Support Hotline (Ryden)

The End of an Era

"Can you believe we're all leaving soon?" Hayley said with a sad tone with Josh lightly tapping the cymbals in the background.

"I know, we're all gonna have to keep up the group chat, though." Tyler says.

"Oh my God, that is the messiest thing I've ever wasted my time with." Spencer groans.

"But it's the best." I nod truthfully.

"You're right." Spencer rolls his eyes.

Ryan's phone rings and he lets go of my hand to reach for it in his pocket.

"Hey Bren, I'm gonna go outside for a sec. It's the guy who owns the apartment." I nod and I hear the bell jingle behind me.

"You already found a place?" Hayley raises her eyebrows. I nod with an excited smile.

"Why are you so excited? You're leaving me with these doofuses!" Hayley pouts. I roll my eyes and shrug.

"Hayley, could you do me a favor and shut the fuck up?" Spencer says with a faux sweet tone.

"Hey!" Tyler shouts.

"Watch. Your. Language." Josh says each word with the beat of the drum and a cymbal on the last word.

"Are you guys still going to play this game in college?" I ask in disbelief.

"You think this is a game?" Tyler tries a to mock deep voice and I can't hold in my laughter as his voice cracks.

"It's not a game, Brendong." Josh follows Tyler. Debby laughs and rolls her eyes at him and he smiles widely at her.

I feel a sudden touch on my back and a soft "boo", making me jump. When I turn around and see Ryan's soft smile, I scoff at him before he kisses me quickly.

"So this weekend, I'm gonna drive into California and get situated with my jobs and make a final deal with Joe." He tells me the plan as I pout at the thought of being by myself for two days.

"What am I gonna do?" I saw with the pout still on my face. Ryan smiles sweetly and moves his thumb under my bottom lip to push it in.

"Sit here and look cute." He shrugs.

"Oh shut up!" Hayley groans.

"Someone's not happy about her G.B.F. leaving." Spencer says with a fake pout.

"G.B.F?" I raise my eyebrow in confusion.

"Gay best friend." She laughs and rolls her eyes.

"So that's my title now?" I ask in disbelief. Hayley shrugs and walks to the bookshelf and runs her fingers over the spines of the books.

Tyler strums his ukulele softly in the background and it over-takes the brief silence. He has improved notably since he first picked it up in this little shop. You see this goofball and how he acts around his friends and you wouldn't even think that he would have any sort of darkness in his head. It says something about Tyler.

Josh hits the snare with a simple eight-count. I've learned things about him that I never expected. I figured we were always going to just exist near each other, privately. We both went to this stupid little music store to keep away from the places we didn't want to be, and we never talked about that until Ryan and I walked in and saw him again.

Spencer sat on top of the glass case that was considered the front desk. My mind wanders to Spencer's life before he moved here. His secret boyfriend that he never spoke of, because it's that precious to him.

Hayley was indescribable. I've grown close to her and discovered this personality that I need to have around in my life, just to have something happy and simple to look at. She's strong as hell, needless to say, and has a beautiful voice. If I were to take anything with me to California other than Ryan, I would take her. She's become the sister I never had.

"You okay?" I hear Ryan whisper in my ear. I turn around and nod with a soft smile.

It was sincere, and I've said it times and times before, but I'm okay because of him.

***

"I can't wait to leave"

"you're gonna love it in california, trust me"

"we can go to the beach and walk on the sand and look at dogs"

"dog watching sounds pretty great"

"and we can breathe" I continue to gush.

"maybe not in LA, there's quite a lot of smog"

"not like that. we can breathe easily. there's just a tension here, you know?"

"I know bab"

"bab?"

"I meant babe but bab is alright too"

"you get some sleep, you have a flight to catch tomorrow." I yawn as I type.

"I know, goodnight, love you"

"I love you"

-A/N: alright, it's short, but this is the last chapter. with sports and school right now, I'm not in the best state of mind. so the writing hasn't been going along quite nicely. and in all honestly, this year in language arts has almost made me cringe at the thought of my own writing, it isn't a creative writing class obviously, but I've been afraid of writing something bad lately. anyways, this story has grown so much and I didn't expect it to. I'm going to be quite honest, you may not see the sequel until 2017 unless some spark of confidence and inspiration comes. but more details on the sequel are soon to come. thank you for reading as always, and ily guys, have a nice day.