all those broken promises | shyland

Chapter Sixteen

Thursday, 11/12

It wasn't that he was avoiding Ryland.

Really, he wasn't. They had been texting about their film project, finally deciding to do a short horror film he had been wanting to do for a while – though, it did take some coaxing out of Ryland. And okay, he used the Freshman as shields every time he and Ryland turned the same corner, and he had ignored every message unrelated to their English assignment, but it didn't mean he was going out of his way to avoid the blue-eyed boy – also known as his boyfriend.

He had never had a boyfriend. Sure, he had hookups, and he had people he pretended to be with for weeks at a time to prove to Garrett he could, but he had never called somebody his boyfriend. The word felt strange inside his mind, like he shouldn't be thinking it, like he shouldn't be getting tingles up and down his arms at the thought of Ryland being his boyfriend.

Really, he should be happy. Ryland had admitted to being in love with him, and Shane knew that meant he won the bet. But, he didn't feel like he won. Suddenly, the thought of putting up with his naïve mother looked like such a small obstacle. After all, he was nearly eighteen now and if he stuck it out a little longer, he could find an apartment with Ryland in a few months anyway. He could be with Ryland and not worry about feeling unloved and misunderstood and mistreated.

But, that wasn't what he agreed to.

And truthfully, he knew Ryland deserved better. They weren't together because of chance or fate or love or any of that meant-to-be crap Andrew always talked about. Ryland didn't say he loved him because they fell in love so perfectly and beautifully and in a way that was right. Their love wasn't filled with angels and harps and butterflies and a house on a hill. Their love, if he could call it that, was filled with black roses and toxicity and darkness and everything Ryland wasn't.

It wasn't that he didn't want the money and it wasn't that he did. It wasn't that he couldn't run and tell Garrett and Andrew and the rest of his friends and the entire school that he was in love with a boy so pure, he could make flowers bloom in the middle of a snowstorm. It wasn't that he was too proud to love somebody or that he was afraid of what everyone else would think about him. Rather, he was afraid of what Ryland was going to think about him.

And okay, maybe he was avoiding him, but it was better than lying to his face. Besides, he needed the time alone to think about what to do. If he told Garrett that Ryland loved him, would he accept the money with a fake smile and a guilt-ridden heartache? If he waited out the next week without saying anything, lips pressed to Ryland's skin every chance he could so he would remember the taste when things blew up on him, would the shaggy-haired boy say anything?

The thing is, he had never felt love before. Really, he wasn't sure what this was, but if there was a word he would use to describe it, he's certain that would be it. He had grown up with an alcoholic dad who spent the better part of the last decade trying to disown him and a mom who beat down her son to defend her husband and his abusive ways. He had never been close with his do-no-wrong brothers, choosing to hide in his room and write scripts instead, promising to make something of himself someday so his father would regret calling his creativity 'a useless hobby'.

And sure, he knew he was loved by his friends, but he also knew Garrett would step in front of a bullet if he had to protect Andrew, and he wanted somebody who would do the same for him. But, Ryland was the only boy he had ever met that he would take the bullet for, and that scared him, the lengths he was willing to go to protect someone he had known for such a short period of time.

"Shane!"

Everything was moving in slow motion. He turned around, breathing a sigh of relief when he saw the shadow running toward him didn't belong to the blue-eyed boy. As time sped up again, Andrew came to a quick halt in front of him, his eyebrows furrowed as though he knew something Shane didn't. "Uh—do you want to tell me why your boyfriend asked me why you're avoiding him?"