Page 44 of Offside

“Oh,” Landon hummed, almost seeming shocked by my answer…so maybe he wasn’t catching on to anything. “That’s fair, man. I really was just curious to know if it was going well–I don’t care who you love, you know?”

Yeah, well, it was him, so maybe he would care if he knew that.

Loving him and not even being able to tell him that was a draining fucking mess.

“Right,” I sighed. “Well, yeah–didn’t work out, but I’m still hopeful. I now know what it feels like to have someone, and I don’t plan on giving that up, so–”

“Yeah,” he said lifelessly, color draining from his face.

Fuck.

It was so hard not to touch him.

It was so hard knowing and having to act like I didn’t know why he’d react that way.

Hanging out with him was nice, and I always enjoyed it, but it didn’t make the hurt go away. I still went home and laid in bed, crying for the man I just spent hours hanging out with, but not really.

Landon held me at arm's length–he didn’t play the way Knight did with me, and I even tried inching a little closer to him on the couch once, but he just made the gap bigger. He was giving me inches, and I was taking them all, but they were inches in the friend direction, not the love direction.

He was keeping space for Metal and not making any room for Sam in his heart…and that was a different kind of lonely.

How did you tell your friend that you were sad because you were trying to make the man you love fall in love with you and not the other version of you with no face?

Oh, and said guy is said friend–it was rough.

Landon wasn’t all that surprised when I left early, but he never was once his blues set in. I couldn’t be around him like that and not spend the whole time wanting to fix it for him, so the best I could do was give him space to deal with it.

Grieve it.

Grieve me.

Maybe that was how we got here, lying in my bed with tears blurring my eyes.

All I wanted was to talk to Knight–that was it. I just wanted to feel like he made me feel again, but Landon wasn’t giving in to anything I tried.

This wasn’t working for either of us.

Landon was sad.

I was sad.

And I could fix it.

Maybe that was the kind of warped rationale that had me wiping away tears with hot breaths, pulling out my phone, and re-downloading an app.

Just for a hit of the love I was craving.

Chapter 20

Landon

It was late when my phone buzzing woke me up. I’d fallen asleep watching TV on my couch, so I half figured that was my mom calling to lecture me about my back or something–logic wasn’t fresh when you were groggy.

It was a short buzz, so not a call.

In a tired haze, I smacked my hand on the glass table, over my phone, pulling up the too-bright screen in the dark room and squinting at it. It took a second for my eyes to adjust, focusing in on a pink icon I hadn’t seen in weeks.

My heart thumped.