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Chapter 13: what was Never Said
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2025-07-13 18:00:38Ryan sat at the edge of his bed, staring at the flash drive like it was ticking.
The file title still glared from his laptop screen:
Payment Agreement Daniel Hayes
He clicked it.
Slowly.
The document opened.
It wasn’t a contract exactly it was an email thread.
Between Jake and… Daniel.
Ryan leaned forward.
From: JakeLandon95@hotmail.com
To: DHayesScholar92@uni-mail.edu
Subject: Re: Tutoring Ryan
“Just help him pass. Keep him focused. Be the voice of reason. I’ll handle everything else. If you keep him close, I’ll pay you. Simple.”
Ryan’s chest tightened.
He scrolled.
Daniel’s reply:
“I don’t need your money. But fine. I’ll keep an eye on him not because of you. Because he clearly needs someone who’s not manipulating him.”
Another from Jake:
“You’ve always thought you were better than me. You think he’ll trust you once he finds out you were in on it from the beginning?”
Ryan closed the laptop, heart hammering.
It wasn’t what he feared but it wasn’t innocent either.
Daniel hadn’t taken the money.
But he had agreed to stay close before anything between them started.
He didn’t text.
Didn’t call.
He walked.
All the way to Daniel’s apartment.
He knocked once.
Daniel opened it almost immediately like he’d been waiting.
Ryan held up the flash drive.
“You want to explain this?”
Daniel didn’t even look surprised.
“I was going to tell you.”
“When?” Ryan snapped. “Before or after I fell in love with you?”
Daniel stepped back, letting him in.
“I didn’t take a cent from Jake,” he said quietly. “But I did respond. Once. I was angry at him, Ryan for how he treated you. I wanted to be the opposite of him.”
“So you got close to me… out of guilt?”
“No,” Daniel said firmly. “At first, maybe I just wanted to protect you. But then I saw you. And I stayed because I couldn’t walk away not because of him.”
Ryan turned away, pacing.
“You should’ve told me.”
“I was scared,” Daniel admitted. “You were barely letting yourself trust anyone, and I thought if I dropped this, I’d lose you before I had the chance to show you I wasn’t like him.”
Ryan let that sit.
The silence between them was sharp.
Then Ryan said, voice low: “You were supposed to be safe.”
Daniel’s voice cracked. “I am safe. I just made a mistake.”
Ryan left without saying goodbye.
Not forever.
But for now.
Back at his dorm, he opened his old journal the one he hadn’t touched since he stopped seeing his therapist last year.
He flipped to a clean page.
“Loving someone doesn’t mean they won’t hurt you.
It just means you give them the power to and pray they don’t.
I gave Daniel that power.
And I don’t know if I was wrong to.”
The next day, Daniel didn’t call.
Didn’t text.
And somehow, that hurt more.
But Jake did.
Another message.
Short. Cold.
“Looks like he finally showed you who he really is. Told you I wasn’t the only liar in your life.”
Ryan stared at it.
Then blocked Jake again.
He needed time.
But he also needed truth.
So that night, he went back into the email thread the flash drive and opened one last file.
One Jake sent Thomas.
It was a voice memo.
“If he chooses Daniel, ruin him.
Show everyone the screenshots. I want Ryan isolated. Broken.
If I can’t have him, no one will.”
Ryan’s hands shook.
Suddenly, it wasn’t about Daniel’s mistake.
It was about how far Jake had planned to destroy them both.
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