Happy Endings (a Gandrew Story)

6

Things go back to normal only for a very, very short amount of time.

Well, besides the fact that Garrett now feels like Andrew's hiding some big secret from him. But of course that doesn't drive him away, or make him want to spend less time together, or deter him from talking until four in the morning on weekdays like it's nothing.

It doesn't make Garrett feel like pulling away at all.

But Andrew isn't quite on the same page, there.

It starts with a few unanswered texts, which Garrett shrugs off because Andrew still meets him for coffee a few hours later and acts like nothings different. It doesn't get better, though, because he cancels plans for that weekend, then doesn't show up to his door for movie night and later tells him he'd been out with other friends.

It's... well, it hurts. It sucks.

Garrett had really thought he'd settled into an uncomfortable little routine with his whole "unrequited love" schtick. Every time he spent the night rolled up in his blankets, alone, sad, he'd remind himself

that even though he couldn't have Andrew during the night he'd be able to have him for the day. That they could still laugh and talk and bullshit together and that there wasn't anything that could come along and ruin that.

But something did. And god, Garrett doesn't even get the privilege of knowing what that something even was. Instead, it's a secret, and one so well-kept that Garrett can feel it growing, creating a black-hole in the center of their friendship that was sucking Andrew in.

A dramatic analogy, sure, but that's just what it felt like.

So as Andrew cancels more plans and Garrett spends more long nights alone, hotboxing his bedroom with the smoke detector dangling by the cords, he starts feeling like his options are dwindling. That Andrew isn't coming around, isn't phasing out for some brief moment, but is instead pulling away on purpose for some reason or another and isn't coming back.

Really, there are two plans of action. The first one makes Garrett feel sick, because it consists of sitting back and letting Andrew drift to wherever he felt he needed to go, even if that meant slowly losing him until he was just some washed-up memory or co-worker. The second one also makes Garrett feel sick, because it requires him to confront Andrew on what the hell is going on; something that will either start the reparations of their friendship or be the straw that breaks the camels back.

Only one of them has the possibility of leading back to that closeness that Garrett needs back in his life, though. Even if it's the one that means doing something kinda mean, putting Andrew in the exact kind of situation that would make him nervous and scared and jittery (the kind of Andrew that Garrett always tried to never see).

But he can't lose him. Not now, not ever, forever. And sure, that's desperate and toxic and selfish. It's Garrett just thinking about how he feels and ignoring what Andrew might want.

It's too late, though. The train has sped up and up and up and has finally lost all control, and Garrett just has to hold on tight enough not to be thrown off.