ONE
Kamran
I tried with all my might to concentrate on the TV and ignore the fact that it felt like the walls were closing in around me.
I rarely missed watching a football game with my best friend, Ryan. That was why I hadn’t cancelled on him today, even though now, it was becoming clear that I probably should have.
I’d never thought that anything could distract me from football, yet here I was. I couldn’t follow what was happening. Even though I was looking at the screen, I wasn’t even watching.
Not after what I’d learned today.
I realized my hands were trembling a little bit and squeezed the bottle I was holding and then lifted it, tipped it down my throat, trying to either drown myself or ground myself. I wasn’t sure which.
When I set the empty bottle down on the coffee table, I instantly regretted not having it in my hand to fiddle with. I needed another one but it wasn’t like me to get up in the middle of a play.
Ryan would know that something was up.
For a moment, I considered telling him. I was aching to tellsomeonewhat I had found out this morning. This new secret made me feel like I was a balloon pumped too full of air. It was about to burst out of me.
But Ryan was a man’s man. He was the gym teacher and coach at the local high school and the appointed griller at every barbeque.
He was a good friend, always the first to grab me a beer when shit went down, but we didn’t usually talk aboutfeelings.Not to mention that we were already more than a few bottles deep.
Besides, there was nothing he could say or do to make me feel better about what I had found out.
I just had to keep it to myself.
I glanced at Ryan. His large body was bent forward, elbows braced on his knees. Tension ran through his muscles, making him look rigid.
It could have been that he was engrossed in the game, but I knew that wasn’t it, because he glanced over, catching my gaze at once and I could tell by the look he gave me that he knew something was going on. That was when I realized that my foot was tapping, and I was chewing on my thumbnail.
I forced my hand to sit on my lap and tried to still my leg.
Sitting next to my best friend while we watched the game usually gave me the good kind of nostalgia from our college days, but today was different. Today, all I felt was rotten and broken inside.
I can’t take this anymore.
Without meaning to, I was suddenly standing and pacing the living room, feeling like my world was ending. And itwas. Everything I knew, everything I had?—
My gaze caught on the canvas on the wall printed with a picture of me and Melissa from our first trip to Whistler and itwas like a knife in the gut. I tore my gaze away and it landed on Ryan instead.
He was sitting on the couch, openly watching me now, instead of the TV. A beer was held loosely in his hand, his brown eyes trained on me like I was the next play, and he didn’t know which way it was going to go.
I didn’t blame him. EvenIdidn’t know what came next. What I would say, what I would do. The reality of the situation was too big to ignore, too heart-wrenching.
“Kamran—”
“Lissa’s cheating on me.”
The words came out like trapped gas. There was no way to hold that shit in, but the moment I said it, I wished I had managed to keep my mouth shut.
Ryan’s eyes widened, his mouth opened and for a moment, it was like he saw straight through me. Like he was remembering my entire relationship and picking out all the clues. It wouldn’t surprise me. He had been there through it all.
Finally, his eyes focused on mine again.
“Shit, man,” he muttered.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
