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Jeremy, Ashad and Toby stood, frozen, their eyes locked, for what felt like an hour. Jeremy was afraid that if he moved a muscle, someone would react. Something would happen. And it did.
Ashad pushed himself away from Jeremy and ran, disappearing into the writhing crowd immediately. Jeremy didn’t know what to think. He slumped against the wall, staring vacantly into the mass of people as the thumping music seemed to fall into a dull droning sound around him. It couldn’t be real. There was no way he’d just kissed Ashad.
He turned his head to see Toby still standing there, an almost comical look of surprise on his face. It seemed for a split second that Toby would approach him, or speak, but he seemed to think better of it and vanished around the corner of the hallway. The couples surrounding Jeremy kept on making out, a mass of roaming hands and interlocked lips. The claws of anxiety tightened around his stomach and he suddenly felt sick. He ran for the front door and just made it, puking violently onto the lawn. It wasn’t even the alcohol, not really. He’d held it up till then. It was the utter terror that clutched him, the knowledge that he would be alone again, forever. No one would want to be his friend.
Jeremy wiped his mouth on his sleeve and stood. He didn’t even have the energy to go back inside and clean himself up, he just wanted to get away from here. He didn’t want to go home, but what other options did he have? He had no friends to resort to, his sister was probably occupied with Cassidy’s mouth, and he hadn’t seen Darcy since they’d arrived. Wearily, he pulled out his phone and checked the bus timetable. It was only 11:26pm, so there was still one more bus for the night. He wasn’t going to wait around to be driven back home by someone else.
“Jer!” Jeremy turned lethargically to see Ella running towards him. Was she… crying?
“What do you want?” he asked stiffly.
“Cassidy broke up with me,” Ella bawled, grabbing him in a desperate hug.
Jeremy didn’t want anyone to touch him right now, not after Ashad—
He pushed Ella away roughly. “About fucking time,” he said coldly.
“What?” Ella looked so helpless, her wide eyes brimming with tears. “You don’t care that she was cheating on me with some dumb fuck called Mason” — she spat the word — “and only dated me so that she could get attention for being bisexual? She fucking used me Jeremy. What kind of a brother are you?”
“A fucking hopeless one, apparently.” Jeremy turned on his heel and started walking up the street to the bus stop.
“You are a hopeless little shit of a brother,” Ella screamed, but she followed him anyway. After all, she didn’t have anyone else to take her home. They shared no more words during the fifteen minute walk, and for the first twenty minutes on the empty bus there was no sound but for the rattling windows and the engine. Jeremy tried looking out the window but they were black, and the dim lights inside the bus only revealed his own reflection. He looked awful. His face was drawn, the skin underneath his eyes baggy and bruised with tiredness. Ashad had been right; he’d lost weight too.
Ashad.
The tears came unbidden. He didn’t want to feel anything, he didn’t want to even acknowledge Ashad’s existence. Jeremy didn’t want to feel guilt for cutting him off or for caving and kissing Ashad while he was drunk. But the emotions swept over him anyway, so powerful that they made him hunch over his stomach, which was aching again. The sobs wracked his entire frame, and the bus driver could surely hear him. And yet nothing could make him stop.
Ella wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled his head against her wordlessly. He realised she was crying too. He squeezed her hand and they sat together, empty shells of heartbreak bouncing on a bus on the way home.
When they entered the house it was 12:48am, still relatively early for a Saturday night (or Sunday morning). There was no way Jeremy was going to be able to sleep. He sat downstairs in front of the TV, leaving it set on the first channel that came up. Music videos flashed on the screen, but they didn’t register in his brain. Ella curled up in a foetal position next to him, her wide eyes reflecting the dancing singers on the screen. The next video featured some female pop singer who embraced a man who started kissing her. Jeremy felt the beer rise back into his throat again and he raced to the bathroom, spewing into the toilet. His very being hurt so much — not physically, it was a pain that originated in his heart. He wept again, slumped on the bathroom tiles. He could hardly summon the energy to drag himself upright and rinse his mouth out under the bathroom tap.
Jeremy collapsed onto the couch again, closing his eyes. Ella had turned the TV off, but she was still there. Maybe she felt as desolate as he did. Hopeless. He was hopeless. A freak that would dare to kiss his best friend. Even Ashad didn’t want him. Everything seemed clear then: Jeremy realised he was utterly unlikeable and that people would veer away from him for the rest of his life. That’s right. I never was good for anything, was I?
Darcy came home at around 1:30, their arrival heralded by a loud honk from whoever had driven them home, and Ella seemed to fall asleep sometime after 2am. But Jeremy didn’t sleep a wink the whole night.
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