But him, he just had to drink the rest of our cheap tequila. To prove he was a big boy. To prove he could handle it.
We're alone in the room, and I'm bent over him. The bathroom fan buzzes in the background.
"You're a beautiful person and I know you think that I think you're ugly but that's just not true and I know you love me like I love her but I just can't love you like that but I've tried and I'm sorry, Amanda, I'm so sorry..."
I just hold his hand. Sometimes I lean closer when he wants to touch my face.
He tells me I'm beautiful, that he was attracted to me not so long ago. That I've been the best friend he's ever had and he pushes me away because he's afraid to hurt me.
And this, this is the most beautiful moment of my life. I'm on the floor curled around him and he's pouring his heart out, everything I've ever wanted him to say, everything I've ever wanted him to feel, there it is all over the floor along with the former contents of his stomach.
He makes us promise never to leave him, and we do. He says he'd die without us. At four in the morning, when everyone else has left and fallen asleep, I stay in the living room with him and wait for him to drift off first.
I listen to him breathe, the way I did once so long ago when he was on the phone with me. He apologizes again and again, for loving her, for not loving me like I love him, for not being what I deserve, and I just hold his hand and tell him it's okay.
He blinks sleepily after she whispers to wake us up. He's not supposed to be here and if her parents find him when they return, they'll be upset. After she leaves the room, he turns to me.
"Things are going to go back to being the way they were, aren't they?"
I look at him.
"Only if you want them to."
"I don't. I liked being honest with you guys."
She walks back into the room, so I whisper.
"Then don't let them."