billy grabbed for them. "Look at all these fun colors, which you hide beneath your funeral garb—"

"Stop touching my underwear!" Jacky shrieked.

He had too many pairs of boxers in his fist to hang onto the pair Billy tugged away: a purple pair with pictures of donuts all over them.

"These are so cute," Billy said, dangling the purple underwear between his hands. "Which tells me that underneath that prickly exterior is someone who is so sweet and cute and just wants a good cuddle—"

Jacky dropped the boxers he was holding and lunged, snatching the purple boxers away. "Fuck off," Jacky snarled.

Dancing away, Billy swooped and held up another pair. "And these!"

Heat rushed to Jacky's face. Ryan had bought him those silky black boxers, and every time he wore them all he could think about was Ryan's hands sliding under the waistband –

"You need to go shopping. When was the last time you went shopping, Jacqueline? And I don't mean to Target."

Jacky shoved his fistful of underwear back in the drawer and held out his hand to demand the black boxers, face burning. The last time he'd gone shopping was with his mother, and it was to Target. The only new clothing he had bought were some new pajama pants and a few long-sleeve thermal shirts for winter.

"So never then? Great. I will assure you, you are in capable hands with me and Lilliana. We're going to hit up Nordstrom's, and Urban Outfitters. Get a sense of your style. You know Lilliana is a fashion design major? My stepdad is forcing me to major in business, but I'm considering a double major."

"Billy," Jacky sighed, still holding out his hand.

Billy handed over the boxers, but didn't let go when Jacky tugged at them. "We are taking you shopping," he said seriously.

"Why are you doing this," Jacky said flatly.

Releasing the boxers, Billy took a deep breath. "Because if this guy doesn't text you back, you either need to get over him, or win him back. And to do either of those things, you need to step up your game."

Jacky looked down at the boxers in his hand, and knew which choice he would make.

Ryan

At lunch Ryan finally had a moment to sit down by himself and think, which turned into several minutes of staring at the text Jacky had sent. I was thinking about you.

Ryan knew it couldn't have been the first time Jacky had thought about him since school started. Ryan felt like he had thought about Jacky almost every day. You'd think going away to live in a new place and go to a new school and be around all new people would prevent memories from surfacing, but it was like Jacky had been so intertwined in his life that no memory was Jacky-free.

If he wasn't overthinking things, he would say that Jacky had been doing the same, but now things had come to a boiling point, which for Jacky meant he was probably not in a great place mentally. And if that was true, then Ryan's long response time was most likely driving him crazy.

He shook his head and tapped the reply box, watched the cursor blink. He wasn't going to let that sway his response. The question was whether Ryan wanted to give this another shot, knowing that Jacky could take it all away from him in an instant all over again.

The idea made his chest hurt.

He tried out a few different responses:

I've thought about you every day – did that sound accusatory?

I missed you too – Jacky never said he missed him, and he didn't want to assume.

I was thinking about you, too didn't really say what he wanted to say.

He wished he was a writer and could come up with exactly the right words for this situation. He considered briefly using ChatGPT, but what would that accomplish? He wished he could just call Jacky and talk to him. Video call him, so he could see his face. Maybe that would help. When he closed his eyes, and imagined this text, he conjured up the Jacky he had met that day in the waiting room, looking angry and defensive. No, the Jacky who had yelled at him to get on the back of his bike so he could give him a ride home, goddammit. No, the Jacky who, when Ryan had said, "I like you," had ducked his head and said with that begrudging smile, "I like you too."

They were all his Jacky, and some part of him was in the Jacky who had sent this text.

He went back and re-read it: I know you may not want to hear from me, but I just wanted to let you know I was thinking about you

He only read this sentence about two hundred times and only now he saw that he'd been neglecting the first part. Suddenly he knew exactly what he wanted to say.

His thumbs spelled it out, and they didn't pause before he sent it off.

Heart racing, he sat back. Took a deep breath or three.

Then he rubbed his eyes and ate his lunch while reading a chapter for his physics class. Nothing he read sank in at all.

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Finally, Ryan has responded! What do you think he wrote back?