My Bubblegum King - Chapter 26: Chapter 26

"Tell me, how was it, how was it?" Ryder asked, jumping on me as I stretched out on my bed. I had just had a dance session with Nancy and although I was feeling very light and relived in my bones, my body hurt.
"The dance session?" I asked, feigning obliviousness. "Good, good. As always."
Ryder frowned, glaring at me. Then she turned to Sim who was busy on his laptop. "Sim, you won't hate me if I murder your roommate, right?"
Sim looked at me, then back at Ryder. "Please don't murder him, a good roommate is hard to find these days. I quite love this one."
"Awn," I said just as Ryder sighed saying, "tell me about it."
I laughed, "Leni or whatever her name is still giving you trouble?"
"Yes," Ryder groaned out. "Being in the room with her is like being in a therapy session, except no one is speaking and I'm just left drowning in my thoughts."
"Poor you," I sympathize with her. "Although, you supposed to be getting a little less loud everyday. I don't think the 'therapy' is working." Ryder smacked me and I and Sim laughed out loudly.
"Don't you dare distract me, tell me how your travel and wedding was?" She cried out, pouting at me. "I can't believe you came back two days ago and didn't immediately run to me to give me the gist. Are you avoiding me? Am I even still your best friend?"
I rolled my eyes, "oh my gosh, stop exaggerating."
Then she gasped, "or did something happen with Diego that you don't want me to know!"
I gave her a deadpanned look. Then decided to retaliate. "Maybe Diego's my best friend now, not you anymore." Ryder recoiled like I'd just slapped her, a little gasp leaving her lips as they remained open, almost as wide as her eyes were.
The room remained silent like an angel was breezing by and it's when Sim intentionally coughed that I knew that I've fucked up.
I faked a chuckle, "I'm joking."
"Are you?" She calmly asked, looking at me like I just ate her designated last slice of pizza.
I chuckled again, "of course, you'd always be my one and only best friend. You know that."
Ryder sighed, "I don't know that. Honestly I don't know anything anymore in this place." She buried her head in her palms. "That was very scary to hear. All I've been hearing since I stepped in here is change this, change that. Yes I know things change, they are bound to. But we can't change, not you and I. Not that way, right?"
"Of course, never." I closed the little space between us on my bed. "What's wrong? Where's all this coming from?"
She shook her head, "I'm fine. I guess I just don't know what or who I'd be if I'm not your best friend."
I frowned, "are you kidding me? You'd be Ryder Tracey."
She chuckled dryly, "and who's that exactly?" When I didn't answer, she did for me. "She's Paxton Flynn's best friend."
I flicked her head with a finger making her wince and glare at me. "And an amazing woman, who's annoyingly loud, the sweetest person on the planet and one brilliant receptionist. Not to count the daughter and sister part. You're a queen Ry, and I don't know where I'd be now if I didn't have you by my side. I love you with all my heart little bitch."
She laughed now, a real one. "I love you too. And you're still the main character by the way."
"You don't know that, sidekick best friend."
"I do. You're the one having all the exciting things happen to you."
"Uh huh," I rolled my eyes. "What's going on? Are you already having mid life crisis? Or existential one?"
She shrugged, "I'd tell you after you tell me how the wedding was."
I groaned, "ugh, nothing happened, you can ask Sim, I gave him the gist of it."
Sim looked up from his phone at the mention of his name. His eyes looked from Ryder to me and back. "Uh, I'm not here please," then he put on his headphones, pushing himself into a corner of his bed and shutting us out. Ryder laughed.
"Betrayal," I muttered at Sim before turning to Ryder with a sigh, "ok fine." I really didn't want to recap the whole wedding thing, not because it wasn't fun no. But because it was really fun and I didn't want to find myself overthinking things. But for Ryder's sake, I recapped the whole day for her. Right from when we left to where we went to get the suits and Diego treated me like a prince, to the party, his father, his house and the dance, finishing with, "We couldn't tour the house because he didn't want to meet his new step mother more than once but then he promised to come together with me one day and show me around one day."
"Oh really?" Ryder asked with a small teasing smile.
I gave her a look. "Don't even start with me. I was low-key freaking out during the dance. I thought he was going to kiss me and worst of all... I didn't know exactly how I'd react placed in that situation." I face palmed. "I'm supposed to know."
She laughed, "is that why you brought up Sebastian?"
I slowly nodded, "yup. I was freaking out, I wanted to say something to kill the mood or whatever. And slap reality back to my stupid skull."
"Tch, do you think he actually likes you?"
I looked at her, "he literally said I should've avoided him. Why would he say that if he didn't like me? Or at least feels as confused as I did? That was like a confession Ry and then the look in his eyes," I shook my head to myself, feeling the same way I was feeling back then. "I felt so bad and shitty and I didn't even do anything wrong."
Ry patted my shoulder, "you did nothing wrong. It's not your fault he caught feelings for you. Wait, are you still feeling confused?" I didn't answer. "You aren't thinking of choosing him over Seb, are you?"
"What? No," I shook my head. "No."
"Better, it's you and Sebastian forever." I nodded like she was lecturing me. "You can just avoid him and I guess reduce the time you spend coming to Go. I'd miss you but your relationship's health matter most."
I shook my head again, "no, I'm not doing that again. I can't."
"Pax—"
"I can't Ryder, you don't know how I felt when I did that. I can be a horrible person twice in a roll and I actually value what we have, Diego and I. I don't want to lose it."
"Now that's just being greedy," she said, making me give her a look. "You can't have it all and if your relationship with Diego is going to harm your relationship with Sebastian, then you cut it off."
"I'd be greedy then," I said. "Fucking sue me."
"Pax!"
I pulled on my hair in frustration. "I can't avoid him again, I won't be doing. Yes, you're here but do you know how lonely it was avoiding him like some plaque? I felt bad, my conscience can't do it anymore. Why did the universe bring us together if they just wanted me to run from him in the end?" I sighed. "Plus, it hasn't been brought up officially. He hasn't said anything or done anything to warrant me running the other way. Maybe if he does—"
"So you're just going to wait until he kisses you?" Ryder interrupted.
I thought it over. "Honestly, yes."
"Paxton."
"A valid, agreeable reason is all that can make me ghost him. All he's ever done is to be kind and caring to me, don't you see Ry?"
"Yes and now he has feelings for you who has a boyfriend."
"You what? We're not even sure of that, he hasn't done anything."
Ryder scoffed, "now you're just going to fucking denial."
I shrugged.
"Pax, you might regret this later."
"I know."
"And it's not worth it. It's not worth hurting Sebastian."
"I know," I turned to her. "I promise I would never intentionally hurt him. Never."
She hugged me. "Long distance relationship kinda sucks."
"I know right," I whined. "I can't wait until he's here with me. Everything would be perfect and alright then."
She smiled, wiggling her brows at me after she let me go. "Few weeks to go until final exams and we'd be done with the year."
I grinned, "is it up to ten weeks?"
"Probably. Just keep that ass clenched."
"Oh my gosh," I exclaimed and we laughed. "Yeah, what were you going to tell me?"
"Oh that," she sighed. "Um, I slept with Fern."
I blinked, repeated the words in my head and it's at the third time that it finally sunk in, making me widen my eyes like I've saw a ghost. "What?!" I whisper yelled.
She face palmed, "yup, I slept with Fern. I lost my dick virginity to that junior who's in love with his friend, Stella."
I couldn't believe it. I waited after a few minutes in silence waiting for her to shout out that it's a prank or something. Nothing happened. "H- how? I left for one day."
"Yeah but you haven't really been around other days, we've both been both busy with our different schedules and I've been hanging out with the group more and more. Fern's nice to some extent, when the girls gossip within themselves, unintentionally leaving me out, he talks to me," then she looked up at me with wide eyes. "No, it's not that I like him or anything. Sleeping with him was a complete mistake."
I swallowed, telling myself to calm down. I was feeling a lot of things at the same time, one of them being anger. How could Fern sleep with Ryder? My best friend. He's a complete play boy and is clearly inlove with Stella. What the fuck happened? Did he take advantage of her because of the whole Jordy thing? What the fuck happened? I held the Ryder's hand, "how the fuck was it a mistake?"
She swallowed, "I met them at that bar or whatever and I only did that because I was needing a big distraction, you weren't around, I felt weird coming to invade Sim's privacy and my roommate was just leaving in a silence to wallow in my thoughts. Anyway, Fern and Stella had their usual bickering fight and then she leaves to go dance with one guy that's her type as she says. Nancy also left to dance and it was just Fern and I left. We started talking and I told him about Jordy and tried to get him to stop trailing Stella with his eyes. We order tequila shots and he teaches me how to drink them like a pro. Honestly from then on, things were just kinda blurry." Ry ran her fingers through her hair. "We got drunk, there was a lot of laughter involved, we started dancing, then we were kissing and then we were sneaking out the back door, stumbling over our feet."
I face palmed. "Oh my gosh, you were drunk."
She nodded. "He was too but I kinda knew what I was doing Pax. I wanted it, I wanted the distraction and I wanted to feel what it would be like to be wanted. God, I was really not liking myself then and as weird as it may sound, Fernando made it all better. And I think he was feeling the same way and I helped."
I didn't even know what to say. "Are you really sure you had sex?" Be a lie please.
"Duh."
"Did you use protection?"
She shrugged, "probably."
"Ryder!"
"Whatever Pax, I don't want to dwell on it much okay. I'm already feeling bad enough. How could I be so vulnerable?"
I sighed, hugging her and gently patting her back. "It's okay. We all have that vulnerable moment." She nodded against my shoulder and I knew the tears were already falling. "Have you guys spoken since then?"
"Not really," she pulled her head off my shoulder, wiping her eyes and pulling out her phone. "I left the room first in the morning, like a complete hoe. And then he sent a text late in the evening." She handed me her phone to read the text.
Yo, Tracey, are you okay?
Yup. Perfectly fine. You?
I'm good. So... We good?
We wouldn't we be?
Great. Um, see you around.
You too.
I felt bad for wanting to laugh after reading that. I gave her phone back to her. "Omg, I'm cringing."
"Tell me about it."
"You were totally not perfectly fine, were you?"
She shook her head. "No, but it's not his fault or his problem."
I scratch an itch in my hair, "would you even be able to meet him? Like see him again?"
"Eventually," she sighed. "I can't now though. I'm just too shy and embarrassed. I've always wondered what a one night stand feels like, now I know. Now I also know why it's better to have it with strangers. Oh my gosh, I'm completely relating to fictional book characters right now, like hello?"
I laughed, "are you kidding me?"
She flipped her hair back, "I'm feeling badass, leave me be."
I hugged her, placing a kiss on her cheek, she does the same. "I love you so much hoe."
She chuckled, "I love you so much too, Elena Gilbert."
"Elena?"
She wiggled her brows, "yeah, you have Sebastian and Diego. Aka, Demon and Stefan."
"Fuck you, it's not that deep."
"So you say now until you break Diego's heart and your heart in the process and then realize, I'm right."
I sighed, "shut up and hug me."