this love ☼ dreamnotfound

{ 35 }

( cw // mentions of drinking )

clay had caved. he had hit absolute rock bottom and he couldn't get out by himself. he invited brodie over, but now he was stuck and not sure about how he was supposed to explain his situation.

"i really fucking hate myself," clay complained, pulling on his own hair as he laid on his back in his bed.

brodie sat on edge of the bed while clay's cat patches came and sat next to him. patches had always loved brodie. "i had no idea you developed a drinking problem," brodie expressed. when he had dated clay, he was a youthful, innocent sophomore boy who was just confused about his sexuality. now, he had some serious issues. it was all a very sudden realization for brodie; they went to different schools so he hadn't seen any of this happening.

"i was doing good until i fucked everything up with george," he told, continuing to blame himself per usual. "now he's telling me that something happened with him and this guy that's apparently really bad, but he won't tell me what it is so i'm just freaking out."

petting patches and staying calm, brodie assured him, "i'm sure he has a good reason to not tell you. you are supposed to be on a break, so you can't expect him to want to tell you everything." brodie added, "you're allowed to be scared- i would be too. just don't push it, i'm sure he doesn't need that right now."

"brodie i'm literally losing my mind," clay warned him. "i don't know what to do- being on break with george is the worst thing i could've possibly done, but when i tried to fix things george wasn't ready and now he's mad at me and i literally can't do anything about it. if he's not ready he's not ready, but if something really bad happened i want to know. he's still my boyfriend... at least i think he is. he was asking me if were even together anymore and that's what started this whole crazy argument."

"clay," brodie cut off his rambling. he instructed, "breathe. you're talking really fast and i can see your face getting red."

after taking in a deep breath and slowly letting it out, clay spoke again, "how do i help him?"

brodie sighed, telling him the truth, "i really don't think you can. i know that's not what you wanna hear, but if he isn't ready to talk about it then all you can do is wait."

"i guess," clay admitted. he watched as brodie directed patches over to him; she understood and went to sit on clay's chest, purring and rubbing her head against his chin.

"how about we take a break from talking about this, okay? you seem really overwhelmed and you're basically just repeating the same things over and over again," brodie suggested, giggling towards the end of his sentence.

clay cracked a smile. even though brodie was technically his ex, he was still an amazing person. if it weren't for brodie, clay never would've had the confidence to be with george. "okay- tell me about the drama at your school."

"hmmm," he hummed. "where do i start?" brodie thought for a moment, watching clay finally relaxing and running his fingers through patches' fur. brodie's mom was a therapist, so he was always great at calming people down. "oh- this one guy got arrested last year, and he has this younger brother who has this hot girlfriend who's like super popular, but she apparently just broke up with him because she found out what his brother did. i used to be closer with her, but now we just kind of wave at each other sometimes and talk in boring classes. she was way too good for him anyways."

"what did the guy do?" clay wondered. he hadn't put the pieces together yet that he knew exactly who brodie was talking about.

brodie lowered the volume of his voice even though him and clay were the only two people in the room- and patches. "he sexually assaulted a guy at a party. everyone thought he was super straight too. i didn't know until his brother's girlfriend told me."