chad-reddingâ:
âDonât call me that! You donât get to fucking call me that! Right, nothing is supposed to change now that you have someone else. Iâm just supposed to watch you get to be happy and what, hope that you have some time for me afterwards? Iâm done being forgotten and second best! Iâm tired of being the backup or just slightly not good enough to be someoneâs first choice! You didnât give a shit about me. You didnât want anything with me. You just wanted to sleep with me until someone you actually liked finally came along and you made them someone important to you! You let them actually have something solid and structured while I gotâŚsex.â
Tears finally started traveling down his cheeks as he took another step back. âFuck you. JustâŚfuck you for making me believe that I could actually have something decent, that someone could actually want me. If you had just wanted to fuck me, you could have done it without pretending like you gave a shit about me. JustâŚgo find your fucking boyfriend, Jesus. I donât need you anymore. I donât want you.â Chad swallowed hard as he took yet another step back, ready to turn away and doâŚanything other than stand there.
Chad was right. He was so horribly wrong about some things, but when he pointed out the full picture all Jesus could think was that he was right. Jesus still cared about Chad, but Ty was his boyfriend. And Chad was... what? Stuck somewhere between friend and whatever a person became when you couldnât fuck them anymore, but still wanted them around, and still wanted to do things that friends definitely didnât do with each other.Â
But none of it was Chadâs fault, and Jesus knew distantly that he should probably just shut his mouth and walk away but he couldnât, so he said something really stupid instead.Â
âIâm sorry,â he murmured, voice going low and sad and soothing in the space between heartbeats. âChad, I get that Iâve fucked up somewhere in here, but youâre not a second choice and I do care about you.â
And then Chad was crying, and Jesus was 100% sure that he was gonna go to hell for making someone as pretty and pathetic as Chad cry. He was gonna burn and he wasnât even going to have time to explain to Ty why.Â
âLook it- itâs complicated,â he said, voice rough, taking a step forward even though Cha took one step back. âItâs not like you were nothing to me, and then someone came along and I just fucking decided to go steady. My- my boyfriend and I got a long history, and I never thought weâd work out. I swear to God I never set out to screw you over. I get that youâre mad, and you got a right to be mad, to be hurt, but I canât let you storm away and tell yourself that I never cared. I fucking care, alright? If anything I care too fucking much, a dangerous amount for a guy whoâs already got someone-â
He snapped his mouth shut, but in the back of his mind he knew the damage was done. His emotions had run off the rails and if Chad decided to hate him forever for that little bit of honesty, then Jesus knew he deserved it. Fuck. He was going to have to talk to Ty about this tonight. It wasnât fair to Ty, but he deserved to know that his boyfriend had made a mistake this big, and to understand that maybe he didnât have quite as clean a slate as Jesus had made it sound like.Â
âShit,â he sighed, running another hand through his hair. He took a measured step back, and looked at Chad, and knew that he looked as confused as he felt.Â
âI understand if you never want to see me again.â














