Savior [Completed]

Savior: [Sixteen] [I/II]

This isn't even that long but it's better to post what I have? 

Sixteen: Nick

It was only his body clinging to mine that kept me from falling, it felt like.

As soon as he’d said it – even though the atmosphere hadn’t been particularly bright before (read: a dead giveaway) – I’d felt every ounce of energy within me drain away.

One part of me still couldn’t digest what was happening, what had already happened. Was it actually, honestly, unmistakably for real? Or had I just fallen asleep waiting for Ryan to call me back after the ‘I’m going to tell Rodney about your secret’ call and was in the middle of a nightmare?

His arms tightened around me to confirm that no, this was real: I had just caused two of my best friends to break up.

 “Ryan…”

“He just…he wouldn’t even…and he said…” Ryan was babbling and I couldn’t get most of it – my mind was still trying to accept the magnitude of exactly what I’d done. Two of my best friends who’d been together longer than I could remember, who’d been so happy, who’d done so much for me…I’d ruined everything.

I felt sick.

“I’m so sorry,” I choked out, “this is all my fault. I…do you want me to talk to him? I can explain what-”

His somewhat vehement ‘No!’ took me by surprise.

He’d broken the embrace and now we were face to face. He saw the look on my face, I imagine, of complete bewilderment, and went on to sadly announce that it didn’t matter.

I took a moment to think about it before responding. Did he mean that Rodney had heard him out and refused to believe him? Or was it not pertinent to the issue at all?

‘Stop trying to absolve yourself of the guilt, Nick. You really think what Rodney saw had nothing to do with it?’

“Let me just try,” I suggested, already hating the idea of how that would go in my head, “and I’m sure he’ll come around. It probably sounded super crazy to him, which it was, so-”

“No,” he shook his head morosely, “I mean, it doesn’t matter to him. That’s not why we broke up.”

Despite the state he was in, Ryan was still trying to make me feel better by taking the blame off me. I hadn’t thought it was possible earlier, but his gesture made me feel even worse.

“Ryan, I-”

“No,” he interrupted, voice small, “it’s really not you. It was all me.” The tears that had momentarily ceased started again, and the pit in my stomach deepened. He didn’t let me speak though, and continued. “Turns out, I never truly knew him and…”

He broke again, and I did the only thing I could think of – I hugged him again.

I don’t know how long we stood like that, with my arms awkwardly wrapped around him and his face buried into my chest, but he subsided eventually, and this time it looked like he’d run completely dry.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, “I just…”

I shook my head as means of wordlessly saying it was fine, no problem, anytime…that there was nothing to apologize for, basically. I couldn’t actually say any of those things – ‘it’s fine’ and ‘no problem’ implied he’d done something wrong and inconvenienced me, and ‘anytime’ just sounded like this sort of thing was meant to be recurrent.

I was overthinking things and it was all self-induced, but my stomach churned a little more at the thought of Ryan ever being in this condition again. After having anxiously waited for an hour and a half since Ryan initially called to let me know that Rodney was coming over and he’d be telling him my ‘secret’, I hadn’t been able to take it anymore, and I’d invited myself to Ryan’s house. Upon getting there, a frantic, on-the-verge-of-tears Maya had basically dragged me to his room and begged Ryan to at least talk to me if not her. He’d just been sitting on his bed, a slight trace of tear-stains on his face but no expression otherwise, and after another half hour of sitting beside him had passed, he’d cracked.