AllFreeNovel
Share Us
As I felt the first wind of a decision, the door of the room opened, and Sebastian dragged himself in. “Thank god you’re here,” he whispered.
“Wh-what happened? You’re back?” I jumped to my feet. He looked horrible. His thick, black curls were messy, his dark brown eyes were empty, and his face was devoid of emotions.
As I stood in front of him, my left hand touching the back of the couch, his lips quivered. “I…” He choked and let out a frustrated grunt.
I didn’t think. I closed the distance between us as a million things crossed my mind. Had something happened to his little sister, Eryn? Was it his grandpa? Or Jennifer? My arms wrapped around him and pulled him into a protective hug. Nobody knew the things that troubled him. Nobody saw past his easy smiles.
“…can’t keep doing this,” he whispered quickly. “I can’t, Tyler.”
“Hush,” I said. “Take a breath and tell me what happened. Slowly.”
I wished I hadn’t told him that. I wished I could have had a few more moments of not knowing. But as Sebastian inhaled and began telling me, my heart wrenched in my chest. I felt every ounce of anger and betrayal that he felt, but he must have burned a thousand times hotter. He told me about Dixon, about the pizza, about the chocolate. At that point, he lifted it and thrust it to me. “You like this one,” he said hoarsely. I had gotten him to sit down on his bed and I sat next to him.
“Tell me what happened next,” I prompted him.
He snorted with contempt. “She blamed me. Can you believe that? Like I made her cheat on me. Like it was my fault that she had no other option but to fuck some brute.”
Hackles rose on the back of my neck. “Fucking hell.” I took a calming breath and sorted through my thoughts. In the two years I had been with Courtney, this was Sebastian’s third breakup. He had just left a toxic relationship when Courtney and I began dating. We were both doing a long-distance thing over that summer and Sebastian’s continued for longer until it fell apart. Now Jennifer. “You don’t need her,” I said. “Listen to me. You are so much better off, Sebastian. If she cares so little about you, then it’s lucky you didn’t get more serious with her. Alright?” I wanted to rage and shout. I wanted to promise him that I would tell Jennifer how she had never deserved him as soon as she crossed my path, but that was not the way to support him now.
I put a hand on Sebastian’s cheek and forced him to look into my eyes.
“You are better than her,” I told him. I knew he heard me. I knew it touched something deep inside of him. “You’ve always been better than her. And you handled this like a gentleman. You’re fucking awesome, dude.”
He snorted, but the exhaustion and desperation were evident. “I’m so tired of being played like this.”
“It’s not your fault,” I told him.
“At what point does that stop being true?” Sebastian asked. “I’ve been in half a dozen relationships and I still don’t know what I’m doing.” His voice faded to a whisper. He steadied his quivering lip and shook his head. “They keep walking all over me, Ty.”
I would have challenged him to a game of table soccer or brought us drinks to mourn his broken heart until we passed out, but neither of those were the right way to deal with this. I would distract him plenty in the coming days. And we would get blind drunk one of these nights, I didn’t doubt that, but it wasn’t going to help him tonight.
My fingers ran through the hair on the back of his neck. It was something that calmed him since we were boys, having a sleepover at his place and witnessing some upsetting altercation between him and his parents. It was a gesture I had to refrain from making around his parents because they read it the wrong way. But Sebastian liked it. His head tilted back, and I scratched the back of it for a while, then let him lie down in his bed.
Methodically, I dragged the shoes off his feet and helped him out of his pants and hoodie. I had a fleeting sense of guilt that I had left Courtney hanging once again, but my friend needed me. If she couldn’t understand that, it wasn’t my fault. Besides, she had already been disappointed in me once tonight. It wasn’t like I could make things worse.
When Sebastian dragged his pajama bottoms on, he lay in his bed. His back was turned to me and the comforter only partially covered him. There was space there for another person. It was as close to an invite as Sebastian would utter, but the need was obvious to those who knew him.
I changed into my pajama bottoms, threw on a plain T-shirt, and slipped under his covers. I wrapped one arm around my friend and spooned him close. He slowly released a sigh of relief, then his shoulders shook, and he held his breath.
I wouldn’t say a word.
This wasn’t the first time Sebastian cried while I held the pieces together. Too many times I had been his refuge and the thing that kept him from shattering. And I had never said a thing. I had never spoken about it to anyone, even him. He was safe.
I just held him, and he didn’t breathe for fear of sobbing. His tears were silent like they had always been. Like when he had been a teenage boy and scolded terribly for not acing his tests.
I knew this boy. He was most of my world. And I knew how to make him feel safe.
THREE
Sebastian
I must have had a bad dream. The panic boiled in me and a gentle hand squeezed my shoulder.
Jennifer. I thought I spoke her name. I wanted to turn around and embrace her. I wanted to press our bodies together, to hold her so tightly that nothing could pull us apart. But then, the awareness poured in and brought all the pain back. My heart sank deep into my stomach and I must have let out a sound. Someone’s soft voice whispered something my sleeping brain didn’t comprehend.
I wanted to open my eyes and face the speaker, but the warmth that enveloped me was too heavy to escape from. It dragged me down and lulled me back to sleep.
When I next woke up, there was a cold sensation on my back, like someone had pulled the comforter off me and let the cool morning air pour through the window. When I blinked a few times, and the world sharpened around me, I found that the window truly was open and the winter air replaced the stuffiness in the room.
