Brian.

I had been rewriting my college essay over and over again throughout the course of the whole summer, but I couldn't get it to sound just right. I wanted to come across as knowledgeable and extremely intelligent, while still remaining humorous and down-to-earth. It was a feat that I had not yet mastered.

In all my writing and processing, I had accidentally shut myself off to everyone. A few times over the summer I had been asked out to the bar by the guys, but I had refused to go each time, so they stopped asking. Claire had only been to see me once, confessing that Alec truly didn't like her spending so much time on her own with me, so the visits stopped. The only time I saw my friends anymore were at pre-arranged events, such as Claire's engagement party. Although it was awful, I knew that I probably wouldn't see them again until the actual wedding. In fact, I probably wouldn't leave my house before then.

For a long while I had wondered if there was something truly wrong with me, with the way that I thought. I knew I was bright and hardworking; my career in academics reflected that. But every day I woke up with something else added to the list of my worries. I found myself staring at my reflection in shiny surfaces, picking out faults in my being and then trying to go and correct them. I figured that was healthy. I was negative, but at least I tried to do something about it.

I thought of it like my essay. I was so negative about the words on the paper, crossing them out and throwing them away, but at least I kept on trying. At least I wasn't like Alec, who would leave the paper until the last minute and get a mediocre grade from our professor. I wanted the highest, or nothing at all. I couldn't stand any sort of failure, no matter how hard I or anyone around me tried to change that.

It came as a surprise when Andy knocked on my door that night. My mom had answered, because I was now back at the family home having outstayed my welcome at Claire's. She called up to me from the bottom of the stairs and then left Andy standing in the doorway on his own, going back to watching TV in the living room, while my dad stayed working at the kitchen table. I knew they didn't want to pass each other in the hall and have to be seen together. They hated being in the same room nowadays.

I rushed down the stairs to the front door, abandoning my work on the table to come see who was calling for me at such a late hour. When I could see the open doorway in sight I saw Andy leaning against the door frame with his arm. His face was red and his eyes were puffy, and I wasn't sure if he had been crying or smoking something. He smiled slightly when he saw me, and stood up straight.

"Andy, what are you doing here?" I asked, inviting him in and closing the door behind him.

"Hello to you too, Bri," he said, beginning to remove his jacket.

"Sorry, hello. Let me hang that up for you." I took the clothing from him and put it away on our coat rack. When I turned back to Andy, he had buried his hands into his pockets in a fashion that made him look uncomfortable and insecure. He reminded me of myself.

"Is everything okay?" I pushed the matter again, even more curious to know why he was here. Andy sniffed, and looked at me.

"Uh… Can we go to your room or something?"

I nodded, and began to lead the way up the stairs. I realised as we were walking into my room that Andy had never been inside my house before. I watched him as he looked around at the surprisingly minimal space that I was residing in. Before I left for college I had taken down all of my old posters and put my old things into boxes, to try and give the room a mature feel. Instead it just felt empty and lacking. I sat down on the chair to my desk, and offered him a seat on my bed. He kicked off his shoes, than sat back, as if it was the most natural thing to him in the world.

"So are you going to tell me, or do I have to coax this out of you?" I asked. Andy laughed, but then sighed and sat up again.

"I think Allison is cheating on me."

"What?"

"I know, it sounds crazy."

"Why do you think that?"

"It's been going on for a while. I think she resents the fact I get home from work so late. But sometimes I just get out the office late, you know? Sometimes I go to the bar, but most times I'm working overtime because I need to get stuff done."

He paused, waiting for me to say something, but I just nodded and let him carry on talking.

"So she starts breaking away from me. At least, it feels like that. Every time I'd try to take her to bed with me, she'd tell me she doesn't want to, or she's tired. I didn't think anything of it at first, but then I realised how long it had been since we had… you know…"

"Sex?" I mouthed at him, and he nodded, a grim look on his face.

"She just never wants to do anything anymore. And then she started her art class, and that was a bad idea. I know it's her dream, but she even asked me if it was okay before she started. I should've just said no, then this wouldn't have happened."

"Wait, what does her art classes have to do with her cheating?"

"She's friends with a guy at the class, Ricardo, or something. Italian. Or Spanish. I can't remember. She never told me about him until tonight, but they seem pretty pally. But before I knew about him, I decided I wanted to do something nice for her, you know? I felt like I was somehow losing her, not wanting to jump to cheating. So I decided to make her a nice meal. Alec told me she'd like it. So I made the food, bought wine, got candles and all that shit. I waited for her to get home, but she didn't get back on time. I was so worried about her, I didn't know what to do. Then in she comes 3 hours late, drunk and being absolutely ridiculous. You know where she was? At a bar with Ricardo."

"Wow," was all I could say.

"I know, right? So I start questioning her, and she's yelling at me that I'm always at the bar and she's always waiting for me at home, so now I knew what it was like, something like that. And I'm saying, yeah, but at least I'm not at the bar with other girls. Just John. And last I checked, he's definitely no competition for Allison." He paused, dropping his hands that had been animated the whole time he spoke. "I just… I love her so much, you know? I hate this. I don't know what to do, or what I've done wrong to deserve this…" He crossed his arms over his chest and looked up at me, seeking some sort of response.

I moved from my desk chair and took a seat on the bed next to him.

"I don't know much about relationships, but I think if I were you, I would listen to her and not go to the bar so much. Maybe she's using that guy because you're not around as much as she's used to?"

"That's a pathetic excuse to cheat."

"You don't know that she's definitely cheating, though."

"Yeah, I guess."

"So, don't think like that right now until you have the conformation before you. You should talk to her properly about how she's feeling, no shouting, see if she's okay. Allison has always been complicated like that. She's an island unto herself, remember? It takes a lot to coax anything out of her."

Andy nodded, knowing that I was right even though I wasn't so sure myself. For some reason, everyone always sought me out like I was the voice of reason for all of their life's problems. I couldn't help everyone in the world, but I tried. I focused more on other people's problems than my own sometimes.

We both stared at the blank wall opposite my bed. If Andy had been Claire, I would've hugged him, but because he was who he was, I knew better than to even attempt that. I had a feeling that Andy hated even showing up here, because it dented all of his pride. Worse still that his eyes gave away the fact he'd been crying. Him and John were very similar in that they didn't like to discuss delicate things like emotions and feelings, and sometimes I disliked that about them. Sometimes I figured they just passed me off as too sensitive because I wasn't afraid of that stuff.

"Thanks, Brian," Andy suddenly said.

"What for?"

"Talking to me about this. You were the first person I came to see."

"I'm surprised you remembered the way to my house."

"Please, I dropped you off so many times when I got my first car. Sometimes I did it just as an excuse to drive it."

"And not out of the pure love of my friendship?" I joked, and he elbowed me in the arm.

"Brian?"

"Yeah?"

"How come you've never had a girlfriend?"

I frowned. The question had come out of nowhere, and I didn't know how to respond to it. I knew my friends all had tried to answer it before. There were suggestions of me being gay, or in love with my best girl friends, or asexual; though all were suggested behind my back. I never told them the true reason, and I don't think I ever wanted to. Confessing to not wanting to love someone else, because you had never loved yourself, was heavy for even my closest friends to take on. So I made the answer up.

"If I tell you, you can't tell anybody. Alright?"

"Alright."

I shifted and turned myself on the bed, sitting cross legged and facing him.

"The truth is… I'm in love with my teacher at college. Hopelessly in love, for the past 4 years."

Andy laughed, and hit me gently on the arm.

"Alright, Bri, hot for teacher!"

"She's more than that. She's just… she's something alright. She's really great."

I never told him that my teacher was really a male in his 50s. He never asked, I never told.

Andy got up from my bed, and walked over to my window to look out of it. I watched him as he went. Outside was dark, but our backyard was lit up by a light and showed in clear view how bare it was. Just grass and a wooden fence surrounding it, a few odd balls dotted around from my childhood that had since been neglected. Andy turned around and looked at me.

"You any good at playing ball?" he asked.

"I don't think I even know what that means."

Andy grinned.

"I'll show you how to be really good at it. Come outside and I'll show you."

So we headed outside at midnight to play in the garden like we were still 10 years old.

Andy showed me how to curve the ball to throw off opponents, and how to fake a right then really go left, but mostly we just threw it back and forth, as hard as we could but not so hard that the other couldn't catch it. I felt like Andy wanted to do something more, take his stress out by doing this with more experienced athletes like he once was, but I was all he had right now.

I really started to enjoy myself eventually. Growing up, I'd never been big on sports. I always thought my dad had resented it, because I never cared about any of the teams or became invested in the players. I would watch the sports on TV with him, but I would be bored the whole time and barely pay attention. Eventually he stopped asking me to watch them with him.

When high school came, I found physical education to be the lesson I dreaded the most. It separated the strong from the weak, making us easy targets. Every lesson I was tormented, laughed at for missing strikes or dropping the ball. I think I got so nervous that it made me even worse. But playing catch with Andy was so impromptu and casual, I felt no pressure to be perfect with it. He didn't chastise me whenever I missed or dropped anything, he just wanted me to do well. For a while, I wanted myself to do well as well. It was what those sports classes should have been like. It was what my whole life should have been like. Fun and no pressure. But it had never been that easy.

I don't know how long we carried it on into the night, but we lost track until my sister appeared at the back door in her pyjamas.

"Hey, Sarah," I said, throwing the ball back to Andy as I did so. That was as skilled as I got with it. My sister glared back at me, in the way that 15 year olds tended to do.

"Mom says you have to stop now. She wants to go to bed. And so do I," she said. Andy held the ball still, and looked over at me. I shrugged, and accepted it.

"Sure thing. Sorry for keeping you up," Andy said.

Sarah just glared harder at him.

"You two are both such weirdos. You're both, what, 25, and you're outside chucking an old ball around. Don't you have jobs and lives?"

"Goodnight, Sarah," I said, urging her to leave us alone. She grunted, and then disappeared back inside. I looked over at Andy and found him looking at me, trying to hold in his laughter.

"Guess I'll be heading off now," he said when he had stopped laughing, and he threw the ball back to me. I shook my head.

"No, stay the night if you want. We have room."

"You don't mind?"

"Well, that's what you came here for, isn't it? I'm sure your main motive wasn't just to chuck a ball around in my yard."

"You got me," he smiled, then looked at me more seriously. "Thanks, I owe you one."

"Don't worry about it."

We finally settled down for bed soon after, both suddenly feeling tired and worn out from running around. I almost completely forgot about my previous burning need to finish my essay. If it had been any other night, I would've gotten up and worked at it at my desk. But with Andy asleep on my bedroom floor and my eyes drooping, I told myself to put it off another night. I just didn't know at the time whether that was a good or bad idea.