"What the fuck is this?" Clay asks as we walk in the door. He has twitter pulled up.
Nick grabs the phone from him, and I look over his shoulder to see what Clay's talking about.
My heart stops and my entire body freezes.
No no no. This is not supposed to happen. This is not how anything was supposed to happen. Why does this have to happen to me?
Nick and I were going to wait until we were both ready. Yes, I was ready, but for some reason Nick wasn't. And I respected that.
But Clay was not supposed to find out this way. We weren't supposed to walk into the house from a date to Clay showing us something on twitter.
And that something wasn't supposed to be a picture of Nick and I holding hands in the park.
"What the fuck guys?" Clay repeats.
Nick and I are silent. We give each other a look. What are we supposed to say? We never talked about what we would say if he found out without us telling us.
We thought we were careful.
Obviously we weren't. Some fan saw Sapnap with a girl and took a picture of us. What a horrible way for Dream to find out.
Clay turns to the wall and slams his palms into it. "Tell me what the fuck is going on." He sounds like his blood is boiling so much. It sounds as if all the anger he has ever had in his entire life has built up to this moment.
I've known him for almost half my life, and I've never seen him like this. I've seen him happy. I've seen him sad. I've seen him mad. But I have never seen him outraged. Especially not towards me.
I'm about to say something when Clay asks us another question, this time without the word fuck.
"Just be honest," he says, a little more quietly. He squeezes the bridge of his nose. "Are you two together?"
"Yeah," Nick and I say hesitantly at the same time.
Clay slams his palm into the wall again. "I should've fucking known." We let him think things over for a little bit.
He's probably thinking of all the times we both coincidentally were doing the same thing at the same time, how I would always go grocery shopping with each other, how we always asked what his plans were. Every little thing from the past six months is probably all adding up in his head to equal the same thing we just confirmed for him: we were secretly dating behind his back.
"How long?" he mutters, his hands ball up into fists.
"Six months," I whisper, scared of his reply.
"What?" he says loudly, "six fucking months? And it never occurred to you to tell me?"
"Of course we did Clay," Nick says. He sounds almost disappointed in himself. I don't know if it's because Clay found out or because he was dating me. I don't want to even think about it being about being with me. I don't want to consider that disappointment turning into regret.
"Then when?" Clay spits, taking two steps closer to us, "When were you going to tell me?"
I'm huddled behind Nick. I grip his arm tightly.
"Well we didn't have an exact date," Nick says, "but we were going to."
"So you were just going to keep lying to me until you felt like telling me?" Clay interrogates.
"You know it's not that way, Clay." I take a small step out from behind Nick.
"Sure sounds like it," his voice is filled with poison.
There's a quiet that settles around us as we let it set in for Clay.
I can practically see the gears in his brain turning. He's getting angrier by the second. I want to disappear. I want to fizzle out into dust and escape. I want to be anywhere but in this front hall.
"I have a right to be angry," Clay points a finger towards us, "And you know it too."
I nod at him. I'm ready for him to give it to us.
"You lied to me. You had a secret relationship for half a year, and it sounds like you haven't fully thought about telling me. I don't know how i can trust you guys anymore. Is everything in my life a lie? What have you guys done genuinely and what was part of this damn charade you have going on?" he flips his hand towards us with an enraged look in his face. "You guys might've just ruined everything."
You guys might've just ruined everything.
Something in my body kicks in and the blood inside of me boils. He can't say we ruined everything. Not when we had to keep quiet about it because he forbid it.
I step out from behind Nick, who was taking the accusations quietly. I, on the other hand, don't want to just take what he has to say. We had a reason for what we did, and we deserve the chance to explain ourselves.
"Now, that's not fair," I say, "If you didn't tell Nick that he couldn't date me, then none of this could've happened. If you had just realized that I am a grown woman and can date whomever I want, then none of this could've happened. This is a result from you. Yes, we should've told you and that's wrong, but you also should at least give us the chance to tell you our reasons why."
Clay's eyes soften for a second, but I don't give him time to speak.
"Also," I continue, "we were planning on telling you, but you seemed so against it when Nick talked to you a couple weeks ago, or maybe it was like a month ago. Either way. Don't think we never did try."
"Wait wait wait," Clay hold up a hand. "A month ago?"
"Yeah, you shut him down,"
Clay turns all his attention to Nick now. "Did she just say a fucking month, Nick? Is she referring to the conversation that I'm thinking about?"
"Listen man, I-"
"OH MY GOD" Clay shouts. I take a step back, not knowing what in the world kind of realization just hit him.
"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW?" Clay goes to slam his hand on the wall again. "YOU WERE DATING HER DURING THAT CONVERSATION? YOU JUST LET THAT HAPPEN?"
What is going on? What is he talking about? I don't speak up. He sounds enraged. I thought the anger had mostly subsided, but something else has come to the top.
"Listen man, I'm sorry," Nick puts his hands up a little bit, "I just didn't know what to say."
"You didn't-" he chuckles bitterly, "Get out."
The blood in Nick's face drains. "What?"
"Get the fuck out of my sight, Nick." Clay says the name like acid on his tongue.
"Clay," I move towards him.
Clay ignores me and quietly watches Nick leave the house. "Don't come back until tomorrow," he calls after him.
The door shuts and it's only me and Clay in the front hall now.
I turn to him after a minute of processing. "What was that about?"
"Nothing you need to know," he's quiet now compared to his yelling three minutes ago. He sounds exhausted from the nights events.
"No, I think I do." I grab his arm as he tries to walk away. "It was clearly about me, Clay."
"I just-" he raises his voice a little, but then he brings it down to me as he speaks, "please can we talk about this another night? I think we've talked about enough tonight."
He starts to walk towards the kitchen. I follow him even though I want nothing more than to not be in his presence right now.
"Are you kicking him out?" I ask as he grabs a water from the fridge. I wonder if his throat hurts from yelling so loud.
"Of course not," he says as he takes a sip. My eyes focus on his knuckles, which are slightly swollen, "he wouldn't have anywhere to go."
I wonder if he would kick him out if he did have somewhere to go.
I don't know if I want to know.
"y/n?" he asks.
"Yeah?" I look up at him. Is he going to apologize?
"Could you leave?" he asks.
My soul feels as if it was ripped out of my body.
I don't answer him as I turn to go out the door. My hands ball into fists.
How dare he. He can yell at Nick and I, but he shouldn't kick us out.
If he had let us do whatever we had wanted, then this wouldn't have happened. Why can't he look at us like we're adults? He doesn't own us.
I've known him for forever, and he's never acted this way. I understand that he's upset, but he shouldn't kick Nick out if he knows Nick has nowhere to go for tonight.
I think of the words he screamed at Nick. Why can't I know about what they're talking about? It's obviously related to me. I deserve to know. He talked about me as if I wasn't there. He treated me like nothing.
Why does he think so little of me?
I see a slight dent in the wall as I'm about to walk out of the house.
I stop for a moment.
Why does he think that he can just tell people that they can't date me? He doesn't own me. I'm not some toy that he gets decide who uses or not.
I am an entire human being with my own thoughts, my own ideas, my own feelings.
So why am I giving him so much authority over me right now? He doesn't deserve an ounce of it.
I absentmindedly grab my keys and remove the one that belongs to the house I'm currently standing in.
I turn to walk into the kitchen that he's still standing in.
Clay has both hands on the counter with a hard grip. He looks up when he hears movement walking in.
"I thought I asked-" he starts to say before the palm of my hand hits his face.
My hand stings a little, but I ignore the pain.
"Did you just bitch slap me?" he says as he touches his cheek.
I ignore him and carry on with the plan I thought of not even a minute ago.
"You fucking dick," I yell at the man holding his cheek, "I can make my own choices. I don't need you to tell me what to do and who to date. I am an independent person, and I'm doing fine without you, okay? Do you understand that?"
He looks at me for a second but doesn't talk. I continue to talk without him even responding.
"I don't want to live without you, Clay," I say, now it's my voice that sounds like poison, "but that doesn't mean I can't. Don't make me have to prove that."
He's quiet for a moment. I decide he's probably not going to respond quickly, and, with our anger mixed, it probably won't be rational either.
"Talk to me when you can treat me like an actual human being instead of some toy," I say as I slam the key onto the counter.
I storm out of the house as I leave him behind. I don't want to be somewhere where they don't respect what I want to do.
This is not how my night was supposed to go.
And it's still not over.
I have to find Nick.
.author's note.
hope you guys are enjoying! come back tomorrow!
thank you for reading! have a great day :)
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