Part #5: The Mission
Once Darren stopped trying to run into Chris anywhere he went, he suddenly started to see him everywhere. At the library, in the cafeteria, in-between classes... It was as if the Universe was shoving opportunities to apologize in his face every other day, and Darren declined every time.
It wasn't as if he wanted them to be on bad terms. Darren could still feel butterflies flutter to life inside of him whenever Chris was in the same room. He still got hard from thinking about Chris for too long. He wanted to be with him, but there was no getting through to him.
Chris was always hanging around the same guy with the orange scarf that Darren had seen him with in the library that dreaded Saturday afternoon. Darren himself was always surrounded by two or three of his friends at the very least, but Chris and Orange Scarf seemed content with only the company of each other. Half the time Darren spotted Chris at a public place, Chris didn't notice him. Him and Orange Scarf seemed pretty preoccupied with each other, but a part of Darren wanted to believe that Chris pretended not to notice him. That thought didn't hurt as much as thinking Chris wasn't looking around for him at all, anyway.
The times their eyes did meet in a crowded room, Darren made sure to get out of there pretty quickly, even more so than when Chris didn't notice him. It wasn't like Darren, but not much that had happened lately had been like him. If anyone noticed, they didn't tell him. Joey kept quiet about the whole ordeal, after the day that Darren had come home after studying at the library after their fight. Darren didn't tell him much about Chris or their conversation, but Joey made the connection and put an arm around him. When he prompted further explanation, Darren shrugged and said that he'd messed up. Darren could make out the relief softening Joey's furrowed brows when he said that they'd probably stop seeing each other, but none of them said anything about it. Something about the fight with Chris had distanced Darren from acting on his initial reactions. It was Chris's face, how it had looked when he visibly winced at Darren's words. It had scared him. It made him realize what kind of impact "just words" could have on another person. Darren felt uncomfortable with who he was.
So if Darren's friends noticed his way of drawing back from conversation, his new alertness to the things happening outside of it and escaping inwards, they didn't mention it. Darren could tell Joey made small but firm facial expressions to indicate what was and what wasn't okay whenever someone tried to shake Darren out of himself. It kind of just said 'no, not yet', and Darren was grateful for it. Joey had Darren's back.
And apparently, Orange Scarf had Chris's. Darren was ashamed to admit that his initial thought had been that the two of them were a couple. He dismissed the thought almost immediately, not wanting to be too presumptuous and to keep some kind of peace of mind. Seeing them together, though, was a clear mixture of envy and relief. Darren was glad that his words hadn't hurt Chris enough to withdraw him from his universe, which seemed to mostly involve school and Orange Scarf. Then again, no one'd guess that Darren's world had been thoroughly shaken just a week ago. Not at just a far away glance, anyway.
And Darren felt like everything inside of him had changed. Like his feelings were just oozing out of him, and that everyone could catch the scent. Maybe Chris was struggling just as bad. The moment Darren had said he took pity on Chris, it had been over. Whatever they were had just ceased to exist, and Darren couldn't understand why. He didn't want to believe that Chris had gone through something that made him the way he was. Bad, hurtful experiences shape a person the most, but it brought Darren more peace not to speculate. His heart started and hurt with every horrible possibility that could've been behind Chris's trembling lower lip.
"He has some obvious baggage," Joey said when they were home alone.
Joey had a knack for prompting conversation regarding Chris out of the blue.
Darren said nothing.
"I talked to him that night," Joey went on. "You know... drunken encounter number two?"
Darren fiddled with a loose string on his jeans. Joey glanced at him carefully. Darren wanted to stare at Joey intently, wanted to know every last detail about Chris he had yet to find out. But his world had shifted, and so he remained still and seemingly unimpressed.
"I wasn't that drunk, by the way," Joey said. "Neither was he. But I got pretty pissed off when I saw him there on the couch, just chilling as if it came naturally to him."
Darren did looked up at Joey then. Joey never got pissed off.
"So I asked him, pretty harshly, what the fuck he was doing in my house." Joey chuckled, shook his head. "Can't believe it, I know, but I did. And he snapped back something about you inviting him and that you were sleeping so I should keep my 'goddamn voice down'."
Joey made quotation marks in the air when he said the last three words.
"So yeah, he said that you and him do that, as in each other, every now and then and that it was none of my business. I told him that he should stay away and stop messing with you and..."
"And why did you do that?" Darren muttered, silently enough that he could've been talking to himself.
"I don't know, but I think that made him want to be with you more," Joey said, talking slowly. "I, um... I think he was using you, man."
"For what?" Darren asked patiently.
"To get back at me, to get off, to get over someone." Joey shrugged. "I don't know. But either way, whatever fucking baggage he has that made him treat someone who's obviously in love with him like that, it's not fucking okay."
Darren inhaled sharply. He hadn't even thought it. 'Feelings' was the word he used to describe how he felt for Chris. 'In love' was on another level, and held a painful amount of more accuracy.
"Dude, I'm fine," Darren said with a small voice. "Him and I are over. I'll be fine."
"I'm not sure about that," Joey said.
Darren looked up, questioning.
"I've never seen you this worked up about anyone, Darren. What happened between you two?"
Darren sighed. "I don't know. Bunch of shit. What does it matter? According to you he was just 'using me' anyway."
"And you're just gonna roll with that?" Joey asked.
Darren arched an eyebrow.
"You're acting weird, dude. You've got unfinished business with him. I can tell."
"So what do you think I should do?" Darren asked, emotions clogging his voice from coming out normal. "He fucking hates me. He doesn't feel anything I feel."
Darren let out a breath, a sniffle. Joey put a comforting hand on his shoulder.
"He means something to you, so he owes you a chance to make it right, okay?" Joey squeezed Darren's shoulder hard enough to make Darren look up at him. "You are worth much. If it makes you feel better, no matter if you guys get back together or not, you should at least talk things out. Clear up whatever is keeping you from each other."
Darren shook his head. "He won't want to."
"Then we'll find someone who'll make him want to."
Joey had obviously had some time to convince himself that this was what Darren needed to do. Darren felt pretty powerless as it was, but he knew that there was someone that probably could convince Chris. The person he saw him with almost every day.
"There is someone," Joey said, staring intently at Darren. "I can tell, you're thinking of someone. Come on, tell me."
"He's..." Darren started. "I don't know him. I've seen him with Chris a lot lately. No idea how close they are, really, but... Maybe."
"Sounds good enough for me," Joey said and smiled genuinely.
Darren looked up, not quite sharing Joey's level of enthusiasm, but smiled back.
Once you start looking for people, they cease to go anywhere you go. Joey and Darren kept an open watch for Orange Scarf at all times, but he was nowhere to be found. Darren would rather look for Chris, really. He would rather talk to him, but he knew that was a lost cause.
Another week passed without progress, and Darren was attempting to get back to his life as it used to be. Joey was still stuck in mission: Orange Scarf-mode, and Darren only mildly discouraged him when the subject came up. As long as it distracted Joey from asking Darren about his feelings or what Chris meant to him, or whatever, Darren kept Joey on his mission. He couldn't explain anything he felt right now. He was scared to say anything. It hurt too much. Hit too close to home.
During Darren's final lecture of the day a Friday afternoon, his thoughts drifted. He looked forward to getting home, to listen to his corniest, most favorite the Beatles love songs, all the while writing his essay. The Beatles were pretty much the soundtrack of Darren's life nowadays. Their blatant, unquestioning enthusiasm and optimism brightened the darkness inside of him.
After the lecture, he felt a tap on his shoulder once the students were out of the lecture hall. He turned, expecting Joey or Lauren or Brian or even Dylan, but finding none of them. It was Denise, and seeing her there in all of her red-head rockergirl glory stopped something inside of Darren.
"Denise!" he exclaimed, not knowing what to say. "Hi!"
Denise smiled brightly and pulled him in for a warm hug. She said nothing.
The two of them had a history of casual sex, and though they were great together, their groups of friends kind of clashed and kept them apart. They hadn't seen each other in a pretty long while now. The feelings they had for each other were purely platonic, but now that Denise hugged him Darren couldn't help but want... everything from her. Something about the embrace said that she knew what piece of shit funk Darren was going through at the moment, and it felt good.
"I heard you were going through something," she whispered in Darren's ear. "Someone's not treating you right."
Darren sighed, melted further against her.
"We've always picked each other up," Denise continued, her hand caressing Darren's back. "Wanna go back to mine?"
And without a second thought, Darren said yes.
Denise was fun. She was round, and soft, and Darren grabbed her sides with enthusiasm when they made out on her bed. Darren laughed for the first time in long, threw his head back from the force of it. He gasped when her hand pressed at his cock through his clothes. She took it as an encouragement and squeezed around it. She kissed Darren's neck. Once she did, though, Darren realized that he wasn't getting hard. He didn't feel anything. His heart started and beat fast.
Denise didn't let that discourage her. She kept kissing, feeling, groping. Meanwhile, every troubling thought that had been kept out of Darren's mind from the minute he saw Denise after the lecture came rushing back all at once, and now Denise tried to undo Darren's pants, tried to pull them down, and Darren was frozen to the spot.
"Stop," Darren said, but his voice was gone.
Denise pulled back and looked at him.
"Darren, are you okay?" she asked, still touching him, her voice soft and soothing.
Darren willed his face not to scrunch up like it wanted to, tried to keep his features calm and expressionless but it was hard and judging by the way Denise was still staring at him his attempt was completely unsuccessful.
"I need to..." Darren shook his head, stirred where he was beneath Denise. He had to get out.
Denise just grabbed him then, held him closer.
"Darren, stop," Denise said. Her eyes were so there, on him, not hiding anything or wanting to go anywhere. "Please. Breathe."
Darren put the heels of his palms on his eyes and turned out of Denise's grasp. He folded in on himself, biting the insides of his cheeks. He couldn't breathe. He was going to throw up, right now, he really was. His heart was beating out of his chest. Any source of oxygen had vanished. Darren saw nothing, only inside himself, and there was nothing there to get him out of what was straining his lungs so bad.
"Darren?" Denise voice came back into Darren's hearing. "Can you hear me?"
Darren's lungs opened up, and with that, a flow of tears rolled down Darren's cheeks. He put his hands down and rolled onto his back. Denise looked pretty wrecked where she was sitting on the bed beside him. She put a comforter over him silently.
"Please, please, talk to me," Denise whispered, a hand on the side of Darren's wet face.
Darren relaxed, his limbs feeling loose and his mind slipping at the contrast of having been so sudden and intensely emotional just a moment ago. He breathed slowly before responding. He felt pretty humiliated, embarrassed to have such a physical response to what he was feeling. He hated himself for being so clumsy. For speaking his mind. For taking pity on someone who obviously didn't want it.
"Darren, what just happened?" Denise asked. "You never keep these things to yourself.. I'm... I'm worried, okay? Did I do something wrong? You're scaring me."
"I'm in love with him," Darren said. He couldn't live under his own restraints, couldn't bear it, he was too fucking weak. "I'm in love with Chris and he doesn't love me back."
Darren's face scrunched, it scrunched, and he didn't stop it. He sniffled grossly, cried.
But Denise kissed his cheek and cuddled into him. She stayed. Didn't scold him. Didn't laugh at his expressive face.
"So this isn't going to work," Denise said, sounding a bit disappointed.
"Probably not," Darren said, chuckling dryly. "I don't know."
Denise kissed Darren's shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Denise," Darren whispered. "You didn't ask for this, I'm... I'm not in a good place right now."
"Don't apologize," Denise said. "It doesn't matter whether I asked for it or not, Darren. You're feeling this right now, and that matters. You're... exploding all over the place. He means something to you. And if he's about to pass that up..."
Denise shook her head noticeably, and Darren smiled.
"He'd probably call me crazy and want to slap some sense into me," Darren said.
"You are pretty crazy," Denise agreed with a small laugh. "You feel things on a greater scale. That's what we all love about you."
Darren hummed. And those words stayed with him, stayed deep in his heart right next to Chris.
The coming days, Darren and Denise kept more contact than they had before. Their relationship had been close to what Darren and Chris used to have, just texting to hook up and only spending sporadic nights together. Now they talked a lot more, and Darren realized how little he actually knew about Denise. She was turning out to be a really cool person, who had gone through something similar to what Darren was going through right now. It felt as if she was reading Darren's mind. She always said exactly what he needed to hear.
Darren was on the phone with her after class around noon one thursday, reveling in the fact that he only had one class left and none on friday. She was not sharing his good mood given that she had to do an exam the next day. Darren was laughing with her by the time he entered the cafeteria. He wanted to get a coffee before he left, but then he stopped dead in his tracks.
By one of the tables, the one at the far end into the corner of the large room, Joey was having a coffee with Orange Scarf. Darren's voice stopped. His face stuck into an incredulous expression, and he kind of just stood there until Denise yelled at him and he felt someone bump into his shoulder aggressively when they walked by him.
He blinked. The both of them looked like they were kind of enjoying themselves, all polite smiles and expressive hand motions when they talked. Darren had wanted to go up to them at first and say something, sit himself down, completely drill Chris's friend on information about him. But then he changed his mind.
None of them noticed him, and Darren excused himself to Denise, urged her to go on with what she was saying. He was only half-listening and forgot about getting that coffee as he left the cafeteria. He knew Joey had been busy trying to talk to that guy for a while, but Darren had somehow forgot what a force of nature Joey was once he set his mind on something. Darren hadn't realized all of this meant that much to him, since Joey didn't particularly like Chris and had apparently had several disagreements with him before.
And still, he was sitting there talking to one of his best friends just to try to get Chris and Darren to get together and talk things out. Darren felt a rush of affection hit him, diminishing the sense of confusion that resided within him. He didn't know how long Joey and him had been talking or what they'd been talking about, but he'd find out soon enough. He had to.
Darren didn't ask Joey at first. He wanted to wait it out, see if Joey was going to take the first step. That was when Darren seriously started consider the possibility of Joey having done this for longer than Darren had originally suspected, because Joey didn't let on about anything that was going on. Darren made every question he asked him somehow relatable to what him and Orange Scarf were supposedly doing, and yet, nothing. It was as if they purposely didn't want Darren to know anything and it bothered him.
Did Chris know? Had they talked to Chris, together? Was Darren the one who was completely out of the loop, knowing nothing?
Darren's curiosity reached its peak only a day and a half later, when Joey and him were home alone and Joey was bothering Darren to play video games with him.
"Come on, man, we need to be two players to get through the boss," Joey said. "We have nothing better to do. I know you don't. Come on."
"Why don't you just go ask your new best friend?" Darren asked. "You know, the one you haven't even mentioned to me?"
Darren looked up from where he was half-lying on his bed with a magazine, and Joey stopped. He looked like he was processing. It was kind of a low blow, and an extremely childish thing to say, but whenever Joey was around he got the same 'little brother' kind of behavior as he did whenever he hung out with his older brother Chuck.
And now Joey knew that Darren knew.
"You mean Sam," Joey said eventually, voice flat.
"If that's Orange Scarf's real name, then yes," Darren said with a shrug, looking back down in his magazine.
Joey sat down on the bed next to Darren with a sigh.
"I know how this looks, but I didn't intend to keep anything from you, okay?" he said.
Darren huffed, but before he could say anything Joey kept talking.
"No, okay, listen," he rushed. "I didn't tell you because we were kind of... planning something? Like two bros do for their bros."
"Don't try sweet talking me," Darren said, and but he couldn't hide his grin. He put the magazine on the night stand beside the bed.
Joey rolled his eyes.
"No, but really," he said. "We kind of wanted to make you guys's reunion seem... all you, you know?"
"How would that even work?" Darren asked. "He doesn't... Chris doesn't-"
"Chris does, a lot more than you know," Joey cut him off.
Darren kept silent then. Okay. Joey knew things, and Darren apparently didn't know anything. That wasn't how this was supposed to work at all.
"He cares, Darren," Joey clarified.
"How do you..." Darren started, then stopped, shaking his head.
"Okay, I'm not going to-," Joey sighed. "Sam says that Chris is crazy about you, but that it's... complicated, for him."
"That sounds like a bunch of bull," Darren muttered.
Anyone else telling Darren that Chris had feelings for him at this point proved nothing. Especially not after Denise's thorough exercise of getting Darren to accept that him and Chris were nothing anymore, and probably never had been.
"Trust me, it's not," Joey said.
Silence filled the room. Joey looked around a little, fidgeting. There was so much Joey wasn't telling him, so much that Darren wanted to find out. But not like this.
"Does Chris know about this?" Darren asked.
"No, not at all," Joey said, putting his hands up. "He has no idea."
There was so much that Darren could find out as well. He could arrange for him and Sam to meet. He could ask Sam everything he didn't know about Chris, since Joey had described them as 'bros'. And still, Darren didn't feel any sense of relief at knowing he had a connection to a person in the world that could tell him about Chris.
The fact that that person wasn't Chris only made his stomach hurt and for his heart to start beating like it had that night with Denise. And Chris wasn't 'crazy' about him. He couldn't be. They weren't... Chris hadn't shown any signs of... Okay, there had been signs, but they'd been vague and Darren really didn't want to think about it until Chris could confirm it.
"So what do you want to do?" Joey asked. "You want to talk to him, or..?"
"I want to talk to Chris," Darren sighed, looking down.
"Dude, are you mad at me..?"
Darren looked up at Joey again. He looked so innocent, didn't realize...
"No," Darren said. "I don't know what you and Sam have been talking about, but, dude... Why didn't you just try to get us together as fast as possible? Why was it necessary for you to go on.. fucking lunch dates or whatever before even mentioning anything to me?"
Joey chuckled at that, but stopped when Darren didn't join in.
"Like I said, it's complicated," he said. "I mean... Chris is complicated. Okay?"
"I don't understand," Darren said.
"He's been through-," Joey started.
"No, don't tell me," Darren interrupted him. "Just... Can you ask Sam to talk to Chris? Tell him about all of this?"
"Darren, come on," Joey said.
"No, stop telling me to 'come on', okay?" Darren said. "You guys gossiping about us is way out of fucking line! Don't you get that? I don't want you to tell me something about Chris that you got through Sam, do you understand? If Chris is so fucking complicated then there's a good chance not even Sam knows enough to be a reliable source of information. I don't get-"
"I was trying to help," Joey said through gritted teeth. "Do you think I'm stupid? I know it's not the ideal way of getting two people together, but we haven't been gossiping."
"You talked behind our backs," Darren said.
"Yeah," Joey said. "But what were we supposed to do? The two of you are fucking miserable. Everything isn't black and white here."
Darren sighed. Joey was right. He knew that much. But even considering the possibility of Chris being as miserable as him, of wanting Darren just as much... It hit close to home, and everything felt too personal. Darren wrapped his arms around himself and huffed a breath.
"I know." He looked at Joey. "I know you're just doing your best to like... make me feel better. But I don't feel better, Joe."
Joey put a hand on Darren's shoulder.
"So let us help you," he said. "Come with me next time Sam and I meet. There are some things that you really should know, but it would be better if Sam told you."
Darren nodded. Okay. That much he could do.
When Sam, Joey and Darren met, things didn't go down like Darren had thought. Joey and Sam hugged when they greeted each other, and Sam smiled invitingly at Darren. Darren nodded and smiled back, put out his hand and told him his name. They were at Sam's dorm, where he was living with a couple of other guys (not Chris), and they were going to order take-out and talk stuff out.
'Stuff'. Everything still felt a little too personal for Darren's liking. He felt like he was just messing things up, and that too many people were getting involved. But Sam and Joey were involved, and he couldn't undo that now.
When they were at the table and Sam and Joey were talking casually, Darren smiled, not really participating. Then he got nervous.
"Please tell me you didn't invite Chris, too," he said out of the blue.
Joey and Sam looked at him, shaken out of their conversation, and then Sam smiled widely.
"Fuck, why didn't we think of that?" he asked Joey.
"That would've been perfect," Joey agreed.
"No, it wouldn't have," Darren disagreed.
Joey and Sam laughed.
"Sorry," Sam apologized. "Of course we wouldn't do that, man."
"Good," Darren said.
"Darren's still not totally okay with all of this, by the way," Joey explained with a shrug.
"Oh," Sam said. "Why not?"
He looked straight at Darren then. Darren shifted a little uncomfortably. Sam's eyes were so intense, big and brown and staring. Something about his sense of humor, his way of smiling genuinely and being comfortable with Joey and Darren even though they hadn't known each other for long reminded Darren of himself. Or of who he used to be, before his way of being had totally broken what him and Chris were.
"It doesn't feel right," Darren said. "Chris should... Chris really should be here, even if it would be awkward."
"This isn't about back-talking anyone," Sam said. "It's about understanding all parts of the story, which can be pretty hard if you don't know what's happened... lately."
"What does that mean?" Darren asked.
"It means that Chris has been acting strange even to me who's known him for three years," Sam explained. "I mean, things kind of... I get why he's acting like this, but..."
"So, why is he?" Darren prompted, getting anxious.
"He might have been through this before," Sam said, shifting slightly, eyes darting.
"Might have been through it?" Darren repeated. "What do you mean 'might'?"
"I mean that he's been through it, but then the roles were reversed," Sam explained.
Oh. Darren couldn't for the life of him imagine Chris acting like him; all moon-eyed with his crush, wanting everything, being needy and remembering every encounter, storing moments away in a memory-file of happiness.
"It was me," Sam said then. "I was the one who he... Was in love with."
Darren stopped imagining Chris then and just stared at Sam. Joey looked at Darren with distance. He obviously knew all of this already.
"We didn't have sex," Sam said quickly. "We made out sometimes, and I thought I was getting feelings for him, but... It was just because of how close friends we were, and how he felt for me. Like I was the perfect guy. He said all of these things and I thought I wanted him sometimes because of that, but... I don't. He was my friend before he developed those feelings for me, and he's my friend now, but..."
Sam sighed, looking a lot less confident than he had before.
"I hurt him," he said. "It was never my intention, but that was what he took from the whole ordeal. And then he went out to a party and looked up the first guy who wanted to have sex with him and did just that. Which isn't like him at all."
Darren nodded slowly.
"And then I noticed changes in him," Sam said. "Positive changes. He got less interested in me, and he was kind of just floating around and... Apparently getting what he wanted. Someone's attention... Your attention."
"Wait," Darren said. "I was the first guy he found to have sex with?"
"Yeah," Sam said, and he smiled. "Funny how things work out, huh?"
Darren didn't smile back. He kind of just stared emotionlessly.
"I'm a rebound," he said flatly.
"No," Sam said quickly. "I mean, at first... At first, yeah. You kind of were."
"At first?" Darren asked.
"Yeah, but then... Then I guess he started to get real feelings for you," Sam said. "I knew he was seeing someone, and I kind of annoyed him by asking about it and eventually he said that you and him were just 'hooking up'. Then I accused him of it being more than that and he got really... really fucking defensive, like, I have never seen him like that before."
The doorbell rang, and the three of them jumped, startled out of the serious conversation. Sam and Joey laughed.
"It's probably the pizza," Joey said. "I'll go get it."
He left Sam and Darren alone in the kitchen. Darren was still caught up in Sam's story. Ethics and personal boundaries were out the window. He needed to understand.
"Um, yeah," Sam said, trying to remember where the story had left off. "Then he explained to me how in love with me he'd been and he was so upset. He hadn't let on how much he'd been hurt before... I had noticed, but not the full extent of it. He kind of broke down on me that night. Like, explaining his childhood and why he is who he is and... It was all very, very personal. I thought I had known him before that, but I really didn't."
Darren was holding his breath.
"We had sex that night," Sam said, and he didn't look happy about it. "I felt... Fuck, I felt sorry for him and I regret doing that now since I know how much I have meant to him, but..."
Darren felt his heart beat hard. Sam had fucked Chris because he felt sorry for him. No wonder Chris got so fucking angry when Darren told him he pitied his relationship with sex. To Darren, Chris had been a stonewall of non-emotions, and here he had an entire history disproving that theory.
Sam sighed. "I knew it was wrong as soon as it happened. I had to go through telling him we couldn't be together again. Like, I'm even dating someone else and it's all... I'm not any sort of hero in this story. I'm the opposite. I feel fucking bad about it."
"Yeah," Darren said. He didn't exactly want to comfort Sam, but he still understood why he'd done what he did, to some extent.
"And then he got so distrusting," Sam sighed. "I felt like I couldn't talk to him at all anymore."
Darren shook his head. Joey came back in with the pizza, got them all beers and sat down.
"Then things got better," Sam said. "I don't exactly know how, but it did. Now that I think back on it, everything happened really fucking fast even though it didn't feel like it at the time. We became friends again, and I think he really is over me now. Like, over and done with me for real. And then one day we went to the library. Him, me and my boyfriend. And a certain someone was there."
Darren raised his eyebrows. Oh.
"I don't know what happened between you guys, but after that day he got just as upset and distant as he'd been after I hurt him," Sam said, looking down. "And now I'm kind of trying to make that right."
Darren smiled crookedly. Okay. So he had apparently ruined everything that Chris had built up after he got over Sam by throwing accusations in his face, by asking too much of him. Chris hadn't been ready for a relationship. He needed someone to want him in that way, in the way that Sam didn't want him, while finally starting to feel better about himself and his relationship with Sam, platonic as it was. And then Darren had gotten all pissed about it, asked too much, because he really didn't know anything, just like Chris had said. He didn't know him.
"And now Darren's kind of stuck in the middle of it all," Joey said. "Like, it might not sound like it, but you were the reason Chris got better after what happened between him and Sam. For real. And now he's not angry about what happened between the two of them, but what happened between you and him. Which we kind of... What really happened?"
"I told him I had feelings for him," Darren confessed with a shrug. "And he told me that he didn't want me. He got to tell me just what you told him, Sam. What goes around comes around, I guess."
Sam looked at Darren, confused. "But he does have feelings for you."
"How do you know that?" Darren sighed, unconvinced.
"Because he told m-" Sam started, then stopped. "I shouldn't be telling you that."
Darren inhaled through his mouth and exhaled through his nose, trying not to get his hopes up.
"He told me, explicitly, that I don't know him enough to have feelings for him," Darren said. "So why would he tell you anything about how he feels for me if he believes that?"
"Because I-," Sam started, and he looked like he was feeling really bad about it. "I didn't take him seriously when he said he was starting to... want more with you than sex. I didn't know you then, Darren. I didn't know Joey. Even if I was happy with how he was feeling better, I kind of encouraged him to keep things casual with you so that no one's feelings would get hurt. I guess I kind of screwed all of that up."
"So you convinced him of that," Darren said, and he felt all of the upset and anger he'd been turning inwards the past weeks get directed elsewhere, directed towards Sam.
No wonder Chris had been so apprehensive with Darren. Darren had noticed how closed-off Chris had been emotionally even when they had sex. He'd had an outside source, an outside source that meant a lot to him, tell him to do that. Darren felt screwed over. Darren felt like Chris had been completely screwed over. None of this was fair.
"Dude, he didn't know-" Joey started, noticing the signs of Darren's change of mood before Sam.
"I want to talk to Chris," Darren said.
"Dude, chill," Joey tried.
"I am chilling," Darren said angrily. "I just think that Chris should know shit, too."
"I think that should wait," Sam said slowly.
"And you think we should trust your judgement after what you've told us?" Darren asked. "The sooner I get to talk to Chris, the sooner we can move on from this."
Sam closed his mouth, took another thoughtful bite of his pizza.
"You're right," Sam said then. "Go for it. You should call him."
Darren stared at the two of them, Joey and Sam, before picking up his phone and going to Chris's number among his contacts.
He was going to make this right.
TBC