We Die Soon

Six

A/N: thank y'all so so so much for reviewing and voting!!!

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"Ray was nice, though, wasn't he?" Olivia asked out of the blue after a long silence, and another look at her phone.

"Uh... no?" I replied slowly, confused.

She shook her head. "No, like, when you first met him. Before you knew about anything else, he was nice. Right?"

I thought back to when Olivia introduced me to him at her 18th birthday party. It was simple, though, and I didn't think much about the way he acted. It didn't matter how he was because I'd resent him anyway, as I did every guy she dated, or even just every guy who got to be closer to her than me.

"Leo, this is my boyfriend, Ray," she'd told me, smiling so huge I wanted to vomit. She bit her lip a little and raised her eyebrows at me, like 'this is him, the guy I chose over you, I love him so much'.

And I tried not to be mad, just like always, but I was anyway, just like always. Not at her for not feeling something but at myself for feeling everything for the wrong person. My heart and my head had me screwed up in so many involuntary ways.

"Hey Ray," I said with a fake smile. I stuck my hand out. "Good to meet you."

Good to meet you. Normally I would have said 'nice', but then I said 'good', which was a little less formally polite. (That was my kiss-ass way of being rude.)

"You too!" He nodded in agreement, then shook my hand.

My Dad always told me the handshake made the man, and it made me happy when I felt how weak Ray's shake was. What a loser, I thought.

That really was the extent of it. We talked a little here and there throughout the night, but it wasn't of anything important. Nothing like Olivia. Nothing that gave me insight on Ray either.

So I answered with a, "Yeah. Yeah, when I first met Ray he was pretty nice."

"He was so nice," Olivia mumbled solemnly.

"No," I corrected. "No, he wasn't. He cheated on you--a lot--and that's not something a nice person would do."

"I know. I didn't forget that." She rolled her eyes, then tucked her hair behind her ear. "But I mean, he just comes off so genuine and it pisses me off."

"Well, if it helps, the second time I met him, he was kind of a jerk."

I didn't actually think that'd help any, but when I said it, Olivia's eyes lit up for the first time that night. She turned to me, pulling her legs back up on the bed.

"No way!" she said. "What happened?"

I laughed a little at her excitement before speaking. It didn't matter how upset she was, she loved drama.

So, to cheer her up, I told her the story in dramatic detail.

But it was nothing crazy, really.

We were at a gala and I was standing near the wall with Sabrina and Austin. None of us felt like being there on that Sunday night,  even if it was for a great cause. So we just talked about how we'd rather be at home, donating money on a computer, when Ray interrupted.