The Ryan vs Grace Dilemma

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Wednesday, September 27th

The next day at school Grace was, completely normal? She hugged me to say hello as always and acted as if nothing had happened the evening prior. I don't know how she was keeping so composed, I felt like a complete wreck. When I saw Ryan smiling at me my stomach sank, I couldn't shake the feeling that I had done something to hurt him and he doesn't know, he can't know.

Ryan sat beside me in class, relieved to finally be included in things again, but I couldn't bear to look at him. He sensed something was wrong and nudged my hand with his. "What's up?" He whispered softly.

I shook my head, I was fine, if Grace could handle it then so could I. I noticed her look over at me and Ryan and we caught each other's eyes for a split second, before breaking away. I wrapped my pinky around Ryan's discretely, I wanted to be held by him again, to feel the warmth of his neck on my face as I buried myself in it. For now, his pinky was enough to comfort me. I couldn't focus my mind on the class at all, as I sat by both Ryan and Grace my mind wandered between the two of them. As unsure as I was, one thing I had become sure about was that I would have to call off whatever it was that I had with Ryan.

As lunch came around the three of us were making our way to the music room for practice when Grace broke off, "I'm not gonna join you guys today, I've been asked to sit with another group at lunch today." Ryan gives an 'okay' and Grace peels off in a different direction than the cafeteria. I can't help but worry that she isn't tagging along for my sake. I hope that isn't the case.

Spencer and Jon are hanging out with their instruments, jamming a new tune that they were seemingly working on. Jon sees us come is and storms toward us with his hands out to stop us from entering, "Hold up, hold up, hold up." He ushers us back outside, "We're composing our melody, you two have gotta go work on your lyrics, elsewhere." Jon gestures with his hands frantically for us to leave.

"Sheesh okay, we'll leave." Ryan puffs, we turn and exit the music room, looking at each other as we stop in the corridor. "Well, where do we go now?"

"The courtyard, we never hang out there and it's nice out today." I suggest.

————

We get to one of our campuses' many courtyards and it isn't too busy, there are various students sitting around on picnic blankets, some have pillows. They're all reading, writing, scrolling on their phones, but mostly hanging out in groups and chatting. The breeze was gentle and it made the blades of grass dance gently below our feet. We found a good spot leaned up against a pillar and Ryan pulled out his books, I took out my phone. We both exchange puzzled looks at one another.

"You write on your phone?" He asks.

"You write in a notebook?" I retort.

"Yeah, it's way nicer having stuff down on paper, and it makes it fancier to look back on too. Can't say the same for your phone, something about that is just so uninspiring to me." He sounded slightly arrogant when he said that, I couldn't help but laugh at how seriously he was taking this.

"I just use my phone cause it's easier to reorganise my thoughts, I don't have to worry about getting anything right the first time around, and the end product always looks neat. Plus," I show my phone screen to Ryan, "I'm gonna be googling synonyms and rhyming words anyway, it's easier if I'm already on my phone." Ryan purses his lips as if he was disappointed at how much sense my way made.

"I still don't like it."

"Well you don't have to." I smile, "Now let's get started."

Writing a love song with Ryan would've been a dream come true, if it were yesterday, but after what happened, all of the ideas that I came up with sounded solemn and filled with betrayal. Ryan looks at me, concerned and takes my hand. "What's up? All your ideas are so... sad." I looked back at Ryan and felt my heart break, I had wanted to wait until later but I figured it would be best to not prolong the inevitable.

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