The Ribbon Campaign

twenty five || of weakness and relief

To say my parents are angry when they find out what happened to Ryan and Caiden would be an understatement. They're furious. My mother freaked out over her 'baby boy' (even though Ryan is already eighteen) and how she was going to find the kids who jumped them and send their 'sorry butts' straight to jail. My father basically said the same thing only with more cursing and more angry mutters under his breath.

My parents had interrogated the boys, eventually asking if they knew who it was. Ryan and Caiden had shared a look and slowly shook their heads, much to my surprise. They knew one of the boys, he went to Caiden's church. Just that bit of information should have been enough to find out who the others were, but Ryan and Caiden kept quiet. I pursed my lips at that but didn't choose to speak up.

Summer was about halfway over now, which meant that the day I'll be saying a speech on my campaign on national television is rapidly approaching. For now, though, it seems like the past couple of days have been dragging by agonizingly slow. Bryce hasn't gotten back to me at all and all his family has offered to me is that he's been sleeping over at a friend's house. I've tried calling him over and over again but he's been ignoring me.

A whirlwind of different emotions have overcome me since our fight. Worry is there- I'm worried for Bryce and what he might be doing right now. I know he doesn't make the best decisions when he's hurt. I just don't want him to drink. I know that it's been so long since he's last drank, and if he were to break that streak now he would be sucked right back into it. I'm not naive- I know Bryce does other things besides drinking, stuff even worse (in my opinion) that I wouldn't be able to stand if he resorted to.

I also feel guilt. It eats me up inside and leaves me feeling sick and nauseous. I don't really know how to cope with it- I've never done something this bad to hurt someone. Generally, I'm a nice person. I've gotten in the odd fight with my friend, but not recently and not with someone I care so much for that my hearts aches when we're apart. And besides that, my fights have never lasted this long without making up in some sort of way. I just don't think I've ever hurt someone like this before.

Besides that, there's still an underlying flicker of anger. I'm trying to set things right with Bryce- I'm trying to apologize to him. I understand he needs space, but he can at least reply to one of my fifty messages I sent him. Here I am, worrying like there's no tomorrow when Bryce isn't even making an effort to make things better. I want to say I'm sorry, I want to prove to him I know what I said and that it was wrong, but how can I when he's completely ignoring me?

Finally, I miss him. I do. It's only been a couple of days, but I already want him to come over and make fun of the way I start my speeches. I miss him trying to put my hair in a bun, kissing me halfway through a sentence just to get me irritated, whining about purple dinosaurs and bursting out in spontaneous, deep thoughts. I miss the way his green eyes always seem to flicker with something, the way his dark, messy hair was always uncombed. And it sucks. I don't like missing people, especially when I know there's absolutely nothing I can do about it.

Right now it's noon on the second day that Bryce has been ignoring me, not counting the evening of our fight. Caiden and Ryan are downstairs, doing God knows what, while Fiona, my mother and father are out at the beach. They offered us to come but I wasn't feeling up to it, Ryan doesn't want to swim just yet with his lungs incident and Caiden isn't going anywhere without Ryan, especially after what happened yesterday.

I'm just about to take a nap when the doorbell rings. I shout for Ryan to get it but get no reply. Quickly jogging downstairs, I find Ryan and Caiden asleep on the couch. They fell asleep there last night and I guess they still haven't woken up. Sighing, I take two steps at a time as I skip downstairs, unlocking the door and slowly opening it.