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It isn’t so bad actually. Skylar and I have such a history that we’re able to communicate without words. Just a funny glance at me while pointing at a totally innocent sign—which we then read with some hidden lewd second meaning—and both of us are cracking smiles and trying not to laugh.
There are so many inside jokes between us, I’d hate to be a third wheel on any of our outings; no one ever really “got” us, even back then.
It isn’t until we’ve turned off the main drag and walk down a side street that we’re able to hear each other. “So do you have anyone in your life?” I ask.
Skylar finds that funny for some reason. “Nah. Not much of a dating scene where I live.” He gives me a look. “I doubt the same can be said for you.”
“What do you mean?”
“In this huge city, you’ve got to be drowning in dates. I bet you get some ass every weekend!”
I consider all the parties I’ve had since moving here. And the guys I’ve been with, or had almost been with, or accidentally have been with. None of them filled the void Skylar left when I dropped out.
Is that really what I’ve been doing? Just trying to find someone who makes me feel the way this special guy makes me feel?
“Come to think of it, you weren’t really big on dating back then,” Sky points out, scratching idly at a spot on his arm. “Unless you hid all your action from the frat house. It’s like, ‘Don’t shit where you eat,’ right? Hey, tell me something, Brett. Do you have a special someone in your life?”
I’ve gone from putting my hands in my pockets to letting them hang by my sides a hundred times since we left Dino’s. I don’t know what to do with them. My palms are sweaty. “Nope. It’s just me.”
“Just you.” He comes to a stop.
I also come to a stop for some reason, holding my breath and staring back at him.
Skylar gazes over my face, lost in some thought of his. Is this when I should tell him? The two of us are skirting around the subject so conspicuously, I feel like the question is just as much on the tip of his tongue as it is on mine. Maybe he’s wondered about it all these years. Maybe he’s too nervous to ask me—despite being the kind of guy who is made nervous by literally nothing on Earth.
“Was that the real reason you left college?” he asks suddenly.
My mouth was opened with something else I’d planned to say. I shift gears. “Uh, what?”
“Sorry. I’m going back to what we talked about before. I can’t get my mind around something you said. I mean, I get it, sure, you weren’t the most studious. But our university isn’t an Ivy League school or anything. It’s filled with party boys, lazy stoners, and morons who probably couldn’t even spell their own name. Why did you really leave?”
I stand there for a second with my mouth open and nothing coming out, until: “Is that all I am to you, Sky? A … A lazy ‘party boy’ …?”
“No, no, no, I didn’t mean it that way, I—”
“You also had to point out that you wrote a few papers for me, too. As if I’m a … how’d you put it? … ‘a moron who can’t spell his own name’ …”
“Brett, dude …”
“Do you think I’m just a loser dropout, Sky?”
“Bro! That isn’t what I said!”
I press my lips shut before I say anything more and stare at him hard.
“Brett, I think you’re awesome,” he tells me.
I narrow my eyes at him.
“I do!” he protests. “I think the world of you. I’m not here to see anyone else, am I? Remember TJ? He opened a restaurant out here. I’m not going and seeing what he’s up to. Oh, and Randall, that smart-as-fuck freshman with the giant glasses, he’s here, too. He’s in med school now becoming a doctor. But I’m not hanging with him, either.”
I frown and cross my arms, feeling sulky.
Sky smirks. He knows me too well. “All I was trying to get across with what I said was … well … I had a different picture in mind for you. A bigger picture. I mean, you did say you also quit the job your father got you through his company in this city, right? And—”
“I didn’t say I quit. I said it didn’t work out.”
“So you were fired?”
“I …” My cheeks are burning red.
It’s clear that on one level, I want to prove Sky wrong—whatever it is he’s trying to prove—and just work out all of our frustrations over a game of flag football or ultimate Frisbee, like we used to.
On the other hand, I want so desperately to be whatever version of myself would impress Skylar the most. I’m determined for him to give me his approval. Or to like who I am now. Or to confess that he has actually been—at least in some small way—as pained and miserable as I’ve been.
