should've said something | shyland

Chapter Two

A/N: Happy Birthday to one of my favorite humans, dog dads, and 1/2 of my favorite couple on the internet. I'm not going to write too much on here, but I wanted to say that Ryland is an angel with the biggest heart who never fails to make me smile/laugh when I need it, and he deserves the world, and I hope he gets it today.

Also, putting 'Twelve Years Later' every chapter is exhausting and I'm going to forget, so know that italics is Ryland narrating in his "upcoming youtube video" and regular font is the flashbacks he's retelling. But, I will put dashes to separate the two :) 

"So, yes, I know, I was a bit of an asshole," Ryland admitted, staring down at his hands to avoid the lens of the camera. "If I could take back how I treated Shane in those moments, I would do it in a heartbeat, and if he never wanted to speak to me again, I wouldn't have blamed him, because I was practically willing to give up on a ten year friendship with somebody I cared about more than anything in order to fit in. And, the thing I didn't realize until much later is, Shane would have accepted me no matter who I was, but high school, it's only four years of your life, and the people who don't like you then, they won't matter down the road."

"But, like I said, I didn't realize that until much later, and fourteen-year-old Ryland wanted people to like him for the person he thought he was instead of who he actually was. Deep down, I think I knew how I felt about Shane, but nobody else did, and being gay wasn't wildly accepted back when I was a teenager, so as much as I could, I suppressed my feelings and told myself it was wrong. If people assumed I was gay, I knew that I would have to deal with those feelings, and I wasn't ready to confront them. And, avoiding Shane physically hurt me, even for a short period of time. It was hard, because when I hung out with him, I was only reminded of what I couldn't have, but when I avoided him, it felt like my heart was ripping in half because of how much I missed him."

"And, I knew Shane didn't understand what was going on. One day, he walks into school with his best friend since first grade, and twenty minutes later, said best friend is avoiding him like the plague. I didn't want him to know what I was going through, I didn't want him to feel the pain I was dealing with, and I knew mentioning those kids talking to me would send him into 'protective best friend' mode. And, I couldn't explain why those comments hurt me so much, so I didn't say anything."

—

They didn't talk in PE.

Ryland saw Shane glance over at him a few times, like he was willing the blue-eyed boy to come sit by him and tell him what was going on, but Ryland always looked the other way. Even when they were put into two teams for Dodgeball, something simple to do on their first day while everybody waited for their gym uniforms to come in, Ryland made sure he and Shane were on different sides.

Although, maybe they should have been on the same team, because Shane seemed focused on attempting to take Ryland's head out with the ball every chance he could. Ryland could tell by the look in Shane's eyes that he wasn't angry as much as he was hurt, trying to think of all the things he could hav done wrong, but with every toss of the ball in his direction, Ryland felt his heart break a little more for all the things he couldn't tell his best friend.

He hated keeping secrets.

Ryland knew Shane didn't trust people easily. He knew of the auburn-haired boy's struggles with his anxiety and the near-toxic relationship with his father, and every time Shane called him in tears in the middle of the night to tell him about the fights his parents were having, Ryland wanted nothing more than to run to Shane's house and hold him. But, it usually ended with Ryland whispering un-promising promises into his end of the phone until Shane passed out from exhaustion instead.