“Troy! Give me my hat!”

He gave me an evil grin, shifting backwards up his bed with it. “Why? You’re just going to leave when I give it to you.”

I lunged for it, but he pulled it back out of my reach, “Now, Troy. I’m serious. We need to get to this rehearsal!”

There had been a group sleepover at Troy’s the night before, and Sharpay and I were the second last ones to leave, except Chad, who didn’t seem to be moving any time soon. I grabbed Troy’s arm as he went to put it behind his back, and tried to snatch my peaked cap out of his fingers. He grinned at me as he still managed to twist his arm behind his back, dragging my face right in front of his as I held on.

“You want it? Fight for it.”

My lips curved as I studied his face. The cheeky glint in the clear blue eyes, the dark brown hair that was still slightly rumpled from sleep, the pillow crease on his cheek. I lowered my head slowly, capturing his lips with mine in a slow kiss.

About nine months ago, I’d admitted my true feelings to Troy- came out about how I’d fallen in love with him since we’d started hanging out together, starting with the winter musical. He’d been shocked at first, and I’d been distraught as he started to avoid me, thinking that my honesty had wrecked our friendship.

But then, at a school dance, he’d come up to me, apologised and explained himself. Explained how he couldn’t process that the feelings were mutual, because his reputation showed him as a womaniser. He’d been scared to tell me how he felt in case it ruined him, but he didn’t care anymore. And then he’d kissed me.

One perfect kiss that stemmed a whole flow of others.

I heard Troy murmur my name, and I let my lips absorb the vibrations, angling my head so I could access his mouth more freely. He bit down on my lower lip softly, and I parted my lips to allow him to take the kiss deeper. Our tongues danced an intoxicating dance, and I pulled my hat easily from his slackened grip.

Troy gaped at me in shock as I pulled away from him, pressing one more quick kiss to his lips before rolling off the bed and pulling my hat onto my head. “You fight dirty…” he marvelled. “I should have anticipated it.”

“You should have,” I agreed. “I’m appalled at you, really.” I kicked Chad in the side gently with one foot, drawing his attention away from the video game he was avidly playing, “See you later.”

“Right. ‘Bye, Evans’.”

Sharpay rolled her eyes at me as he turned his attention straight back to the game. I grinned. “It was a good night, Troy. Thanks,” she told Troy.

“No problem. See you later.” He motioned me closer before I could follow my sister out of the door, so I obliged him. He knelt on the bed and I pressed one final kiss to my lips. “I love you.”

“Love you, too. See you later.” I smiled at him and I left the room, starting down the stairs to where Sharpay was waiting in the front hall. But I froze on the last step.

“What?”

“I think I left my phone up there.”

She groaned, “It’s a good thing we decided to leave early. Go get it. I’ll put your bag in the car for you. Just hurry up.”

I set my overnight bag down, and turned to hurry back up the stairs. But I stopped at Troy’s ajar door as I heard voices coming out of it.

“Chad, we’ve had this conversation before…” Troy was saying, an annoyed tone to his voice.

“And yet you still refuse to listen to me!” Chad retorted. “I can’t believe you’re still doing this.”

I frowned, stepping back slightly so if one of them looked at the door, they wouldn’t see me. Troy let out an aggrieved sounding sigh, “Doing what?”

“Leading him on. Ryan deserves better than this.”

My heart stopped in my chest. They were talking about me. What did Chad mean ‘leading me on’…? “How am I leading him on?” Troy demanded.

“You’re lying to him!” Chad snapped. “You don’t love him!”

“I do,” Troy insisted, and I was aware that my breathing had deepened, but luckily they were too involved in their own conversation to be listening for eavesdroppers.

“Not in the way that he loves you.” There was movement within the room, and I guessed that Chad had gone to sit on the bed. “Dude, he thinks you’re gay. You’re not! You’re not even bi!”

I had to slam a hand over my mouth to stop the gasp from erupting out of my lips. What?! No. That wasn’t possible. Troy wouldn’t do that to me. He wouldn’t be that cruel… “So what if I’m not?” he shouted, confirming my fears. “But the important thing is that Ryan’s happy, and that means everything to me.”

“But it’s not right, Troy!”

“Chad, you saw him after he thought that he’d ruined everything by telling me!” Troy said softly. “He was so depressed… I had to do something…”

“You could have just told him that you wanted to be friends!”

There was silence, and I could feel the tension hanging in the air. “That wouldn’t have fixed anything. The divide would have still been there.”

“How long are you going to keep this up…?” Chad begged him.

Another bout of silence. “As long as he still wants me.”

My eyes were hot, and a single tear escaped one of them to slide down my cheek, leaking into the corner of my mouth so I could taste it on my tongue. Troy was faking…? All this time, he had been pretending to like me just to make me happy. Just to give me what I wanted…

“And what if he always wants you?”

“Then I’ll give my life to making him happy,” Troy spat harshly. “I’m not just going to turn my back on him when a girl I like comes along. I haven’t cheated on him at all, doesn’t that tell you something?”

“It tells me you’re getting in too deep!” There was a muffled thump, as if Chad had just slammed his fist into the mattress on the bed. “This isn’t a game, Troy! He’s a real person with real feelings! And if he finds out about this, he’s going to be even more upset than he would’ve been if you’d just set him straight in the first place!”

“Don’t you think I know that?!” Troy sighed, long and unsteady, then continued in a softer tone: “Don’t you think I know him. That’s why he can never find out. I just don’t ever want to see him upset again.”

“And if he finds out you’re straight and pretending to be gay?”

“He won’t.”

I stumbled back, away from the door, my face flushed from the steady stream of tears that were now cascading down my cheeks. My stomach churned, like I was going to be sick. I leaned heavily against the banister as I reached the staircase, holding onto it tightly as I let the first broken sob escape from my lips.

He lied to me. He lied to me and he strung me along. He let me think that I was one part of a perfect relationship, and all the while he didn’t even feel the same for me. I was just a friend! One he was so determined to keep happy that he was willing to kiss me, and tell me he loved me.

Every time he had to touch me. Every time he spoke those words. He must have felt sick to his gut. It wasn’t what he wanted. He was being forced into a cage by my love for him, and I hadn’t even known. I had been totally oblivious.

The front door opened, and I saw Sharpay storm in, fury all over her face, probably about to scream at me for taking so long. But then she looked up, and her gaze met mine. All anger vanished from her face to be replaced by concern. She was at my side in a heartbeat. “Ryan…?” she asked softly. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

I shook my head. I couldn’t bear to speak it aloud. Couldn’t bear it. If I told her what I’d just heard, that would only make it all the more true, and I couldn’t face that right now. “I want to go home,” I told her, my hold body shuddering with the sobs I was trying to restrain. “I need to go home.”

*****

I was empty.

I couldn’t cry anymore, I couldn’t scream anymore, I couldn’t beat the pillows on my bed anymore. I couldn’t do anything anymore.

I was just…numb. Filled with empty pain that I couldn’t do anything about. Pain I just had to accept was there.

I lay on my bed, staring up at the ceiling, unable to do anything else. I tried not to think about it, but all that did was make me thing about it even more.

It was all fake. Everything I’d thought was so perfect. All a fantasy created by Troy in order to keep me happy.

How far would he have gone with it? Would he have married me? Would he have entered into a civil partnership with me just to keep me happy? Sworn off women even though they appealed to him far more than I ever could?

Would he have managed to convince himself that he did love me as well? To stop himself from going mad in a loveless relationship, would he have deluded himself into believing his own lie?

Questions swirled around my mind. Questions I knew I couldn’t answer. Questions I didn’t even want to know the answers to.

All I wanted was to talk to Troy. I needed to sort this out before it drove me insane, pecking away at my conscience. All I’d done was think about it for the whole weekend. It was Sunday afternoon, and I had found out on Saturday morning.

I needed to hear the truth from him.

*****

I closed my eyes as I swung back and forth, allowing the cool breeze to shift the hair that hung out of my black fedora. My feet scraped off the tarmac with each swung, and the metal chains felt ice cold against my hands.

“Ryan?”

I opened my eyes at the sound of Troy’s voice, but stayed where I was. I heard his footsteps coming up behind me, and I eased out of the swing, turning to face him slowly. There was a look of confusion on his face.

That face. The one I’d looked upon with adoration only two days before. But now when I looked I just saw all of his lies and deceit reflected back at me. He moved towards me, “What’s going on? Why did you want to meet here?”

I turned my head sharply as he went to kiss me softly on the lips, so his mouth brushed my ear. He moved back, looking even more confused now, a frown on his face, “Ry… What’s wrong?”

“You have my phone,” I told him stiffly.

He reached into his pocket and took it out, handing it over to me carefully. His hands brushed my palm, searing the skin. He was watching my face carefully, waiting for me to divulge why I had told him to meet me, and why I was acting like I was just now.

“Troy, how far would you go to make me happy?” I asked him in a whisper so soft that he had to lean in to hear.

“I’d do anything for you, Ry. You know that.” He reached for my hand, and I let him take it, even though my flesh burned like it was on fire.

I stared into his eyes coolly, “Even pretend to be gay when you’re not?”

I saw the flicker in his eyes, a single flicker that told me everything I needed to know before he even opened his mouth. It was true. It was all true.

He stared at me like I was insane, “What? What are you talking about?”

I felt my eyes heat up, even though I’d sworn to myself that I wasn’t going to cry, “Tell me you haven’t… Tell me you wouldn’t…”

His eyes looked pained as he dropped the act that he’d been holding up for nine months, “Did Chad say…?”

“No. You did.” I dropped his hand, stepped back from him. “I was at the door. I came back for my phone.”

He looked anguished, and his eyes filled, “Ryan… I never meant…”

“For me to find out.” Even although there were tears sliding down my face, I didn’t move to wipe them away. And my voice was flat and cold. “You let me believe that you loved me, Troy. You told me that you wanted me.”

“I do love you…”

“But not in the same way,” I spat, slapping away the hand he extended. “I don’t make your heart skip a beat every time you see me, I don’t make your breath catch in your throat when I touch you, I don’t make your blood hum when I kiss you.”

I shook my head slightly as I moved even further back, “Didn’t it make you feel sick? Kissing me, touching me, sleeping with me…when weren’t even attracted to me? Didn’t I make you feel sick?!”

“Ryan, I-”

“I know exactly why you did it!” I snapped, my fury unleashing itself. Fury was good. I could keep a hold on my fury. If I was angry, I didn’t have to show him my true feelings. “You felt sorry for the poor little gay boy who’d fallen in love with you, and decided to play God and sort out his problems for him!!”

Tears were sliding down his cheeks as well now, and he rubbed his hands along his cheekbones, trying to clear them. “Ryan, I just wanted to see you happy. When I freaked out, you began to get so depressed, and I couldn’t bear so see you that way.”

“I would’ve gotten over it,” I spat. “If you’d have come to me, told me that you just wanted to be friends, I would have gotten over it in time. Even if you’d just carried on ignoring me.”

“I was just giving you what you wanted!”

There was a crack in the playground as I smacked him across the face suddenly. “But it’s not real,” I screamed as he stared at me in shock. “It was never real!”

I stumbled back again, wrapping my arms around my body in a childlike stance, “I’m so stupid… There must have been signs, but I was too wrapped up in my own bubble to see that you probably weren’t even happy with me!”

“Ryan, I love spending time with you,” he told me, his voice quivering as he lowered his hand from his cheek, where there was a harsh looking red mark. “You can’t think that I don’t. And yes, I’m straight. But everything I said to you was real.”

“You would have let me drag you into a false life,” I said in a low voice. “You were going to risk me ruining your life in order to make me happy… It’s ridiculous, Troy!” I locked my gaze onto his, “Surely you can see that it’s ridiculous.”

“Is it?” he demanded. “Is it so bad to want you to have everything you deserve? To see you happy? To see you in love?”

“In love with someone that didn’t love me back!” I spat. “You can’t just do that to someone! You can’t just lie to them! Just because it makes them happy, doesn’t make it right!” I studied him, feeling my upper lip curl in disgust, “I can’t even look at you right now.”

“Ryan!” he begged, catching my arm as I started to walk off.

I spun back to face him, taking his face in my hands and kissing him. His lips moved over mine, as fluid as the liquid on each of our faces, and his hands crept round to my shoulders and lower back so he could hold me into the kiss. I guess, in all this time, the response had just become automatic for him.

I moaned into his mouth as his tongue caressed mine sensuously- savouring his taste, the feel of his body against mine. I bit down on his lip as I changed the angle, and kissed him with all the passion and love I had inside of me.

It broke my heart all over again to break away, to watch as his eyes flickered open. “I only wish,” I whispered, my lips brushing his again with every syllable. “That you could do that…and mean it.”

And I stepped back out of his embrace and walked away from the lies he had encased me in.