What You Mean To Me

Ryan

Ryan saw them in the parking lot and put on a burst of speed. It was two years since the last class reunion and although Lisa kept in touch with him fairly regularly (having forgiven him for not loving her), it didn't seem like these two could forgive his past high school mistakes and he missed them, so much. He didn't know who, out of the two he missed more, but he knew he missed them both. 

"Damn it," He screamed, "Give me a chance to talk, would you!" Finally giving up, Ryan sat down on the pavement, wondering what he did so wrong that they'd run like he was the damn devil.

Bringing his knees up, he put his head down and just breathed deep and let nothing in, fighting back tears once again. You'd think, at the ripe age of 25 none of this shit should matter but it hurt. He felt fingers running through the buzz cut he'd had since he was 12. 

"I never knew why you always had this odd hair. It makes your face look fat when if you had side burns you would look sleek." The fingers were very gentle and thin, slender and if he had to pick a word, it would be delicate. The voice matched, so he knew it wasn't Jenny. There wasn't anything delicate about Jenny. Since he was paranoid about hurting people, it was one of the reasons he'd always wanted to date her, it looked like she wouldn't break.

"Trey... " Ryan was silent. Trey's fingers felt nice in his hair. He tried again, "Trey, why did you come back when you tried and succeeded in getting away?" 

The fingers stilled and lifted off his head, slid under his jaw and lifted it up to look at him directly. For the first time in years, Ryan and Trey, sober, met each other's eyes. "You asked to talk." Trey said simply. "It's all you ever had to do."

"Ohhhh" Ryan looked at his feet and then at Trey and Jenn, who was silent behind. Jenn stood in her classic pose, hands on her hips, feet apart, almost daring someone to come and talk to her. Ryan felt his lips twitch, thinking back at how many times that stance got the four of them into trouble... 

"What's so funny?" Jenn blurted out, noticing every little twitch. She took her guard dog duties seriously and even though Trey was going to give him a chance didn't mean she would. He didn't want to understand back in high school, why would he now?

"Uh, nothing," he stuttered, a little surprised at the hatred that came like waves off of Jenn. What had he done so wrong that she hated him? All he did was ask her out... Back then, he asked lots of girls out, so what was the big deal? "I was just remembering how we were in high school..." and the words failed him.

Jenn snorted loudly, "You've got good memories of back then? Wow, lucky you." Reaching forward, she tugged Trey closer and said, "Come on, I don't wanna talk about then, I'm going." Trey nodded and said, "I agree. Sorry, we," and he waved his hands to indicate Jenn and him, "don't live in the past."

They turned and started to walk away.  Ryan reached out and placed a hand on each shoulder and from behind said, "No, I don't really want to talk about the past, but I do think there's some misunderstandings. We need to talk because I miss you guys. I really miss you a lot!" He was surprised at the emotion in his voice, he sounded, at least to himself like he wanted to cry but he wasn't yet.

Trey turned back and looked him over and said, "What misunderstanding? I'm gay and you're not. You were NOT nice about turning me down... and when Lisa confessed to you, did you even wait until her heart was healed before going after Jenn? NO, you figured that it was open season and just went for it. But you didn't bother getting to know Jenn at all... "

Trey turned his back to Ryan to say the next part since he wasn't good at being mean but it had to be said anyways. "But truly, the real asshole move on your part was at the reunion when you outed me while sober and then kissed me when you were drunk. Did you even know what you were doing?" Jenn held his hand tight, knowing you had to confront your nightmares to make them go away. She'd feed him all the booze he'd need to sleep later, and hold him while he cried.