Breathing Room (Waiting Room #2)

Chapter 1: Moving Day (Part 1)

Ryan Sullivan hauled a milk crate filled with cassettes down the porch stairs and over to the powder blue Toyota Corolla in the tiny parking lot of the group home Ryan had called home for the past year and a half, where Pete Kowalski was trying to cram a duffel bag into the trunk.

"There's no way this is all gonna fit," Ryan said, setting the crate down.

"It's gotta fit. It's gotta!" Pete shoved at the duffel one last time, then sagged in defeat. Sweat dripped down from his mop of brown hair.

"I have that storage locker," Ryan reminded him. Most of Ryan's stuff lived there now: all the furniture from his mom's house that he thought he might use one day, his old clothes and books and the stuff he'd barely thought about since the bank had sold the house. He had raided it for things he'd need in an apartment: sheets, kitchenware, the TV. But ninety percent of it was staying put.

Pete, having lived at the group home for the past six years, didn't have any of that stuff, and yet he owned way more crap than Ryan could have imagined, especially given that he and Pete had been sharing a room all this time. Where had all this stuff come from?

"No. It needs to fit." Pete huffed. Then he huffed again, and Ryan saw how red his face was, how much he was blinking.

Ryan had a feeling about what was really bothering Pete. "Hey man, it's okay. You can leave it in the storage locker, and we can make two trips. No problem."

"That's a long drive. Five hours there and back? Ten hours round trip, for a few tapes?"

Stepping closer, Ryan put his hand on Pete's shoulder. "It's more than that, Pete." Pete ducked his chin and frowned. "Plus, we might find that we need some furniture, and I have a ton of furniture in the storage locker. Who knows. Maybe we'll need a couch, or a coffee table. Or a massive armoire that will definitely never fit in this car."

Pete chuckled. "Obviously, every college apartment needs an armoire."

The tense moment over with, Pete picked up the crate of cassettes. "Okay, now I just have to convince Darren to let me pack up the van with all my extra shit and take it over to storage."

"Easier said than done." Ryan closed the trunk – gently, in case anything breakable was on top. He wasn't sure he'd be able to see over the stuff crammed in the backseat. At least he'd be on the Mass Pike almost the entire way to Boston.

"Oh, man, I can't wait to get out of here!" Pete whooped as he dropped the crate on the porch and headed inside.

Ryan locked the car and followed Pete. After yesterday, after the breakup, Ryan didn't feel so eager. He felt strangely unmoored.

Jacky's words had come out of nowhere, right here in the driveway as Jacky dropped Ryan off.

I just need some space to figure my life out, Jacky had said. Some breathing room.

Like Ryan had been suffocating him.

He hadn't realized he'd been clinging to Jacky like a life preserver until now. Even though he knew he would be going off to college and starting a new life, he had still planned to come back. To have Jacky as his home base.

He'd been too blindsided to respond. "If that's how you feel," he had said, and never finished that statement. He had just turned and walked into the house. An unfamiliar burning feeling in his chest kept trying to fill in the blank.

If that's how you feel, then I guess I just have to accept it.

If that's how you feel, I release you from feeling obligated.

If that's how you feel, good-bye.

But Ryan could never say those things out loud. Ryan didn't want to drag Jacky down any further.

"Good news!" Pete called from the door. Pretending to wipe his brow, Ryan passed the back of his hand over his eyes and pasted a smile on his face. "Darren said he'll take us!"

One of the other group home kids, Sean, swaggered out in his baggy clothes and backwards baseball cap. "Bad news is you have to take me."

Ryan didn't think Sean was that bad, just annoying, and as Hope liked to put it, just trying to get attention, even if it was bad attention. Ryan had gotten used to Sean's needling jabs about Ryan being gay and Jacky being disabled. After he'd called Sean out on it, and Sean didn't do it as often.

Once they got in the van, with Ryan in front to direct Darren to the storage place and Pete and Sean in the back with Pete's crate and a few other boxes, though, Sean's first comment was, "Are you all depressed because your boyfriend broke up with you?"

The air went out of Ryan's lungs.

"Jacky didn't break up with Ryan," Pete said. Ryan glanced at Pete in the rearview mirror, because Ryan had talked to Pete about the whole thing last night. Pete winked at Ryan. "It was mutual. People break up before college all the time. Long distance relationships are hard."

Ryan closed his eyes, waiting for Sean's reaction to this blatant lie.

"About time." Sean stretched back in his seat. "Don't know why you were dating that freak to begin with."

Ryan curled around the seat and growled, "He is not a freak."

"Sean's just trying to get under your skin one last time," Darren said. He eyed Sean in the rearview. "Sean won't admit just how much he's going to miss the two of you."

"No," said Sean.

Darren smirked. "How much you two are like big brothers to him."

"No!" Sean repeated, louder.

Pete hooked an arm around Sean's neck. "Aww. We'll miss you too." Reaching under Sean's hat, he knuckled a noogie into Sean's gelled hair.

"Get off!" Sean yelled.

"No horseplay," Darren droned, even though he was smiling.

Ryan smiled a little too. He was going to miss the strange family he had with all the group home kids, with the staff who acted like rotating parents. He was glad to have Pete to come with him, a little piece of home in his new life.

He just wished he could have kept Jacky as a piece of home, too.