Bastiana has a loving family, two amazing best friends, and a secret.
Over summer vacation, Bastiana and her besties do their best to focus on their bucket list in order to distract them from all the secrets they're keeping from one another. When a...
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Four days.
Tiana's only been gone for four days and I already feel like my life is falling apart.
I've been trying to keep my mind occupied by focusing on training and workouts with the team, but my body can only take so much of that before I need to take a break. I've been running in the morning, spending four hours on the field with the team during the day and hitting the gym for weights in the evenings. Every muscle in my body is screaming and it's only Wednesday night.
As I leave the gym and walk to my truck, my mind wanders from Tiana to Ry. Outside of practice, I haven't seen him since the night we said goodbye to Tiana. He hasn't looked me in the eye once and every time I try to talk to him he avoids me or gives me one word answers alluding to being too busy to hang out.
Something happened when I dropped him off at home that night, but he won't talk to me about whatever it is. Maybe he remembers more of the night of the party than he let on. The memories of that night begin to replay in my head.
What if it really was just the alcohol talking? What if he didn't mean anything he said? But... he sounded so... honest? Desperate? Desperate to know if I felt the same? I don't know. Maybe his drunken mind was just messing around, teasing me as some kind of joke.
Would Ry do that, though? He's never made any kind of gay jokes, or many sexual jokes in general, really. Now that I think about it, Ry doesn't make many jokes, period. So, it's unlikely that's what that was.
So, then maybe he did remember what he said that night and he's embarrassed. Maybe he didn't want me to know he was feeling those things. Or maybe he hasn't come to terms with feeling them himself. Emotions have always been a difficult topic for Ry. He doesn't open up easily and if that is how he's been feeling, then maybe he's still trying to work through it himself.
I don't want to push him, but I miss my best friends. Tiana's too far for me to do anything about her, but Ry is right here, just out of reach it seems. Being without both of them like this hurts. I need his friendship, even if that's all it is. I'll be able to handle it if he decides that night was a mistake, but I don't think I'll be able to handle him disappearing from my life completely.
Without their constant presence in my life, the world feels gray and flat. Tiana is the spark that colors my life, and Ry is the anchor that keeps me grounded and steady. Without them, I feel like I'm aimlessly drifting along in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight. I'm lost without the two of them.
When I finally make it to my truck and slide into the seat, I decide to check my phone for any missed messages. My face lights up when I see not one, but two from Tiana. I unlock my phone and click the notification to open our message thread.
7:48pm Tiana: Ash! I miss you so much!
7:49pm Tiana: One of the kids sneezed on me today because I wouldn't give him an extra cookie. I've never missed people my own age so much.
