Happy Endings (a Gandrew Story)

10

Eventually they end up back in Garretts house.

He's honestly not sure how or when that happened; he's a little out of it in this moment. It feels like his world is covered in some thick haze- a dreamy peach-fuzz softness on all the corners that had just been digging into his sides.

They're on his couch.

Andrew is on his couch, and he looks good. Obviously he looks good- he's never looked anything but. But he looks better now than he had the past few months. He doesn't seem detached or distant or sad. It's like, for the first time, Andrew is really there next to him. Really there.

It's a lot for Garrett to take in, especially when his lips are still warm and tingling and searching for more touch like he'd felt on his doorstep.

They're silent, but it's not painful like it had been. Seeing Andrew think in this moment is nothing like before. It doesn't feel like every moment could be leading to the last. Like he needs to swim in Andrew's presence just in case, this time, he would drown and never come back up for air. Instead, he's floating on the surface.

He's floating, gliding so easily, head and heart full of air that he doesn't even really feel when Andrew takes his hand in his. But he notices. He squeezes back, feels how warm Andrew's palm is against his fingertips.

"I'm sorry." Breaks the silence. Garrett looks from their entangled hands (something he has pictured so many times, watching Andrews fingers curled around coffee and cameras and bottlenecks) up to his eyes. Lovely, brown and searching for Garrett's own.

"Oh," Is all Garrett's tired, overworked brain can come up with. "...Why?"

"Garrett. C'mon. I've been... well, I've been kind of an ass lately. Like, really bad."

Was that true? Was that what Garrett thought? Had he been an ass?

"I wouldn't say that. It's not like you punched me and threw sand in my face or something." Garrett rebuts.

"Oh no, I just treated you like garbage for six months. That's fine, I guess." Andrew says, and the dry, sarcastic, sad laugh that escapes him makes something in Garrett's chest seize. No, he didn't like that.

"Don't," Garrett says. He pauses. "Why did you pull away?"

"I was... I got...," Andrew sighs. It's the sound of him giving up on overthinking. "...Confused? And scared, I... I didn't know what to do. I got stuck between wanting to... to do something about it and not wanting to mess it all up? Every time I'd get close I'd just... I'd panic. Like at that party. I just... I panicked."

They let a moment of silence surround them. It's not deafening, but instead the kind of quiet that comes when two people have connected something that has gone undone for far too long. The kind of quiet they both need.

"And you couldn't stop panicking?" Garrett asks. He squeezes Andrew's hand, gently.

"No. I couldn't stop." Andrew squeezes back. They feel good, together.

Garrett shakes his head. The smile on his face isn't meant to be there, he knows, but he can't help it. Because he understands this. This is something he knows well. For the first time in far too long, he understands something about Andrew Siwicki and god damnit, he's going to smile.

"Andrew, that's... yeah. Trust me. I get that. That was called literally all of ninth grade, for me."

"...oh," Andrew says. "...Yeah, I guess that. That you... ugh, sorry, I don't know."

At this point, after everything, as Andrew's last words shake around the apartment, Garrett really isn't sure if he should be upset. He doesn't know if it was fair for Andrew to pull away so hard, to crumble the structure of his life, to bury him alive with every missed text and silent car ride.

It had hurt. It had hurt more than anything had ever hurt in his life. It was the dull ache in his side he'd lived with for months.

But that look in Andrews eyes, the way his hand is so strong on his own, how their legs are firmly together now without a space in the world between them... that's enough of an answer. That's the kind of answer that tells him that Andrew is sorry. That he really, really is; that it was a mistake. A gut reaction that had hurt both of them, the tearing open of a rift that would be felt on both sides.

A rift that could be closed. A tear that could be mended, if they both wanted to.

And Garrett wants to. And he wants Andrew to want to.

"Are you here now?" It's cryptic. And sudden. He's not sure if Andrew will know what the hell he's even talking about, and that's unacceptable in this moment. "I mean, like, is this for real? Do you really-"

"Yeah. Garrett, I'm here now. I promise." He says, and it sounds like he means it. If Garrett is sure of one thing, it's that Andrew means it.

That, and now there's a hand on Garrett's thigh that hadn't been there before. It's solid, warm, comforting. Andrew's thumb rubs little circles into his skin.

Garrett lets out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. It's quiet in his home, besides the sounds of a car passing out his window and crickets from the backyard.

When they kiss, again, it's better than the first time. It feels like moving forward. It feels like future. It feels like promises of late nights, of hard laughs, of lips pressed together in the afternoon and whispers into ears at midnight. It feels like waking up next to Andrew in the morning with gold light shining through his hair and his soft hand on Garrett's cheek.

It feels like the scene right before the credits roll, when the world is saved and the boy gets the girl and everyone has their happy ending.

This is Garretts happy ending. Because it means that Andrew is happy, too.