teach me gently on how to breathe || tradley/brad

جاهل

An exasperated sigh leaves Brad's lips as he's once again sent to voicemail. He plops down on the couch, like a boulder, before hanging up the phone and ringing Tristan for the fourth time. As the phone rings in his ear once again, he crosses his fingers, placing his middle finger over his pointer, in anticipation. This is probably a very James move, but the curly-haired boy really couldn't careless. Ever since he'd left the movie theatre, he'd been eager to talk to Tristan, and at least get some understanding why the seventeen-year-old would ever lie about something like that. Brad and his mum don't get a long sixty-eight percent of the time, but he couldn't ever imagine himself lying to someone about her dying. That's so awful, and not something he'd ever want to think about. Apparently that's something Tristan does think about, though, and the thought apparently doesn't bother him either. Which is strange. And kind of sick, the more Brad thinks about it.

"Sorry, I'm not here right now. You know what to do."

Brad lets out another sigh, but actually waits for the beep, instead of hanging up and directly calling Tristan again, like the last four times he rung him. "Tris, ignoring me isn't fixing anything. I understand that you may be embarrassed, but I'm not judging you. Can we just talk about it, please?"

He leaves it at that and hangs up, carelessly chucking his phone somewhere on the couch before flicking the TV on to a woman excitedly explaining how to make a dish with a lemon and grilled chicken. Brad's instantly interested, even though he's already seen this episode before, and pulls his one leg up on the couch, letting his covered leg dangle, before snuggling into the cushions. Every few seconds his brown eyes dart over to his phone just in case Tristan decides to stop being a coward and ring him, or even send him a text. Brad will be more than satisfied either way. But after the first thirteen minutes, he gives up hope. Tristan runs away a lot, even though he admitted to Brad running away doesn't fix anything. But the sixteen-year-old assumes that it's just easier for him to run away from a fire instead of putting out the flames. It makes sense, though. Brad can sometimes be the same way.

Maybe he'll call me tomorrow, Brad assumes, shrugging his shoulders. But he doesn't want Tristan to call him tomorrow. All he wants is for the seventeen-year-old to talk to him about the situation so the two of them will be able to get over it. Brad's not even upset with him about lying. But he is upset with him ignoring him.

"Brad?" The teenager turns his head to his parents at the sound of his name.

"Want to talk?" his mum asks, standing alongside his dad. The curly-haired boy shrugs his shoulders sending his dad ploping down next to him and his mum plopping in the chair beside the couch.

"I'm assuming you want to hear about Tristan and Jack," Brad mumbles, nervously fiddling with his fingers.

"We'd like to," his dad says.

"Jack broke up with me a long time ago," their son quietly admits. "I don't want to talk about why right now," he quickly adds. "But he's been bullying me ever since the break up. Well, I guess you could call it that. He mainly picks on me about my eating disorder, and mostly in front of people. Probably to humiliate me, I don't know. Also, Drew and I aren't friends anymore. I don't want to go into detail about that either."

"But Jack was so sweet," his dad sadly says. Brad thinks his dad's more heartbroken about the break up than him.

"People change, Dad."

"We should report him to the principal!" his mum instantly decides. "Get him suspended or kicked out of school altogether!"

"That's not going to make it better. Even though the bullying hurts, I wouldn't want to go to the principal about him. I'll be letting him know he hurt me, and I've realised that I shouldn't let him hurt me at all," Brad tells her, practically repeating the same words his therapist told him during one of their therapy sessions.