Being in love with a straight boy is a straight-up nightmare. Especially if it's been like that for years. But it's even worse when he's your best friend's brother, who has a girlfriend that's there to remind you how straight he is. That's when it b...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"You never told Mason."
"Dude, we haven't spoken in two days and the first thing you say is some confusing, contextless bullshit," Jackson whined. "Fuck Mason. I miss you, Kenny! My roommate is a dick!"
Somebody in the background shouted, "You're a dick!"
"Fuck off!"
I sighed and lay down on the grass under the tree I was leaning against, because I could already tell this was going to be a long phone call. Jackson seemed to be leaving the room, before he finally said, "What are you even talking about? What's with Mason?"
"You never told him."
"I never told him what, Kenny? Please elaborate."
"That I'm bi."
The phone was silent for a moment before he said, "Oh, well, why would I?"
"Why wouldn't you?"
"Because... it's your thing, you know?" he said slowly. "I didn't know if you wanted to keep it a secret or not. I figured you'd tell people yourself if you wanted to. I mean, you said you've known since you were thirteen, but you waited till you were eighteen to tell me, and as far as I know, me and Tessa are the only ones that know, so... yeah... You tell me, Kenny. Why wouldn't I?"
"Fair enough," I sighed, ignoring his question, because the only reason why I didn't want him to know was... well, you know why. "Thanks for... the consideration, I guess."
"So have you told him?"
"No."
"Then why bring it up?!"
"Because, apparently, our roommates are dating each other and Mason was all surprised and shit, so... I don't know."
"Wait, he's not okay with it? What—"
"No, no," I hurried to say before he could curse his own brother into oblivion, "he's fine with it. But I just thought..."
"He might have reacted differently if he knew?"
"Yeah."
"Then tell him."
I hesitated for only a moment, but Jackson was already making exasperated noises at my indecisiveness, getting ready for a rant.
"I don't want to," I cut in.
He scoffed and exclaimed, "Why not?!"
I groaned, because I wanted to tell him why, but I didn't because I couldn't. Jackson couldn't know I had a crush on his own goddamn brother! It was already bad enough that I had to live with it myself, in secrecy. I didn't want his shit on top of it, too. I just had to wait for it to go away.
Surely, it would go away eventually... I couldn't just be in love with the same person for the rest of my life, right? That's not how it worked. People fell in and out of love all the time. If I could fall out of love with Mason, that'd be really great.
