27. "but proving false to its power"

ONE YEAR AGO: AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER III

"What got you so rattled? If you need to talk to me, then talk to me. What's going on?" Ryan exclaimed, but oblivious to the news that I had, he had the laid back attitude to laugh. I wish I could still have that, yet with news regarding the fate of his life or his death, I couldn't keep still. That was only part of his personality in the moment. Not mine.

I paced through the kitchen, grabbing whatever I could get a hold of when my brain left my body. I did it just so I could focus on something else, but it didn't help. I wasn't aware of anything I did -- how anything tasted, or how an object felt in my hands -- I couldn't tell what I was doing or why. In my head, was Jayvee's shared plan of a murder, and what she wanted me to do with her.

He peeked over the wall, so he could see me properly. "Dude. What happened to you? What got you so mentally crippled? You're really making this an interesting stay. That's for sure." He muttered questionably, looking down at what I held and up to my face, back and forth several times until he decided there was no harm in expressing his wonder. "Are you eating gravy?"

I looked down to the styrofoam cup in my hands I got from take-out a day or two ago. Squeezing the sides so it overflowed the slightest bit over top and trickled down my fingers, I came to gain sight of the reality I had out in front of me.

"Yeah, I guess I am," I answered, still in a daze. "Is that okay?"

"Maybe. I don't know. If you tell me what's going on, I could answer that for you a bit better, I think. You left to talk to Jayvee and you come back eating gravy, a man doesn't know what to think," he smiled when he replied, and it amazed me then just how much about ourselves we don't know about when it comes to the versions that exist in other people's heads. If it were me, would I want to be informed? Probably not, but wouldn't it be best?

So I let myself free. I ranted and ranted and ranted, with my eyes shut tight so I didn't have to see the emotions that would spread across his face. I knew there were several -- I could practically feel them in the air above our heads when I went through everything that Jayvee told me and what it was she had in mind. I didn't have to see him.

But when I opened my eyes, I was still met almost immediately with his smiling face. There was a sad look that lingered there for longer than he wanted it to, but once he looked into my eyes and saw the worry I had for them powering every word they could tell as fuel would to a car, he smiled again, and despite everything he heard, he appeared happy.

I admired him for that. I admired his strength. I admired how he always could look at the good in situations that were so heartless and lonely.

"So what?" He answered me, after I'd covered everything from the money, to the vaccines, to the one year until our five year university-anniversary program, and the fake letters. He was quick to believe me. I don't know if that's because he never trusted Jayvee fully or if he knew that I wouldn't lie about something this intense, but either or, he answered without freak out, and it calmed me down for the most part, until he finished his thought.

"Let her do it. Just let her try to get it done."

I stared at him with disbelief. "Wh-what? You're going to let her--."

The thought of the bullet striking in the very area it needed to wipe him off of this planet tore me to shreds, and it replayed like a gif someone made from a clip of the horror movies, that repeated itself over and over as it entered into the chest or into the head.

Every part of my body went sore.

"No, no. I'm not. I promise it's not like that," he denied. "But one million sounds nice, doesn't it? We could stage my murder, you said you had the gun in your hands not hers so I won't die. It's her that wants to kill me. Not you, so we can frame it on her, then take the money and run away together -- off the grid maybe, and just live that way for the rest of our lives -- until we grow old. It serves her right for being that insane."

My cheeks turned red. "W-wait," I stuttered, trying get through the words enough that my effort to clarify actually made sense. "Are you saying that we--? Do you want me to run away with y--? Like in what kind of way? Like the two of us together kind of way? Or the two of us together-together kind of way?"

"I mean, if you want to-- you know, with me," Ryan had the same struggle. Sentences didn't function well when we tried to express how we felt, but the emotion still made its way through. I understood him flawlessly as if he didn't stutter once, and I had the feeling it was the same way for me.

"Jayvee and I aren't dating. She's a good person -- well, I thought she was a good person, but I started messaging her because I don't have the money for a therapist, and she agreed to help me talk things out, which I found out was a mistake. She's an insane erotomaniac or something. She randomly came to this conclusion that I was intensely in love with her, when I didn't make any moves. She found my parent's numbers in my phone and she called them and let them know that one day soon she'd be my bride, and they accepted me back into the family again, but even with them back in my life I felt disgusting because I wasn't true to myself and--."

"Yeah, yeah. Blood isn't always thicker than water, especially when it comes to stuff like that. People get in the way of who you actually are whether they mean it or not. I understand. You don't have to explain it," I cut him off. I believed his side of the story. His and Jayvee's were so excruciatingly similar it wasn't hard to, especially because after the woman spilled that she had murder in her plans, there wasn't an ounce of blood in my body that wanted anything to do with her. I had him right here, and that's exactly where I wanted him. I wasn't going to ruin that.

"Good. I'm glad you know you can trust me," he stated, much more confident than he was when he found himself in his own rant bubble, and I could feel tingles within my stomach knowing that he felt that way because of me -- that I, out of the billions of people on this planet was his source of comfort -- the only person that mattered to me.

"Of course I do," I replied proudly, but on the back of my mind despite my happiness was still the underlying problem, and I couldn't let it out of reach. "Which is why I have to ask you what our plan is to go about this. We have to focus on what we're going to do about it. How are we going to handle it? I can't just show up there and assume you'll be okay when a gun is involved and--."

"Don't worry too much," Ryan rolled his eyes innocently, slapping my shoulder the slightest bit to tease my tension.

"Since you want to know so bad, and I know you're not going to rest until you're certain that we have something to retaliate Jayvee, I actually do have a plan. I saw the blueprint of the school -- the original one that no one knows of anymore. Jayvee is bloodline to the founder so I saw it accidentally. In room 327, there's room underneath the floor that's pretty spacious and solely because it's different than the other rooms, that's why Jayvee probably likes it so much. If you open the latch, it'll lead you to another compartment you have to open again, and in there, there's space for at least three people that nobody could see from the actual classroom.

"Let Jayvee know first, to have the money hidden down there in the uneven floor, and second that you need two chances. From the vaccine set, everyone will have to see me with blood, and then maybe there can be a power malfunction. On that run, drop the gun to the ground and I'll take it with me underneath the floorboards and mysteriously disappear, so the police don't have evidence. Both of you will touch it if she's going to hand it to you, so I'll keep it with me. All the background stuff Jayvee does will get her convicted. When everything's over, you can come back for me and we can run away. I'll have snacks and water down there to hold me over and whatever else I need."

I held my breath. I understood everything as best as I could according to what he was saying, but there was only one thing that he said that repeated itself, constantly there at the front of my mind.

"H-how are you gonna bleed? I can't actually shoot you--."

"Shoot my hand or something."

"What? No!"

"Just do it. I'll be okay. People rarely ever die from being shot in the hand. It'll hurt, but then if I have it at my stomach, it looks like I'm bleeding from there. Knowing Jayvee being all leader-of-the-pack, but also knowing she can't stand blood, she'll check my pulse and fail to realize I'm alive. We go to that school program because apparently we're smart, but we're all somehow stupid too. It serves her right to get framed for something that she tried to get someone else to do for her and I'll go to this extent."

I sighed. "The thing is, I'll be dizzy from the vaccine I'll have to take. If I shoot anything, I'll aim bad."

"Don't take it unless it's absolutely necessary. If you do have to, I'll have my hand out inches away if that's what you need. I'll pay attention to what the situation brings. I know you're not gonna kill me. You're not capable of doing that, even by accident. It'll work out," he promised, drawing my lose strands of hair back behind my ear.

In his eyes was starlight. "I hope it does," I told him, absolutely mesmerized. "I don't want to hurt you though."

"Corny," he joked. "Would you still love me if a bullet went through my hand?"

"Idiot," I pricked my finger at his forehead until a red circle the size of a quarter began to grow in it's place. "Shut up with that nonsense. What is it next time? Would you still love me if I was a worm?"

And from that, came laughter. More genuine laughter than it's been. The kind that goes silent for a period of time and that makes you struggle to breathe. The kind that makes you realize that the person by your side is someone you most definitely didn't want to lose.

I think it rooted from thankfulness when our lips found each other for the first time.

We trailed each other's skin gently, like the way a flower petal skims against your skin, because we didn't doubt that we were being the person for one another that we've needed all our lives.

Given the proper time, it quickly turned to passion, to love and to security when he magically took seat on my counter top, and his air became the air that I breathe -- a picture I wouldn't mind spending forever in.

In my stomach, every butterfly that's died since those elementary crushes that were broken and squashed of their wings, resurrected to the beauty they've always held and I knew. I knew I found home in somebody else's heart.

I knew that from here on, I wouldn't have to spend my entire life anxious about keeping mine safe, because I had someone who would do it for me.

I've discovered someone who I loved with all my heart.

A treasure that I've spent my life searching for, and that I finally found-- all among insanity.

Nobody could've guessed.