Dane, I loved this prompt from the moment I listened to the song in entirety. I really enjoyed this dose of angst, and I hope you do too!!
Neil didn’t know which was worse: being in love with his best friend or dealing with the knowledge that he couldn’t do anything about it. He’d seen his own blood staining the stones of his father’s basement in Baltimore, faced actual torture, and walked away, but this—this was by far the most painful thing he’d ever gone through.
It wasn’t enough that he had to keep smiling, keep pretending like he was okay with everything that was happening. The worst part, he knew, was that he couldn’t begrudge Andrew his happiness.
If anyone deserved it, it was Andrew.
Neil hated that he couldn’t hate it.
But it hurt, to see Christopher and Andrew together. To see that little uptick on the corner of Andrew's mouth that had once only been aimed at him, to watch Andrew reach for his phone every time it pinged with a text notification.
To remember, that once upon a time, he’d had the chance to say ‘yes’, to have Andrew all to himself, and to know that he’d made the biggest mistake of his life by fucking that up.
He had no right, absolutely none, to go screw up whatever thing Andrew and Christopher had.
It didn’t, however, stop him from silently pointing out to himself everything that was wrong with Christopher, and every mistake he made in their relationship. Like the time he took Andrew to an amusement park for a date, unaware that Andrew was afraid of heights. Or the time he’d touched Andrew on a bad day and almost ended up with a knife in his gut.
Neil knew none of that would have happened with him.
Regret was a cruel, cruel thing.
