The Tide Began to Rise - Repost - 20. Chapter 20

I tried calling Brad. This time it went straight to voice mail. He turned his phone off. I felt terrible. Brad likes me, but I don’t think I can say that same. Brad likes me in a sexual way. I like him in a best friend kind of way. I don’t like him the same way. I love Brent. If maybe something happens between Brent and me, we can try. I don’t know if it will work or not.

I tried calling him back one more time, just in case he turned his phone back on. It still went to voice mail. This time I left him a message. “Brad, when you get this, will you please call me back. I want to talk about this. Even if that means that I will sit there and let you yell at me.”

Everyone was just looking at me. I hung my head. I had hurt one of my best friends terribly. I didn’t mean to. Who would purposely hurt their best friend?

“What are we going to do? I’m not sure I can have a good time now, with what happened. Then again I don’t want to sit here freaking over it. I know Brad, he won’t do anything rash. He just needs to calm down. And then he will talk.” I said.

“Yeah, I don’t think he will do anything stupid. Let’s just continue with what we were going to do.” James said. “We can’t keep calling him and pushing him. If we do, it might make things worse.”

“I’m not sure.” Brie said, “I don’t think this is something that we can just let go. We need to talk to Brad and make sure he is ok.”

Well what happens if when you talk to him before he is ready. It might piss him off. Just because we want and/or need to talk to him, doesn’t mean we can forgo his feelings. Brad is still our friend and first and foremost, we should think about his feelings. When he is ready and willing to talk, he will.” Jennifer said.

We all agreed to what Jennifer had said. I’m still not certain that I can enjoy myself tonight. We went downstairs and pooped in a movie. Brent and I laid on one of the beds, and James and Jennifer laid on another one. Brie decided to lie on the couch.

The first movie we watched was “Live Free or Die Hard”. The entire time I held my phone in my hand, hoping Brad would call. He never did. After Die Hard, we watched “Final Fantasy: Advent Children”. About half way through the movie, everyone decided that it was time to get some food. We hit pause on the movie and piled food on our plates.

All night long we watched movies. I held my phone in my hand, ready to answer on the first ring no matter what. Nobody called. I looked at the others. They seemed like they were mesmerized by the movie. I was enjoying it, but my thoughts were elsewhere.

Around 1 am, everyone was yawning. We decided that it was time to hit the sack. We turned on a light so that we could see. Brent turned the movie off, then the TV. I got underneath the blankets and laid my head on my pillow. He turned the light off and crawled under the blanket and lay down next to me. I leaned over and gave him a kiss good night. I closed my eyes and went to sleep.

I walked in the front door and went straight to the kitchen. I found my mom and dad sitting at the table eating their dinner. My mom must have heard me come in the front door, because she was looking at kitchen door as I walked in.

“What are you doing home? I thought you were going to….. “Hang….. Out……?”

She stopped talking. She was looking at me right in the eyes. All the way back home I was crying. I could feel my eyes burning. I could tell that they were bloodshot. That is why mom stopped. She saw the redness in my eyes.

“Honey, what’s wrong?” she ask.

I shifted my eyes toward my dad, then back to mom. She nodded her head. I turned and left the room. I went to my room and sat on my bed. I waited for my mom. I only had to wait a couple minutes.

“Ok honey; tell me, what’s wrong?”

“I’m an idiot. I told everyone that I was gay tonight. That’s not the bad part. They all were ok with it. I guess I told them too late. I found out that the guy that I have the biggest crush on is gay; but he is already dating someone. When I found out, I just left. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“I’m not sure there is anything you can do. You can’t make him want to date you. You can’t make them break up.”

“But I don’t want to spend my life without him knowing that we could have a chance at being together. I don’t think that I can see him every day with someone else.”

“If you don’t mind telling me, who is “he”? I don’t think you have said his name yet.”

“It’s Tyler.”

“Your best friend Tyler? I thought he was dating Brie.”

“That’s what I thought. So when I told him tonight, I only expected to be faced with the problem of him accepting me….. Mom, I know that you aren’t fully ready for this, but I need help.”

She seemed to think about what she wanted to say. “On one hand, I would tell you to go for him, prove that you are better than the other guy. On the other hand, he is your best friend. I’m sure you want him to be happy no matter what. It is up to you, but I wouldn’t do anything that could ruin the friendship that you already have.”

My mom gave me a hug and left the room. She was right. I have to prove that I’m better that Brent. I just hope Tyler can see it.

I lay down and went to bed. I was out like a light. I was tired from the crying that I had done.

I pulled into the plaza and shut off my car. I called him about 20 minutes ago, and told him to meet me here. He’s the one who planted all these thoughts in my head. I’m very thankful he did. I’ve hated Tyler for so long. There’s just something about him that drives me crazy.

About 5 minutes after I parked my car, he showed up. I got out of my car. He did the same.

“What took you so long?” I asked

“Sorry, I had to make sure no one heard me leaving. These people are driving me crazy.”

“Whatever, I wanted to talk to you about the next step.”

“Listen dude, I pretty much devoted my life to making Tyler miserable, but I think you might be taking it too far. After what dad did to him, losing him mom, I think he deserves to be left alone.”

“You soft piece of shit! You were the one to come and talk to me about doing this. We are not stopping now. This is already set in motion. I…..know, we are going to see this through until the end. Now, help me with the next step. I only know so much, but I’m sure if we combine our knowledge we can get this going. Maybe faster than we originally hoped.”

We continued to talk for a few hours. We made plans, talked about who and what we needed to make this a success.

I woke up to a light coming on in the basement. As quickly as the light came on, they shut back off. I’m sure it was my mom checking on us. I went right back to sleep.

I woke up later to the sounds of everyone else stirring.

“Morning guys, you want some breakfast?” I asked.

“Yeah, that sounds great. I want waffles, some eggs, a few bacon strips, a good helping of hash browns and I think a slice of ham sounds nice.” James said.

“Well while you cook that, I will make pancakes and eggs.” I said.

“I’ll help.” Brie said. She threw the covers off and started heading towards the stairs.

I got up and followed her. Tyler, Jennifer, and James stayed where they were. They just started talking. When I got up to the kitchen saw my mom at the counter reading the paper and drinking some coffee. Brie already had the eggs out, and was looking for a bowl.

“Lower cabinet by the fridge.” I told Brie, and then looked at my mom. “Morning mom, how was your date last night?”

“It was good. We went out to a really nice restaurant and then walked through the park in downtown Omaha.”

“Wow, sounds like fun. We watched a few movies last night, nothing to special…… We are going to make some breakfast. Do you want some?

“Ummm….. Sure, what are you making?”

I told her what we were going to make while Brie continued to search for everything. Mom decided she would help us cook. With her cooking nothing has the possibility for burning. Call it women’s intuition or whatever you want. I just know that I have never known her to burn anything.

When Breakfast was done cooking, I went to the top of the stairs that lead down to the basement. I called down for the others to come up.

James came up with not shirt or pants on. All he was wearing was a pair of Calvin Klein underwear. I’m not sure if he was trying to impress all of us with his bearing his all or not. My mom looked at him and did a double take.

“James what are you doing? My mom is here.” I asked.

“I’m strutting my stuff. If you don’t want look, you don’t have to. I know you want to though.” He replied.

“James, go put some clothes on. You’re making me self conscious.” I said. Everyone laughed.

He went back down stairs and came back up dressed. We all sat around the table and bullshitted. We talked about school, sports or whatever else popped in our heads. Mom just sat there and listened to what we had to say. She made a few comments but nothing really big.

Tyler and I cleared the table once everyone was done eating. Then we went back downstairs.

“So what do we want to do?” Brie asked.

“Well we could hang out here all day, or we could go somewhere.” Tyler said.

“Let’s go to the mall. Sitting around the house sounds boring. While we are out, we can go and get our costumes. That is if you guys don’t have yours yet.” I said.

We all decided that that sounds like a good idea. We got dressed and went out to the cars. We all agreed that we wanted to go to the WestRoads mall in Omaha, instead of the Mall of the Bluffs.