Chapter Thirty-Seven - Clean Up Your Act, Rusty Parker!
Hey, hey, Sunny Hill, are you ready for another episode of the biggest drama on campus? Just put your textbooks down for a moment, because we have news for you! No, it's not starting to rain men on the streets of our beloved campus, but it sure does rain hurt feelings and whatnot.
Did any of you ever think you would see Jonathan Hamilton's cool facade break? The perfect gentleman act appears to have been long forgotten... Oh, Jonathan... Desperation is so not a good look on you... And it surely doesn't go with any of your four-hundred-dollar sweaters!
We now have confirmation that Jonathan and our king Rusty Parker really played the horizontal cha-cha behind Maddox Kingsley's back. As you all know by now, Maddox dropped his so-called boyfriend like a hot potato the moment he learned - from us, of course - that he had been taken for a fool by Cold Beauty himself...
...and also by his best friend for life. But maybe we should scratch that last bit from that title, there is no 'for life' anymore, and we doubt that Maddox and Rusty are even simple friends at the moment. We get it, Maddox, we get it. Rusty should have stuck to that old maxim. Bros before hoes, right?
In the wake of all this drama happening right here, at the heart of Sunny Hill, you would expect things to die down by now, to see Jonathan Hamilton walking hand in hand with Rusty Parker, and for Maddox to return to the loving arms of his female adorers.
But no, these boys just won't let us put our pens down! (figuratively speaking, of course). Rusty seems to have lost all interest in Jonathan, as he does with all his conquests. Did you think you could keep the notorious sex beast all to yourself, Jonathan? It appears you're not that special, no matter what Maddox may have told you. You should have stuck with the guy who appreciated you.
Desperation was, without a doubt, too strong a word, Jonathan wanted to believe. To the outside world, at least, his only attempts to try to get Maddox to talk to him had been a few chance encounters around campus. The magnifying glass under which they were being put, however, intensified everything else, especially perspective, hence the new piece in Xpress.
From the last row, he examined the back of Maddox's head, while the same bad feelings kept roiling in his gut. At least, one of them wasn't in the plethora of sentiments assaulting him at the moment, and that was regret for having ever gotten together with Maddox in the first place. He had expected that one to hit him first, but there was nothing like that. This time, he couldn't blame it all on someone else, and, in a strange way, that made him feel like he had some semblance of control over the situation. Yes, Maddox's words still hurt each time he remembered them and, yes, Maddox was unfair to think of him as a cheater, but despite all that, Jonathan understood on a deep level why his former boyfriend had reacted the way he had. If given the chance, Jonathan would apologize until he was red in the face, but Maddox's cold stare had been enough to make the words die on his lips. That and, of course, Maddox had walked away every time, leaving him standing there like an idiot, talking to the empty air.
In the midst of all that, there was also someone else hurting, and Jonathan couldn't risk reaching out to him. The rumor mill had enough fodder as it was, and if it wanted someone to churn so badly, let it be him. Rusty had steered clear of him, as well, probably because he didn't want to feed Xpress any more stupid reasons to assume that there was something going on between them.
Ray had found the problematic sweater almost perfectly folded and packaged in a paper bag outside their dorm room with a single note. Too nice for me. Jonathan hadn't said a word, and Ray hadn't asked, and the sweater had ended up, paper bag and note, at the back of a drawer. If things ever got back to normal, Jonathan planned on convincing Rusty that he should still take the sweater.
Each one of them tried to deal with the aftermath in his own way. Maddox by ignoring him, and probably Rusty as well, he, Jonathan, by trying to get Maddox to listen, and Rusty... well, he didn't know what Rusty was doing, but it was a good bet that feeling miserable was high on the list. During Thanksgiving break, he had caught a glimpse of Rusty that wasn't anything like the persona everyone else thought they knew, and that glimpse told Jonathan that the chances were that Maddox's best friend was suffering just as much as he was, if not more.
The professor called them at the end of the class and praised them on an excellent project. Maddox stood a good foot away from him and didn't spare him a glance. Jonathan felt the now familiar ache all over and accepted the praises in a mechanical, barely polite way. When Maddox moved away, his feet forced him to follow, but only for a couple of steps. Through sheer willpower, he stopped himself. Let Xpress figure out what else they could invent about a story they obviously hoped to keep going for months if he no longer acted desperately in public.
On the inside, desperation was the name of the game, indeed. In the dim past, he had thought himself in love with Drew, but those pale feelings were nothing compared to the scorching heat that threatened to engulf him whole each time he thought of Maddox and what they had used to have.
It was in the light of those feelings that he couldn't bring himself to hate Maddox for ignoring him, not even a little. After all, it was a measure of how serious Maddox had been about their relationship. If Maddox hadn't cared at all about being lied to...
There was no point in dwelling on what-ifs, not with finals knocking at the door. Jonathan waited for a couple more minutes until he was certain Maddox was long gone, and he wouldn't risk bumping into him.
***
One week later and it still hurt exactly the same way. There was not one sign that the pain in his chest would fade. Maddox was already getting used to tossing and turning all night long. It didn't help that the world at Sunny Hill was so small compared to the one outside. That meant that stumbling upon Jonathan was inevitable, and just seeing him opened the same can of worms over and over.
He couldn't stand the fact that Jonathan appeared so hurt when he looked at him. What right did he have to feel anything like that? Maddox closed his fists and cleared his head. Was love supposed to hurt like this? Damn, it sounded like a cheesy song. And he had finals to worry about, anyway, not how attractive Jonathan's face looked, even all filled with shadows like that. All it took was for him to close his eyes and remember the same face, inches from his, their heads lying on the same pillow.
Dex and Kane barely paid him any attention when he came inside. They had tried to get him to change his mind and 'see reason' -- their words, not his -- for days, but eventually, they had started to give him a wide berth since they needed to study like everyone else. He still felt their questioning eyes on him, and the atmosphere in the house was getting tense. He hadn't planned on breaking up with his friends, too, but if they couldn't be on his side, then so be it.
There was, of course, another particular problem that didn't want to go away, or better said, a particular someone. Maddox pursed his lips when he saw Rusty sitting on the floor by his bedroom door, looking like a kicked dog. If anything, the guy was resilient. Dex had mumbled something about having to drag Rusty from there and into his bed on more than one occasion. Clearly, everyone was getting a bit fed up with all the drama.
Xpress wouldn't let things cool down, either. Maddox assumed that, in due time, the gossip rag would find something else to chew and spit, but so far, no luck. It wasn't because it hurt his pride; in the past, if someone had asked him how he would feel under such circumstances, he would have said something along the lines of 'mad as hell' on the basis of wounded pride, but that wasn't it.
He just wanted them to stop already, and especially to quit picking on Jonathan. The guy was again being ostracized by most people, not that he was the type to care, but it felt unfair. Maddox didn't need to ingratiate himself to most people, either, these days, so that made two pariahs out of them, not just one. His own condition was by choice; Jonathan's wasn't.
Throughout all of this he had expected to start regretting ever having gotten involved with someone like that. It had been for the first time in his life, even. Yet, those feelings of regret never came. No, the most torturous part of it all was that he remembered all the good things so clearly. They hadn't been together long enough, probably, so that they had bad things to remember. And that made it all the more unbearable. There was nothing to focus on; not even little pet peeves, like if either of them had the nasty habit of picking his nose, or leaving dirty socks everywhere, or loudly snoring, or anything. They had had only the perfect part of a relationship, or so it seemed. And that was the part that warranted all the regrets.
"You should just stop," he told Rusty, the first words he had addressed to him in many days.
Rusty raised his head. "I'll stop if you listen."
He looked like warmed over shit, so something inside Maddox moved a little. "All right."
"Really?" Rusty's eyes lit up like a Christmas tree.
"Don't make me change my mind. Get inside, say what you need to say, and get over it."
Rusty didn't say another word and followed him inside. Maddox sat at his desk, but left Rusty standing. His friend -- oh, no, his former friend -- began pacing the floor.
"Are you going to wear a new pattern in my carpet or are you going to start talking?"
"Right." Rusty stopped abruptly and turned to face Maddox.
By now, he should have been used to Rusty's antics, but the complicated look the green eyes threw at him was enough to make him feel uncomfortable. "What?" he asked, letting it come out more aggressively than he intended.
"I didn't go to my dad's for Thanksgiving," Rusty began.
