🎵 - 💜

That decision, which should have been the decision I made long ago, was that I had to tell Abby my feelings.

I had to pour my heart down to her and if she didn't share my feelings, I could acknowledge their relationship and wear that friendly smile around them. But first, I had to make sure what we had for a couple of days had been my illusion.

I took my time in the pool, swimming back and forth not contemplating my decision. If I tired myself enough, I may have slept during the trip so that when I woke up, this would be over. And I wouldn't have to think things over. I finally felt the courage to confess to her. It was late but worth a shot.

By the time I was out of the pool, it was already past eight. We were supposed to hit a live-music club tonight around ten so I only had time to sleep one hour after the shower. When I returned to our room, Roy was nowhere to be seen. Considering how he was when I left him, he was probably out alone, so I just went to the bathroom to take a quick shower. In the shower, I thought about the reason why things went down.

Why did Abby invite him over? Was it to keep me away or did she really like Roy? Was it a coincidence she had figured it out on the same night we shared our first kiss?

There were so many questions to pose but no coherent answers in return.

After I went back to the room, I zipped down my bag and looked for something to wear.

While I finally decided on a gray t-shirt with ripped jeans, I spotted Abby's mixtape at the bottom of the bag. Taking it, I thought of my initial plans when we started this trip and where life took us recently. I was going to confess to her today—the mid of our trip. Nothing went according to the plan.

With a resigned sigh, I remembered the day I'd recorded my speech after a dozen times. I couldn't really decide what to say and how to say them. I needed to make sense and sound romantic at the same time. Even with the final product, I wasn't sure if I had been able to give that effect, I wanted to but it was what I decided on. Did it even matter now? Roy had been faster; though I started with a head start.

Lost in my train of thoughts, I almost missed the knock on the door. Presuming it was Roy and he forgot his key, I quickly wrapped a towel around my waist. I could leave him there hanging for a couple of minutes but my merciful side kicked into his luck. When I swung the door open, it was an utter shock to find Rachel standing by the doorstep. "Rachel," I breathed, taking an instinctive step back, which seemed inviting. "What are you doing here?"

"I got bored in my room," she said sheepishly. When her eyes trailed up and down at me, it suddenly dawned on me that I was standing half-naked in front of her. Before I could excuse myself, she added: "Can I come in?"

"Uh," I said, looking back. "Can you wait a sec? I should change." When she nodded, I closed the door again and put on my jeans and a t-shirt. Why did she get bored in her room?

Wasn't Abby there? Now Roy's absence was making more sense. When I thought he was wandering alone, he was seeing Abby. Perhaps they were discussing about their problems, talking about how stupid they were, and hugging each other.

Do you ever feel cheated for being left in the dark? She was with me in the pool an hour ago. I could see the hesitancy in her eyes when we were too close to ignore. Now, she was back with her boyfriend. I pulled open the door, letting Rachel in. As she walked inside, she looked around curiously. "Your room is bigger than ours," she commented.

"I haven't noticed," I murmured, though I had never been to their room before. The room was rendered silent that I could hear her footfalls as she made her way around the room with a discovery. I didn't really know what she expected to find in the hotel room we were about to stay in for a night but she seemed like a panther looking for her hunt.

When she paused by my bed, I realized I hadn't put the mixtape I'd made for Abby back into my bag. Fuck. I shouldn't have forgotten it there. She cast a glance at me as if she was asking for permission before she examined it in her hands. "For Abby," she read, her tone questioning. "What's this? Its cover is so cute." She was talking about the tiny hearts I'd drawn. Abby liked that stuff—and well, I wasn't too good at drawing so it looked like primary school drawing.

"Uh," I faltered, trying to come up with the least revealing and most intelligent answer. I couldn't come up with that, of course, for the time was limited when she was looking at me and I wasn't Einstein. "It's for Abby's birthday."

"How cute." Her voice didn't reflect the exact feelings—she sounded sarcastic. "She is so special to you, isn't she?"

"Yeah," I murmured.

After I had taken a deep breath, she sat on my bed and looked at me again. I really wanted her to run out of all the ideas to start a new conversation and leave this room in this instant. What if Abby showed up suddenly? I couldn't explain to her what we were doing alone in this room.

"Where will you be going to college?"

"UC Santa Barbara."

"Sounds nice," she said smilingly. "I'll be going to George Washington. Got a scholarship from there."

"Congrats," I replied, sort of relieved that the conversation diverged in a different direction. "I bet you'll do fantastic there. I couldn't get any scholarships for basketball, unfortunately, so I'll be going for management."

"Management? It doesn't sound like you."

"Really?" I asked. "What do you think I'm suited for?"

"I don't know but I'd say something related to science."

"I'm not that smart," I replied laughingly. "That's Abby."

When I fret, she would open up a conversation about Abby, I brought the topic back to her myself. How could I not, though? She smiled at that, causing silence to lurk between us again. Rachel wasn't a bad person. In fact, there was a chance that she only liked me because she thought I liked her in the first place. I was an asshole for using her to cover my feelings for Abby. It was unfair for both her and me.

"Rachel," I suddenly said. She raised her head up, waiting for me to continue. Maybe she thought I was finally confessing—which wasn't entirely wrong, for I was going to confess something but that wasn't it. "I want to say sorry."

"What for?"

"I know you think I like you, well, people probably say I like you, but that's not true. I mean, I like you but not like—"

"I know," she replied, shrugging. "I mean I didn't know when Roy said you invited me over here, and I didn't know when we talked in that graveyard, you know. If I did, I wouldn't come. Rosy invited me to Florida, Cassidy said we could travel around Europe this summer, but I came to this stupid road trip because of you."

I wanted to dig a hole and bury myself. "How did you learn?"

She took the tape in her hands and raised it at me. "I had my doubts, you know. I always thought you liked Abby, but you kept saying you were friends and she started dating Roy so I wanted to take a leap in the dark, you know. But this,"—she shook the tape—"this is a confession tape, isn't it? It's just so obvious." Was it really that obvious? "I really wasted my time here—but I'm flying back tomorrow morning."

"I'm really sorry."

"Next time, man up and confess to the girl you like before you miss her, George. Don't play with another girl's feelings—that's rude."

I didn't really have anything to say other than sorry. What I did was plain rude and totally unforgivable. If she punched me right there, she would have the right. "I'm sorry. Again." She raised her eyebrows as she lifted herself up from my bed. "I know it doesn't make up for what I have done but I didn't invite you here, Rachel. I swear I didn't want to play with your feelings. I just—fuck. I'm sorry."

When I plopped down at Roy's bed and took my head between my hands, I felt her draw closer to me. I was never good at explaining myself and I was afraid of offending her even more while what I aimed for was the opposite. "You didn't play with me, George," she said, sinking next to me. "I mean, when you're with me, you didn't use me when you could. That night in my room, for example. I was super pissed off that I did something wrong when you stormed out, but now, I'm glad you did." She placed a hand on my shoulder. "You aren't a bad guy but it wasn't cool, you know. You should tell Abby that you like her."

"I love her," I corrected her, discarding my hands from my face, and looking up at her. "And it's too late."

"It never is," she replied. "And in your case, it's definitely not."

"What do you mean?"

She shrugged, adding more confusion to my question. In lieu of a proper answer, she rose again and walked up to the door. She cast me one last glance as she pulled it open.

"See you tomorrow, George."

Once she was gone, I was left with a pile of questions, as if I didn't have enough in my pocket, but a massive relief on my part. She took it well; yeah, her words stung but she was more mature than I'd ever thought. I was at fault for spreading the rumor in the first place but I wasn't the one to blame for this trip. If Roy didn't invite her along, this would never happen. How did every single bad thing that happened in my life lead to Roy?

I was going to kill him. It was too close.

When the want to freshen up weighed in my body, I grabbed my coat and left the room.

While replaying the conversation I'd had with Rachel, I realized she said she was alone in the room, which meant Abby was absent. Coincidentally, or not, I'd heard her voice at the end of the corridor. As I cornered around, I spotted them with Roy, having a heated moment, and my legs automatically withdrew, hiding behind the wall.

Luckily, they hadn't spotted me then. Among my rapid breaths, I managed to hear what they were saying. Roy was complaining about me. That fuckhead. He was telling her that she was only holding his hand when I was around.

"I just don't understand, Abby."

"It has nothing to do with him, Roy. You got it all wrong. It's about me." I peeked from the corner and watched them. Abby's arms were folded together as they stood relatively far from each other. "I love you so much that I can't live without you, Roy."

What the fuck? This sudden shock jolted my body awake and my cell phone slipped off my fingers. The thud it made and the panic I'd felt prevented me from hearing the rest of their conversation. I grabbed it from the ground and ran back to my room.

Shutting the door, I rested my back against it and tried to slow my panting. I can't live without you, Roy. She loved him so much. She—

Then, as if fate wanted to remind me that the relief was short-lived, Roy entered the room with a flat face. He didn't question that I was standing by the door. He seemed off, though he'd just gotten a confession from Abby. I wanted to beat him. Abby had just told him that she was in love with him and this was how he felt afterward? Things I'd sacrifice everything meant nothing for him.

"I saw Rachel," he suddenly said, throwing his coat on his bed. Turning around, he looked at me. "She said you told her you don't like her."

"Yes." He raised his eyebrows. "I don't like her, Roy. I never liked her."

"Didn't peg you as the liar type," he said.

"Nobody told you to invite her along."

"Dude, I thought you liked her. You said you liked her so I didn't want you to third wheel."

Snorting, I grabbed my coat and passed by him to walk toward the door. I wasn't in the mood to listen to him about Rachel. Or Abby. I wasn't going to listen to him lecturing me around. He won. He got the girl. I was just going to walk away before he got on my nerves and earned himself a punch in the face.

"You know you're stupid, right?" He said behind me. I glanced at him in incredulity. "An idiot." He didn't seem like he was holding grudges or his words weren't out of anger. He looked pretty contained and calm. What the fuck was he talking about?

His sudden outburst took me off guard. "What the fuck?"

"Yeah, George, you're a dickhead." I could have gone and punched him there. I could have let my fists talk. Or basically, I could interrogate him further. But it was what he wanted, right? I was going to be the wise one for once and let him walk away with it.

So, instead of asking him what he was on, I showed him a middle finger before abandoning the room. I didn't know why he was so pissed off but if he was going to take his anger on me, he could but I didn't have a single time to spend on him anymore.

I went straight to the club we were supposed to go to. I showed the guy my fake ID and he bought it. I think he knew I was underage but he didn't really care. Since it wasn't dark yet, it wasn't crowded inside. It was a relatively big place with a stage in the middle and bar tables around it. The dim-lit aura had a surprisingly calming effect on me, and hoping it would get me in the mood, I ordered a beer and lit a cigarette.

Too many things happened for me to digest within an hour. I was literally too late. I lost everything and it wasn't even funny anymore. I called the bad luck onto myself. I deserved all the shit I'd got. Maybe Roy was right, I was a dickhead and indeed, an idiot. I couldn't see that Abby was falling for Roy when she was with me, and even read her feelings wrong when she kissed me.

Once I was back in the room, I was going to burn that mixtape.

I lost count of the beers I'd ordered by the time the club was full. The music started to pound in my ears but I was already far off to get disturbed. It was like a vibration in my head, tickling me to laugh.

I lazily turned around to drink in the place. The stage was full of people shaking their hips and flirting with each other. I looked for Abby but I found Rachel first, dancing with a guy. When I spotted Roy next, the hope within me started to fade because Abby wasn't with him. He was dancing along with a few girls trying to mingle with him. He looked quite cozy—not that he wasn't good at this stuff but he shouldn't be because he had Abby now.

Panicked, I continued to scan around to find Abby. Didn't she tag along with them? I stumbled my way around the bar, bumping against a few people but they were too drunk to notice me. Feeling like a mother that had lost her kid, I was praying under my breath that Abby was here.

I finally spotted her at a corner of the club.

She was standing alone by a table, sipping on her beer. Her eyes were on the stage thus she didn't notice I was drawing close. Following her gaze, I confirmed that she was watching her boyfriend. The alcohol in my system fueled the rage within me, and jealousy set everything to fire. When he was getting the fun of his life on the stage, she was watching him do the deed because she wasn't brave enough to get up there and get him.

With each step closer, I grew more confident. Each step closer, the angrier.

Abby pushed a blonde strand of her hair behind her shoulder. She was wearing a flowery dress, and she looked really good in it. How did she manage to look so hot all the fucking time? A lump sat in my throat. I shouldn't have been looking at her in that way. She wasn't my Abby anymore. She was Roy's Abby.

She was hurting me. She was stabbing my heart. She was killing me.

"Hey," I yelled when I approached, resting my arm on the bar table. Her gaze immediately moved, landing on mine with a surprise. She smiled at me. There wasn't a better way to rub salt into the wound she'd opened.

"Hi, George."

"What are you doing here?" I asked nonchalantly. "Alone."

"You know I don't like crowded places."

"Hmm," I replied, looking ahead. Roy was dancing with a girl. I bet Abby was the last thing on his mind. Yet he got the girl. Abby didn't deserve this treatment. Roy didn't deserve Abby. Okay, maybe I didn't deserve her either. But how could she let him treat her like this? Was she really so blind to see what was in front of her?

"Why don't you go dance with Roy?"

"Because I don't want to," she replied smilingly.

"You sure?" I replied, meeting her gaze. "Can it be because you can't?" Her face went pale, shock replacing the previous smile—I hooked her in the right place. Now, all I had to do was to pull her so that she would hurt as much as I did. "Because you can't go there and dance among the crowd."

Her tears filled her eyes. "No," she whispered. I couldn't hear her well but I could read her mouth. She looked pissed off rather than sad. It was like catching her anger spot when I aimed for her heart.

"Do you want me to take you there?" I asked next, extending my hand out with a smile. She looked at me in disbelief. My expression was anything but friendly; the venom within me was leaking out with each gaze and word. "Come on, let me take you to your boyfriend. He must be feeling all lonely without you there, huh?"

Her eyes shifted rapidly between my face and my hand. Then, she cast her gaze up into my eyes. Full of tears, her look was naked. I could see that she was bleeding where I poked. Now can you understand what you do to me, I wanted to ask. Though I should have felt content with my masterpiece, I was feeling like a dick for doing this.

"Fuck you," Abby yelled before she passed by me and stormed away. I didn't stop her. I didn't follow her. I didn't say sorry. The old George would. But this George liked to be an ass. If she hated me, this pain would be bearable.

My eyes followed her until she was lost in the crowd.

I looked back on the stage, downing what was left of her drink. Roy was unaware of what had just happened, shaking his hips with the rhythm. Rachel was with another guy. The ones who ruined our trip were getting the most of it.

If Roy wasn't here, none of this would happen. That asshole ruined our friendship. I wasn't going to let him ruin Abby, too. I suddenly started walking toward him. Dark clouds were spreading out in my head, blocking my view and I saw the red light. Like an angry bull, I'd grabbed him by the collar, taking him totally off guard. When I pulled him close, he just looked at me in terror.

Then, I butted him.