�I ran away.�

Ryan froze on his bed, his fingers holding a page of his Sports Illustrated magazine between them. He hadn�t been expecting that.

�What?� Ryan asked, snapping his head to look over at his best friend, who stood in his doorway with a half-angry, half-shameful expression on his face. His name was Garret, and his red-orange hair was hanging in his eyes, and his jeans were worn out and patched, and he was still wearing that Tweety watch that Ryan had bought for him when they were twelve from a Burger King promotion.

His best friend, Garret Kent, the boy Ryan had known since he was a mere nine years old. Garret had moved into town with a large family -- of which he was youngest, and the only boy -- and had almost instantly befriended Ryan, something that had surprised the latter to an astonishing degree. Garret was cool, which Ryan was not and would never be; Ryan was dorky: he looked like a girl and he was strange, and dark-skinned, and liked sports but was never very good with teams. But that hadn�t mattered to Garret, those six years ago, when the red-haired boy had moved in across town and had stopped a group of bullies from shoving Ryan into the lake.

And so it hadn�t mattered to Ryan when Garret came by complaining about his family, even though Ryan�s family always emphasized family devotion. But he listened to Garret talk about how his mother insulted him and his sisters yelled at him; and how he didn�t care about school enough to want to try harder, especially if it was only for then. To date, Ryan was the only one who could ever make him study.

But Ryan hadn�t been expecting this.

�I fucking ran away,� Garret snapped, his shoulders tensing -- Ryan knew that meant he was getting angry, though just why Ryan couldn�t comprehend, �Do I need to spell it out for you?�

�You ran away?� Ryan repeated, dumbly, cursing himself for sounding like such a fool when Garret obviously knew what he was talking about. But running away? It was a forbidden idea, one that Ryan had toyed with at times -- when he was particularly annoyed with his parents or his older brother Ron -- but to actually go through with it was unthinkable. It wasn�t too difficult to do, Ryan knew. And Garret�s family was horrid at times, to both the red-haired boy and to Ryan. But his conscience told him to force Garret to go back home: go home and work things out and don�t stay at Ryan�s house because then Garret would never go back.

That was something Ryan wanted to do. It was something a friend shouldn�t.

Right?

�What, Ryan, your gayness affecting your hearing?�

Now Ryan knew Garret was worried; his burly best friend was snappy, which he rarely was with Ryan, and his teasing on Ryan�s particular sexuality lacked its usual laid-back humor. Now he was like a coil wound too tight; Ryan didn�t like it. A tense, nervous Garret was a piece of dynamite just waiting to be sparked.

�Shut up, Garret,� was Ryan�s mechanical response, still staring blankly at Garret, who -- Ryan just now noticed -- was carrying a patched duffel bag. He was wearing a tight white wife beater and baggy jeans that looked as if they had seen better days. Ryan hadn�t given any thought to the bag when Garret had first come in, but now...

Garret had run away. It didn�t seem right, somehow; Ryan knew that Garret was constantly fighting with his mother and older sister Aimee, and that their family was on rough times financially, but to actually run away was something out of stories. His family was stable; he loved his mother and father and little sister Kaitlyn, and just couldn�t imagine doing such a thing. He couldn�t leave his family, and he didn�t think Garret could have either. Garret wasn�t the type. Ryan wouldn�t have been friends with him for so long if he was, because that type and Ryan�s type weren�t the same.

But Garret had run away, and so fell into the other type. Which made both the types the same.

Ryan hadn�t realized that silence reigned as he thought until he heard Garret shift nervously into the room, taking tentative steps that did seem to fit him. Then, his voice too high-pitched to be relaxed, Garret said, �Goddammit, Ry, would you say something? Anything. God, I can�t stand it when you do this--�

�It�s okay,� Ryan interjected, closing his magazine and staring at his best friend since fourth grade. It was so different now, from the days when they had met up at the swimming pool and splashed the girls until they screeched for a lifeguard. They were changed: Garret for the worse and Ryan for the better, if society were to judge them. But then again, Garret was white, and Ryan was a strange, unknown ethnicity; and Garret was straight and Ryan was gay, so maybe society wouldn�t be so kind. And Garret was already sixteen, so it was technically legal for him to have run away. Maybe society would judge differently.

�It�s okay?� Garret asked, his voice soft. It had a pleading tone, one that made Ryan remember and forget every fight they had every had; made him take the mental file of them and crush them, anything to get that pleading note out of Garret�s usually confident voice. It wasn�t right for Garret to sound so insecure: even when he and Ryan had stayed up nights to talk about things that worried them, Garret had always known that Ryan wouldn�t desert him or hold anything against him. Ryan knew that was Garret�s fear.

�Yeah,� Ryan replied, giving Garret a big smile, one that made the dimple on his left cheek stand out and cause the girl Mary from school to gaze at him adoringly, not knowing that she would stand a better chance if her name was Mark. �Yeah, it�s cool. You�re staying here, right?�

The tension left the room when Garret grinned back, and dropped his bag on the floor of Ryan�s room.

�Hell, yeah,� the red-head murmured, �if you�ll have me.�

A millisecond in time, and Ryan rewrote his thoughts, his history, and his self-assumed moral code, all to fit everything that had just happened. It was strange to do it so quickly, and without any thought, but Garret was there and he needed a response much quicker than the time a major life-changing moment was supposed to take. And Garret was his best friend, which said it all.

�Anytime, Garret,� Ryan stated, confidently, as he shoved a pile of video games from his bed so Garret could sit down, �Anytime.�