Ersatz by Sol Crafter

Author:Sol Crafter [Crafter, Sol]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-03-19T17:00:00+00:00

"I'm sorry, you know," Charlie suddenly said.

John paused with his fork almost to his mouth. The spaghetti noodles hung on his fork for a second before sliding back off. "What?"

They'd been eating in uncomfortable silence, neither one meeting the other's eyes as Charlie scooped spaghetti on their plates and served the oven-warmed garlic bread. For a little while, John had been able to hope that they would make it through this miserable meal, then they would be able to just forget about their problems. So of course that couldn't happen. He would have to deal with the fact that he'd confessed to his best friend and been rejected.

He could already feel his cheeks beginning to burn and there was an unpleasant roiling acid sensation in his gut.

Charlie set down his fork and pushed his plate far enough away that he could clench his fingers together tightly on the table. From the rawness of his cuticles, it looked like he'd revisited his nail biting habit. "I'm sorry that I was a jack ass. I didn't mean to be like that."

"It's no big deal," John said, putting his fork down with a little too much force to pass for casual. "We should just let it go."

"I don't want to," Charlie said, leaning forward intently. "I'm sorry I ran away like that. It was a pussy thing to do."

John gave him a hard stare for a moment. "It was more than a 'pussy thing to do.' It was fucking bullshit, that's what it was. Why the fuck would you run away from me like that, like I was about to rape you or something? Do you have any idea how that made me feel?"

"I'm sorry," Charlie apologized. "I just... I panicked. I don't know why I would run away like that, but I just couldn't help myself. You were looking at me and you'd just dropped this giant bomb on my head and I didn't know what I was supposed to do."

"And running away seemed like the answer," John said in a voice that hurt his throat. It wasn't like he was yelling or anything, but he really wanted to, and the fight to keep his voice level was a losing one. "You just left me standing there like some kind of fucking asshole. That was pretty damn shitty, man."

"I don't know how to make it better," Charlie said. "I'm sorry. That's all I can really say. I'm sorry I ran away like that."

"Whatever, forget about it." John grabbed his fork in his fist and twirled a mouthful of spaghetti noodles on it and stuffed it into his mouth, chewing furiously. He didn't want to hear any stupid apologies; he just wanted to forget the whole situation had ever happened.

Charlie huffed in frustration. "God, you really piss me off, you know? I mean, sure, it was pretty sucky of me to run out on you. But if you were so upset, why the hell didn't you come after me? We could have talked it all out days ago, so you're kind of at fault too.

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