Love Kills (Dnf Short Story)

Betraying Myself

Present Day...

My phone buzzed in my back pant's pocket. I've started to carry it around again now that I am back to working full time. I could happily scroll through twitter now without a single issue and even smile joyfully at George's pictures. I do find it odd that George hasn't worked at all, no twitch streams or videos on youtube, but I just ignored my odd and difficult thoughts. George was here with me and that's all that mattered.

I pulled my phone out expecting it to be someone mentioning me or a friend teasing a new video. Although it was neither. In fact it was a text message. I had stopped receiving messages when I fully fell down the stairs of hell and began to ignore most of my friends. So, when I saw Nick's name in the messenger app with the blue dot I squinted at it in confusion. I read through his message, once, then twice. It didn't make any sense at all and I'm almost one-hundred percent sure it's a joke.

It reads: Hey, I know we haven't talked in a bit. Well, 3 plus months to be more exact. I'm worried about you man, how are you holding up? I see you're back to posting youtube videos and you have your occasional stream, but you sound off. Like, you're talking to someone in the background. That someone is often called George, when I'm pretty sure we're both aware that George is gone. Also, are you still up to moving back in together, might be better for you so just give it a thought.

"George is gone?" I say aloud as if tasting the words. They tasted bad. I heard gentle footsteps come up behind me and soon thin hands wrap around my waist. I glance down and see George's arms wrapped around me as expected and a smile creeps on my face.

"What are you looking at?" He asks, snuggling his face into the hoodie I'm wearing. He's always done that, loving my cologne's smell. I look back at my glowing phone and skim over Nick's words again before turning the phone so that George could get a read.

"I don't understand what he's talking about. Do you, George?" I ask him, pointing at the 'George is gone' part expectantly. He had to know something about that, right? I mean, he could understand the whole paragraph because most of it had to do with me being sad and George being supposedly gone. But George just lets go and takes my phone over to the couch. I follow him over into the sitting area and my curiosity spikes.

"I- Nick can't live with us, Clay. There's not enough room and- Well, he just can't." He states flatly. My eyebrows lift in surprise. That had always been our dream, the whole idea of Nick and I renting out this specific house was so that when George came over to America he could live with us, 'The Dream Team Household' fantasy would come alive.

"What?" I say purely shocked.

"He can't, I'm sorry Clay."

I can't keep a straight face, they must have planned this, they had to. There's no way George wouldn't want Nick to move back in, no way at all. I just laugh, I feel rude and psychotic, but I can't help myself.

"Clay, I need you to be serious. I'm not gone, I'm here." He points up to his head, then to his heart. My whole body wants to hurl, but I keep laughing. I watch as his serious face turns to watering eyes and he looks sad. "Clay-" he starts but stops, "Nevermind, just know Nick can't come and that I'm keeping you safe that way, okay?" I slowly stop laughing and nod, tears stream down my face as my body refuses the now known information. He pats the spot on the couch beside him and I come over. Without hesitancy he wraps his arms around me and lets me cry in his neck.

I'm hit with a mix of emotions, confusion, anger, sadness, and many more including an odd sense of guilt that washes over me. George sits with me while I let it all out, I feel like someone has come up to the cliff I'm barely hanging onto just to stomp and twist on my hands, causing me to fall into the dark caverns yet again. I feel like all the recent progress with George has just been lost. I want to disagree with George, saying Nick needs to come by so I can at least talk to him, but I just can't disagree with him. It's like he's oddly a part of me and I would be betraying myself if I did that.

Little did I know that after a month or so without replying to Nick would he finally check up on me.