Boston {ryden}

3

you made yourself a bed at the bottom of the blackest hole
and you'll sleep 'til May, and you'll say that you don't want to see the sun anymore

My feet could barely stick to the ground anymore, they wavered and I stumbled, laughter tumbling from my lips as I practically fell out of the bus and onto Boston's sidewalks. I'd broken free; let go of the shell I'd created for myself and suddenly I was breathing easy and smelling the fresh air that I never knew existed above the bleach and copper. I hadn't washed my hair in two days and my clothes were wrinkled and worn in but I didn't care; they smelled of him. Every inch of me had taken part of him on, every bit of my skin had some remnant of him lingering on it somehow. Collapsing into his grip on a curb in Boston, I hadn't stopped laughing since our mouths had broken apart following that first kiss in Haverhill. He held onto me with the cool October air biting our cheeks and turning them rosy, but he'd never know mine were only that way because of how his eyes kept staring into mine. This boy, this person I barely knew yet I knew him right down to his core. I knew how he slept and whispered and tasted; how he breathed and what simple things in life made him smile, his laugh a breath of fresh air in my otherwise stale existence. Ryan was new, he was all the things in life I'd been trying to find, trying to achieve, all rolled into one tall gangly boy with a grey hoodie and too small jeans and a smile that made me weak all over again each time he flashed it in my direction. Ryan was everything that beauty was supposed to be, and I had to curse myself for not recognizing it the moment he'd sat down beside me on that bus bench.

"We've got ten bucks left," he said, somehow still with a smile as his fingers instinctively found their way to mine and tucked between them. "What should we do with it?"

The logical half of me knew ten bucks was barely enough for a decent lunch much less a place to stay and clothes to change into but the other part of me, the part of me that Ryan had dug from its bloody grave to reopen, wanted nothing more than to let go of those needy things and finally dive into what I actually wanted.

"Buy Slurpees," I finally decided, half nervous at how much I honestly enjoyed feeling his palm tight against my own. My mind was a blur of lost information I had decided not to care about anymore; a blur of thoughts and ideas that I knew didn't matter but still remained left for me to weed out and replace with the new ones he was sparking in me.

Twenty minutes later we were seated on yet another bench, this time in a park just outside a quiet stretch of townhomes, sipping cold Slurpees in the cold afternoon air. His lips and tongue turned a bright red and I watched him out of the corner of my eye, half laughing at how intensely the feelings of lovesick butterflies were plaguing my stomach at just the sight of him. This was wrong this was nonsense this was makebelieve it was anything but what I had pictured my life to ever become, but maybe that was why I trusted it.

"Brendon," I heard his red lips speak to me after a moment of silent sipping had fallen over us. "Do you regret coming with me here?"

"We've been here half an hour and you're already assuming I wanna go home?" I shot back at him, some of my wit somehow restored in the previous twenty-four hours as he'd fought to dig me from the black hole of grief I'd so carefully and deeply dug for myself. Weight was lifted; without the constraints of memories that loomed heavy in Westbrook, I could be this boy I'd become in the seventy-two hours I'd spent with this perfectly blissful person beside me. Ryan grinned a red smile.

"Not to sound like a total cheeseball," he began, chewing on the end of his straw and sinking into the wooden bench a bit more. "But I feel lucky to be here, right now, with you."

A pause came over our brief conversation as I took in his words, tasting cherry on my tongue and was suddenly reminded of what it had tasted like in that small moment we'd shared a breath between our mouths. I had shyed away since that kiss, kept to myself besides letting his hand remain in mine and curling into his side as we'd slept on the bus ride to Boston. Maybe I was nervous; or maybe I was saving myself for a time when it felt even more perfect- if anymore perfection could be achieved than had already been in the time we'd shared together. That was me; always waiting for something to happen but always too afraid each moment wasn't worthy for it to.