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“What is it, Mads?” Sam’s hand was up on his head, fingering brown locks while his other hand rubbed random patterns to calm him down. It was not helping.

“Please, Sammy. Let me be. Please.”

“What?”

Maddison’s fingers tighten on the front of the other’s shirt, despite himself. “Please. Leave me alone. I...I can’t do this. Please.”

The hands around him stopped, and Maddison thought, finally, and no, don’t stop. He was torn. Complete. Lost. Found.

And then the arms were back, embracing him tighter. “No.”

And Maddison was back to crying hard.

“Sammy,” he managed to say. Then a little later, “If you leave now, I promise I will do better.” A hiccup, then, “We can be friends again. I just need time. Please. Just give me time. Promise. I'll forget. I'll move on."

He felt Sam shaking his head against Maddison’s shoulder. The tears were not stopping, it was mortifying. “I can’t. I can’t do that, Mads. Don't do that. I miss you.”

“I can’t be friends with you.” Being friends with Sam meant eternal suffering for Maddison. Suffering as they grew old and seeing Sam settle down. A family, kids. A pretty house and a pretty wife. Maddison watching from the sideline as his best friend kissed her hello and goodbye. He couldn’t. Couldn't couldn't couldn't.

“Don’t want to be friends with you.” Muffled against Maddison’s shirt. “I don’t want to be just friends with you, Maddison.”

“I’m sorry.” Maddison felt like an idiot for crying harder.

“No, you don’t understand.” Sam pushed him away so he could look at Maddison’s face, tear-stained cheeks and puffy eyes and snotty nose. He glanced at Sam’s shirt; there was a wet mark on his chest. He had always been an ugly crier and Sam teased him endlessly about it. But now Sam didn’t look like he was going to tease him.

Sam’s hands went up to hold his face, his thumbs brushing Maddison’s tears away from his reddened cheeks. Sam’s expression was serious, his brows furrowed, the familiar v-shaped premature wrinkle appearing between his eyebrows, lines Maddison had traced countless times before. His eyes glistened a bit, and he was biting his lower lip hard. Was he about to cry? Maddison wondered at the back of his mind.

Breathing in deep, then out, Sam repeated, “I don’t want to be just friends with you. Will you listen as to why?” He searched Maddison’s eyes, and Maddison could only nod.

He already knew what Sam was about to say. It was nothing he didn’t know before. He thought, this was it. This was how he was going to lose Sam forever.

Sam began, “When you confessed, I didn’t know what to do. I was stunned. I felt so many things at once and I was overwhelmed. And before I could respond, you were running away and you refused to talk and I got really distraught because I didn’t know what or how exactly to feel. When you said you love me — ” Maddison flinched. A pause.

Then Sam continued, “When you said you love me, the initial feeling I had was joy. Then I got afraid. Confused. Then angry, because you kept it for so long. I didn’t understand why that made me angry so I got confused again and it felt like every single emotion was battling inside me. It wasn’t until I learned from your mom that you went to Wellspring that I felt something else.”

Maddison had stopped crying. He was listening intently, but he couldn’t look Sammy in the eye. He didn’t know where he was going with this.

“I texted you a lot, I thought you got annoyed that’s why you weren’t replying at all. But then it dawned on me: you needed space. You needed time. So, I gave you those things. At that time, I still haven’t figured it out completely. I focused all my energy in club and school. I made sure to train hard. Then we had a match with Wellspring and I thought it was finally time to see you again and I promised myself that I would talk to you then. I kept searching for you in the crowd. I was hoping I would bump into you when I went for a quick walk around the gym’s garden an hour before the warmups. I was starting to worry because you weren’t there. Were you sick? Were you away? Out of town for a competition? I didn’t know. We were so out of loop with each other, I wasn’t used to it. I used to memorize your daily schedule, you know?” Maddison rubbed an eye dry before glancing up at Sam, and the other let out a small smile.

“We lost. And everyone was down when I herded my teammates back to the bus. I was disappointed, not only because we lost but mostly because you weren’t there. Just when I thought I wouldn’t see you, I found you walking across the street. You were wearing your Wellspring gym uniform and I wanted to burn your posh purple jacket.” Sam chuckled, voice deep and rich. Maddison felt breathless.

“I called you several times but you were wearing your headphones. You didn’t hear me as you crossed the street, closer to me. You turned in a different direction, but before that I was able to see a glimpse of your face, much closer this time, and my heart broke. You were so thin, Maddison! What were you doing to yourself? Your cheeks were hollowed, you were so pale, there were dark circles under your eyes and your hair — your hair was unruly. You looked awful, I thought you were sick. I was about to run to you but then my coach called for me to get on the bus and that was when the guilt rushed in. I did that, I thought. You were like that because of me. My heart was throbbing because I wanted to hug you and I wanted to feed you lots of good food and take care of you until you were back to my old, dumbass Mads and that’s when I stopped. Because I called you mine inside my head which was ridiculous but it felt right — shit, it’s embarrassing.”

Maddison let out another breath, laughing a little. He swiped at the snot trickling down his nose. Gross.

“Sammy, get to the point please.” He watched as Sam’s cheeks flushed.

“Right, so,” Sam cleared his throat. “After that I went on to reflect on my feelings and my life — ”

“Did you go to a shrine?” Maddison asked, eyes glinting.

“No, dork! Shut up.” His scowl deepened. Then, “I think, to make this short, I want to say that you aren’t the only one feeling these things and that I may have felt these before, too. Even before you confessed, but I decided to ignore it because I thought us being friends was enough but it was apparently not for you, and now it wasn’t enough for me too and I want something else and I’m sure you do too and if you would still have me? I know I should apologize and I really am sorry for putting you through this emotional shit and it’s hard. So, what I'm really saying is that if you still feel for me what I feel for you then I think it’s a good idea that we — ”

“Jesus, Sammy, just say you love me too!”

If Sam was the only one blushing a moment ago, now Maddison was too.

“Well,” said Sam.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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