Baby Fat

forty-five

"Didn't realize you were back in town, maybe I would've ran off with no explanation," Devon gripes, sipping on his coffee with a quick raise of the eyebrows. In one hand he holds his phone, three fingers tucked behind, pinkie under for support, and his thumb scrolling through whatever he was looking at. With the other hand is his pale yellow coffee mug.

"I guess I deserved that one," Bradley shrugs. He looks at the seat across from Devon before sitting down in it. "You're not even the last person who wants an apology, and I don't have any left in me. So, you're going to have to forgive me without one."

Devon rolls his eyes. "Suppose I don't need an apology. I understand wanting to run away from life. If I could I would."

Bradley orders a coffee from the waitress walks by their table named Mandy. He purses his lips. "I mean, haven't you kind of already?"

Devon chokes on his coffee, face going red as he coughs. "W-what?"

Handing him a napkin to clean up, Bradley shrugs. "Corrie? Forget about him already?"

Devon shakes his head, his long hair swaying with it. He wipes up his mess diligently, with a little too much forces that rattles the table. "No. " Wipe. "Of." Wipe. "Fucking." Wipe. "Course." Wipe. "Not." He balls the napkin up into a ball and drops it onto the table.

There's a small moment of silence before Bradley says, "He misses you. Shit hit the fan."

"Tell him to join the fucking club, alright?" Devon rubs his temples and shakes his head. "No, fuck. I didn't mean it."

"I know you didn't," Bradley gives a small smile. "Because you love him.  Matter of fact, you're in love with him and you can't argue with me."

Devon opens his mouth like he's going to protest, but then he closes it. He frowns. "How can you be so sure?"

"Because there's no way in hell you would've stuck around for all of it if you didn't. Corrie can be the most amazing person you've ever met. He's so easy to be friends with, and so much easier to fall in love with. But, he comes with baggage, and it's so much easier to hate him for that then love him for everything else about him. I know. I understand. I get." Bradley thanks Mandy for the cup of black coffee, no sugar, no creamer. Straight black.

Devon shakes his head. "You don't get it. You think you understand because you're his best friend. But you don't understand what it's like to be in love with him. I'm so enamored, craving his touch, begging him to somehow love me back. But, he can't, not the way I need. And that's selfish, and disgusting to say aloud, but somehow it's killing me. The whole thing was slowly killing me."

Bradley forces a chuckle. "With those words you could very well be this generations best poet."

Devon shrugs his shoulders. "He always did say I had a way with words."

Bradley knows, oh, how he knows sure and well, he shouldn't ask. But, he does. "What happened?"

A bittersweet smile crosses Devon's face. "You know how the saying goes, 'Maybe we're meant to fall in love with each other, but not supposed to be together'."

"I suppose I can understand, somewhat." Bradley sighs heavily, taking a long sip from his coffee. "But is that any reason to not fight for it just that more? I've never seen you as one to let fate control your life."

Frowning, Devon says, "fighting just gets to tiring."

There's no way in hell Bradley can argue with that statement. Bradley can relate to it more than Devon could ever realize. "I wish things were different, you know. I wish that people didn't fuck others up. And I wish life didn't fuck those people up."

Devon gazes at Bradley, his eyes going just a bit watery. "Life can never be that simple with us, can it?"

Bradley sags into his chair while tracing shapes onto the table.

"I'm sick of talking about Corrie." Devon says suddenly, eyes going wide after he's blurted it out.

"What?"

"He's the only reason we ever have conversations. I-I'm tired of talking about him all the fucking time. It just hurt." Devon feels the aching in his chest come back. It's not like it went away, it was just so dull he could ignore it. He got used to it. It felt normal. He's not sure if it'll ever go away.

"There's not much to talk about, is there? I mean we tend to talk about the big things in life. We've never talked about the small details of our lives. It's always been about Corrie," Bradley does a faux-casual shrug. He doesn't know if he's agreeing or disagreeing with Devon's statement.

"I guess you're right. Maybe we should change that." Devon looks out the window, hoping Bradley doesn't shoot him down.

There's a pause as Bradley searches for an answer. It's too hard to get close to people. He remembers what happened with Leo. It was terrifying. Shit got hard and Bradley ran. He can't explain it. His parents taught him that. His parents fucked him up.

But, maybe, just maybe, Bradley can pretend to be some other person. He can pretend that he isn't the person with the parents that royally screwed him over.

On the other hand, Bradley feels like he just can't blame them. Not really. Their parents screwed them up. All his grandparents fucked up, and he's paying those consequences second degree. Cassandra and Graham are facing those consequences first hand.

"Yeah, maybe," Bradley lies right through his teeth, it slips out almost unnoticed.

Bradley wishes someone would ask, "You speak to your mother with that mouth?" just so he could respond with, "Of course, that's the only way I survive".

Lies can be your saving grace, or your greatest downfall.

__________

☒ - unedited

Please tell me if you see any mistakes, I'm the queen of typos.

What Happened to Me:
- lack of inspiration
- lack of time (school)
- life problems (my grandma, who i was very close to passed)
- etc.

Life Update:
- holding on barely
- sorry, but not too terribly
- hope to see you soon
- i. love. you.

Thank you.

— dreamfloats