Page 62 of Stand By Me

"You alone?"

As far as greetings went, this one was terrible.

Clay bit back the cutting reply. "Yes. Coming in or not?"

Okay, so maybe he was a bit rude. Still, it made Ben go inside and head to the couch after Clay pointed him towards it.

"Sit down, I need five minutes."

He went to the bathroom to try and fix the sleep-deprived disaster look he was sporting, then came back out and poured himself tea before joining Ben on the couch.

Neither of them said anything for a while. Clay sipped his earl grey and waited, because everything that came to his mind was either too antagonistic or too apologetic.

He still hadn't dealt with the latest revelations from his conversation with Mario. He didn't know how.

"I don't get you," Ben finally broke the silence, gripping his cup hard enough the plastic cover squeaked a little.

Clay slumped against the cushions, swallowing down a sigh.

"Yeah, I know. You told me."

Ben stared down at his cup.

"No, I said I felt like I don't know you, that's—" He grimaced. "Different."

"How?"

Clay wasn't trying to be an asshole, here. He honestly didn't see the difference—it still hurt. While pain was a bit muted this time around, it could be blamed on the early hour.

Ben turned in his seat to face him.

"That other thing was about me being pissed off about all the secrets. This is…" He waved his hand. "I'm confused."

Clay raised his eyebrows.Confusedsounded better thanpissed off, sure, but that was still too little to go on.

"About?" he prompted when it didn't seem like Ben would say anything else.

"We were fighting all the time back then. You thought I hated you. Why fund my school?"

Clay frowned. "Why wouldn't I? I was working to make money, but I never planned to keep all of it to myself. I wanted to help out Mom and you, and I barely needed to spend anything over there."

"I had no idea you were helping out so much." Ben stared at his cup and Clay was left wondering how much their mother had told him now that the secret was out of the bag.

"I didn't want you to know," he admitted after taking a slow sip of his tea.

"Why not?"

Clay hoped his incredulity showed on his face.

"I told you why. You acted like anything I did was the worst thing possible. You would've rejected the money because they came from a source you didn't approve of, and neither you nor Mom could afford med school, so you'd be screwing yourself over to spite me." He shrugged. "I didn't want that."

"You could've told me afterwards," Ben pointed out. "It's been a while since I've finished school and a while since you've been back. We could've had that conversation a long time ago."

"And how do you imagine it would've gone? With you being so angry and not really wanting to talk to me about anything, I was supposed to be like, 'hey, just so you know, I've helped put you through med school'?" Clay snorted. "I'm pretty sure that wouldnotgo over well."

"You don't know—"

"Ben, seriously. You'd have thought I was an asshole for rubbing it in your face and you would've hated me even more." Clay pinched the base of his nose. "I honestly try to avoid making you angry at me. Or I did," he added with a shrug. "I knew you'd be pissed about Mario."

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