Hanging by a Moment [Completed]

Right Here

I know, finally. 

I'm sorry. 

Right Here

“Jay, it’s okay!” he repeated for the thousandth time, “You don’t need to keep apologizing.”

I hung my head shamefacedly.

“Jay,” his hand was on my shoulder, voice patient, “Stop worrying about it.”

I couldn’t help it though. After hurriedly dropping off a guilty Tina who tried to insist she’d get home on her own, and hurry!, I’d barged into his room with as heartfelt an “I’m so sorry!” as I could. He’d been sitting at his desk, the few pages we had printed in front of him, that he’d tried to cover in an attempt to make it appear as though he hadn’t really been waiting on me for the past hour and a half, and smiled.

I don’t deserve him.

“Don’t stress. I take it you had fun?” he’d asked.

Still too…disturbed to think of anything, I’d apologized again. He hadn’t sounded mean or spiteful, and his question had been of genuine interest, but it had only served to send another blade of guilt cutting through me. The third, by this point, apology that I delivered then had been more wordy, if you like, a messy tumble of words that he’d waved off when I was done, then suggested that we stop wasting time and work. Again, there hadn’t been any venom as he’d said it – he’d only been trying to make me feel better – but it had felt like another slap on my face.

Then he’d been quick to tell me not to take it in the wrong way, because he honestly wasn’t mad.

He’s too good for me.

We’d worked.

A simultaneous declaration two hours after that we’d done enough had progressed into an awkward silence – awkward to me, at least, and I’d apologized to him once more. I’d been trying to get something eloquent across over the timespan, something that would actually count as a decent apology, but the best I’d gotten was, “Pey, I-I’m just so sorry! One minute I was there and I was picking her up, and no, wait, I mean, we played and then we were sitting and then I didn’t realize the time and I really…I hadn’t forgotten, I just-just, you know, lost track and…”

I was failing miserably.

I started to open my mouth to try again, but he shook his head and silenced me with another ‘it’s okay.’

It wasn’t though.

He’d never been so late – or late at all, to anything we’d planned, let alone forget about our plans and make others when I was standing right there. He’d taken my tardiness well, too, and even as I’d repeatedly apologized, something he’d made clear wasn’t necessary, he hadn’t gotten angry.

No.

He was simply sitting there on his bed, his face pulled into half a smile of amusement.

“What are you thinking about?”

You’re too good a friend for me.

I’d been staring away at him, I realized belatedly. I focused my gaze on him, and he repeated the question wordlessly.

“Honestly?”

“Duh.”

“I feel pretty awful about myself right now.”

He sighed, half unsurprised. “Jay,” he began, but only to have me cut him short.

I wasn’t sure why I’d even gone on with it, some newfound burst of courage, idiocy, rather, encouraged me to add more Awkward to the brew, which I promptly proceeded to do. “No, listen. I’m not going to apologize again and risk pissing you off-” his expression contorted to one of protest, “but I feel like – well, I mean, all that I do, and I don’t mean just today, I…” I inhaled, “I don’t deserve you as a friend.”