Last I Saw You

EIGHT| TOBY

"Cause I feel awful."

The words sting a little, hearing him talk about himself like that.

Shit! What are you supposed to do when your best friend starts crying out of nowhere after you kinda accidentally confessed your love for them?

I need help and lots of it.

"Why?" I ask, like an idiot.

"Cause you care about me so much and I'm scared that one of these days you're gonna realize you're better off without me pushing you away all the time. I bet it sucks not being able to talk to anybody about all this either, I told my coworkers about us, sorry if-"

"No, it's fine. I told Damon about us." I chuckled when he frowned at me.

"Really. You told him?"

"Yeah, I talk about you to him all the time. You don't have to feel so bad about all this. I keep trying to find ways to tell my dad that girls aren't really my thing. I think he knows somethings up cause ever since we started seeing each other like that he's been randomly asking if I might have a girlfriend or whatever. It's really awkward too," I said, smiling when Eric joined in on my laughter.

"Maybe you should say something to him, he's your dad. He deserves to know... And I should maybe say something to my mom too. God, I'm a hypocrite." Groaning Eric laid back down.

"That doesn't sound bad though. We don't have to say anything about us just yet though." Seeing the look on Eric's face I winced. "I mean we can tell them about us but maybe not just yet cause my dad might put two and two together and realize all those nights you spent over here weren't spent playing games. Or at least not video games."

Surprisingly Eric laughed at my knowing look instead of shrinking away in embarrassment.

"Well then what are you going to tell him?" he asked, reaching over to absent-mindedly tug at a loose thread on my comforter.

"That I'm gay and hungry as fuck. Why the hell are you even come over here anyway, there isn't shit to eat in the fridge?"

"I guess I was here to see you."

"Oh..."

Blushing I smiled to myself. Then I whispered. "But I'm gonna be serious, he's gonna be pissed when he finds out about us. You remember what he did when he caught Callum hiding a girl under his bed?"

"Yeah. He put him through boot camp!" Eric cackled, and I can only imagine what part of it he was thinking of. All I could picture in my mind was how dad made him sleep outside on the porch for a week in the middle of a slowly chilling October.

"That's not funny. Do you know what he'd do to me if he knew what we were up to-"

"Okay, you don't have to say the same thing again. Let's just play some video games and you can just tell him tomorrow, and I'll talk to my mom when the break is over." Eric placed his hand over my mouth.

"How come you get to wait till the break is over but I have to suffer Thanksgiving dinner with that on my mind? This was your idea."

Hopping up off the bed Eric started rifling through the mess of cords on the floor. Plugging up the console he turned the TV to channel three before pulling the controllers apart.

"Can't hear you, too busy trying to find Mario Kart," he hummed, popping it into the slot.

To my dismay, he claimed first player. Climbing back into bed with me we say as close to the edge as we could so we could see the TV. I waited until our gameplay started to lag and Eric was too busy yawning to complain about me throwing yet another blue shell at him to turn the game off.