Next Time Say "Yes"

Hi, my name is Ben.

ADAM: Thank God the plows showed up. I was afraid we were going to have to eat each other.
ME: Considering we were in a room full of gay men, the cumulative weight of the entire club was probably four and a half pounds.

It was about four thirty in the morning by the time we got out of the club. Jeremy spent most of the night avoiding Paige since he was now under the impression that she was the one who shot him.

I dragged him off to the side to see if I could talk some sense into him.

ME: Why would your sister want to shoot you?
JEREMY: I don't know! She's a member of my family. That means she's, at the very least, eighty-five percent crazy.
ME: She's adopted, remember?
JEREMY: THAT EXPLAINS IT! Serial killers are always adopted.
ME: How drunk are you right now?
JEREMY: Does being drunk make you paranoid?
VOICE: Hey!

We both turned around to see some kid walking towards us. I had seen him dancing in the club, and he looked my way a few times, but since he looked like he still had womb on him, I wasn't planning on talking to him.

(That's right. I'm actually not into younger guys. Remind me to see a therapist before I have full-blown Daddy issues.)

YOUNG GUY: Hey, what's up?

I could see Jeremy's jealousy streak jump out of his eyes like a mean little leprechaun...of envy...or something.

JEREMY: Hi, do we--
YOUNG GUY: Um, I was talking to your friend.

Now, if this was Old Jeremy this little guy just sassed, I wouldn't be too concerned. He was never the fighting kind.

New Jeremy on the other hand--

JEREMY: Beg your pardon?

The Youngin' held his hand out to me completely ignoring Jeremy.

Not a good idea.

YOUNG GUY: I'm Patrick. I go to OSC.
ME: Ohhh, Jeremy and I went there.
PATRICK: Yeah, that's--whatever. Do you want to hang out sometime?

That's where Jeremy's leprechaun began to do his little dance of death.

JEREMY: Excuse me, but how do you know my friend and I aren't boyfriends?
PATRICK: Boyfriends don't go to clubs together.
JEREMY: That's a sweeping generalization, wouldn't you say?
PATRICK: I don't know what that means.
JEREMY: So OSC was your first choice, and Harvard was the back-up?
PATRICK: Huh?

This was going to be a bloodbath.

JEREMY: This is my friend. He and I hang out a lot. That means if we were to hang out with you, I'd have to see you. And I don't want to see you--ever. So don't bother giving him your number, because as soon as you do, I'm going to personally delete it from his phone, go home, find you on Facebook, and report you as an escort peddling his services to whomever happens to have ten dollars and an open futon.

That was when Patrick decided to slowly inch away--good move on his part.

ME: Are you out of your mind?

Adam, Paige, and Hank walked up to us.

PAIGE: You met Patrick?
ADAM: I hate him. He's a freshman and he's already favored to get the lead in Kiss Me, Kate.
HANK: Nice hair. When's he getting the rest of the operation done?

I wasn't interested in getting catty.

ME: That was out of line.
JEREMY: You liked him?
ME: No, but you have no right to get territorial like that!
JEREMY: I wasn't getting territorial!
HANK: He was probably just being jealous.

Jeremy shot Hank a look, but that just meant it was true.

ME: If you want to act like my boyfriend, you should have actually, you know, become my boyfriend when I asked.
PAIGE: You asked?
ME: I did more than ask; I proposed.
PAIGE, ADAM, and HANK: WHAT?!?!?

Oh right, that's a secret. Oops.

Paige hit Jeremy.

PAIGE: Ben proposed to you and you said 'No?'
ADAM: Wow, you're still hurting over Billy, huh?
JEREMY: No! I'm not hurting over anybody! I'm hurting because I almost died and when I did, I wasn't even a person! I had no personality. I had no identity. I'd never even gotten drunk before!
HANK: You're certainly making up for that now.

So that's where all this crazy behavior was coming from.

ME: When you woke up in the hospital, and I proposed, you said 'No' because you didn't love me.
JEREMY: And that was true!
ME: What's true is that you love punishing people. Anybody who doesn't fit on the pedestal you make for them never gets a second chance when they fall off. That's fine, but don't think you can string me along and chase off other guys who want me. The only reason you're mad Billy is with Ritchie now is because that would be one more person vying for your attention. I may not like Billy but he wanted to stay here and make sure you were okay and after he left Kurt for you you still told him to take off. Now, he's gone, I'm done, and the only person left to punish is yourself. Screw this.

I started walking to my car, and guess who I ran into along the way.

PATRICK: Hey, where's your friend?

I kissed him right on the mouth.

ME: What friend?

From now on, I'm on my own.