Braver Than I Used to Be

Chapter Twenty

Matthew declared Sunday "Rita Sunday", I wasn't happy about the title, but he was. Ray had agreed with Matthew on doing whatever I wanted for the day. Matthew came up with a list of as much random things to do as he could find within an hour of us.

Today I went back to the Farmers Market and decided I would pick some stuff up for dinner. My dad came back today and Victor was coming over, as a friend. My idea, of course, just so they can actually meet. After the Farmers Market, Matthew had found this huge Flea Market and I knew I was going to enjoy that. The four of us ended up splitting up to see who could buy the most useless item.

When we met up about an hour later, I had way more items than I needed. I ended up just buying anything it thought was cool. For my useless item I had a potato peeler. I paid about ten dollars for it, but I could have got it for like three dollars at the regular store. Victor came back with hair ties that had little princesses attached to them. I decided to keep them.

When I saw what Ray and Matthew had gotten, I started to worry about my taste in men. They both separately bought the same item. They both got street signs. Ray's said Mateo Rd. And Matthew's said Ray Blvd. Apparently, they bought them for each other because they thought it was funny.

"Really?" I rolled my eyes at them, "You both bought each other something?"

Victor bent over hysterically laughing while I looked them disappointed.

"I mean come on, it's perfect! How could I not pick it up?" Ray defended himself.

"What is all the other crap you got? You spend ten dollars on a potato peeler and what about the rest of the stuff you got?" Matthew said.

I looked at him innocently, "They are for my wall." I got a few vintage pictures to hang up, a mini statue of an angel, and for some reason I had the idea of hanging up old records as well.

After the flea market, I decided I wanted to go to the movie theater. As usual, I picked out the movie that had been out the longest. When Ray was dating Maggie, I found that I liked being in the theater when no one else was there. It was like my own private movie. We sat in the theater and I glanced over at Ray about mid-way through and saw him and Victor holding hands. I elbowed Matthew so he could look and he told me to watch the movie.

Shortly after the movie was done, we got a text from our dad telling us he would be away another two days. I still made dinner with all the random stuff I got at the Farmers Market. I noticed Victor was more relaxed when we ate in the living room. He was comfortable and less tense than he had been the past week.

Everything seemed great for about two months, until the day I heard Victor storm out of the house and slam the door.

Over the last two months Ray and Victor seemed to get along fine. Victor came over, stayed some nights when my dad wasn't home. I surprisingly spent a lot of time talking to Victor alone. Every time we talked, he was stressed about his family finding out. I felt bad because I could see how much it killed him to keep everything inside and then there was the fact, he didn't want to tell Ray what he thought would happen if he told his family.

Ray on the other hand was starting to feel like he wanted to be more out in the open with Victor. Since Victor didn't tell Ray why he didn't want to do that, they ended up getting annoyed with each other.

I walked into Ray's room and he was just lying there with the TV on staring up at the ceiling.

"What happened?" I said to him as I went to sit on his bed.

"Same thing, this time he was just really tired of talking about it."

I cleared my throat and prepared myself for Ray to be upset with me. "Have you considered not being so selfish?"