Yep.
He sat by himself on the swings, listlessly going back and forth, feet dragging against the ground.
My boyfriend liked to say I looked good bathed in sunlight, light catching my blonde hair and making my tan skin look more sun kissed. Okay, I probably did look good. Ryan was the only person that could make me blush and I think he liked when I looked flustered too. Especially if he was the one to do the flustering.
Anyway, I always really enjoyed the way Ryan looked in the light, even if I didn’t say it because I actually had thoughts I could keep to myself. He was bright and exciting all the time, and it was like the outside almost matched the inside when the sunshine hit him just right.
The thing about getting so caught up in Ryan was that it was super easy. His words, the way he gestured with his hands. There was always something going on, and I was always helpless against it, getting pulled into his orbit, so I rarely got to just sit back and admire him.
And I couldn’t now since he was sad. I walked over to him thinking about how he looked good like this and I never got to appreciate it.
“Is this about what Zach said?” I asked, stopping in front of the swings and a little off to the side, torn between providing comfort and being a safe distance away from Ryan on a swing. “I told him he was way out of line.”
Ryan’s smiled but it didn’t look real. “His comments don’t even rank in the top ten worst things he’s said to me today, let alone ever.”
That was pretty much what Zach said. Ryan was eccentric and sarcastic, Zach was shallow and witty, but they had similar ways of thinking sometimes. It was so weird all the stuff that could annoy me about my best friend that I liked on Ryan.
“Did I do something?” I asked. I made an effort to stay where I was. I inched closer but not too close, so I wouldn’t be in the way if he started swinging.
“The thing about you having done all this stuff I haven’t,” Ryan said, taking me by surprise. Didn’t know it was about that “You’ve done all this stuff I haven’t. These are all my first experiences and your 10thor 20thor 47th.”
“I’d never taught anyone to drive a car before,” I tried.
“Yeah, and I’ll always treasure such beautiful moments like, this is a car.” He swung listlessly back and forth. I realized I was off to the side the regular amount away to not be hit by a normal person. I didn’t stand a Ryan amount away, so my safety couldn’t be guaranteed, yet I didn’t back away.
“Are you mad?” I focused on him instead of my own safety.
“No, I just. I don’t know.” He kept staring at the woodchips on the ground, the kind meant to break a kid’s fall, give them a safe place to land.
“I don’t wanna be in a bad mood. I want to just laugh this off.” He sighed. “I wish I got to share something with you for the first time.” Oh. “I want new experiences, right? That would be one.” Quietly, he finished with, “Then I wouldn’t just be old news to you.”
I protested immediately. “You’re not—"
“Feels like it.” Still spoken softly yet firmly too.
Even if all that was true, any regular activity got a lot more interesting and different when Ryan was involved. Though it felt like he wasn’t in the right frame of mind for me to tell him that. I don’t even mean he found ways to make things awkward and fail—maybe some of that—but he saw things so different from me and that was one of the things I loved most about him.
I tried to find a different way to fix this.
“We’ll think of other stuff,” I offered. “I didn’t know they needed to be new experiences for me.” I hated essay questions on tests, when you got to decide what you wrote about. I worked better with all the rules and expectations clearly stated.
“Neither did I. But now it’s making me sad.” He made a wordless noise. “It’s not even really that, it’s just. There’s no guarantee, you know? That any of this is important.”
“What? Pulling a prank?” He shook his head. Good, because it probably wasn’t but why did that matter? Why did he seem so, oh. “Like, you and me?” Shit, how had that even become a question?“Of coursewe’re important.” I stepped closer, not caring if I got hit.
Don’t panic, I told myself. Fix this now, panic later.
“That’s what we think now, this all seems meaningful.” He looked at me. “College is approaching.”
He had to look at me then? I looked a little freaked out, but that whole thing where I’m just as capable as Ryan to freak out and make everything worse? Very relevant to the moment. College was a big topic. I couldn’t handle it yet.
Senior year started and the future, or maybe even The Future, lingered in the air. It lurked at the edges of conversations and plans. It was coming but hadn’t arrived yet. I could only handle small doses.
“I really liked how we hadn’t freaked out about that yet,” I offered a bit desperately.
“Me too,” he agreed, looking like he might join me in being desperate and freaked out but then he shook his head. “It just sucks that all this stuff we’re doing is old news for you, so you won’t even have anything to look back at and remember me by.”
Trying to sound steady, I went with, “College is so far away—"
