by Trisky
I stare at his legs strewn across the coffee table and it takes all my willpower not to tell him to at least have the decency to take his shoes off before disrespecting the furniture. He's burrowed down so deeply in the couch, I can only see his hands holding the magazine above his head. I can almost see the smoke circles forming a pattern in the air above him. I occupy myself with the task at hand, cleaning up the leftover remains of Emmett's vegetable platter.
"How much money do you make a year with bonuses?"
His question startles me. We don't really discuss those kinds of things. There are certain things that are on a need to know basis and that's not something he needs to know. "What are you reading?"
"Some article about the average salary of advertising executives."
Forget the vegetables. I walk to the back of the couch, lean over and grab both ends of the magazine out of his hand, tossing it in the direction of the feet decorated coffee table. "You're far too young to be exposed to such obscenity."
He stares up at my face hovering over him, at my chin, no doubt seeing double of it from that position. "It wasn't all that obscene, that's why I was asking."
"Don't worry about it, I'll make sure you're kept in the manner to which you've become accustomed," I tease and lean closer to his mouth, expecting a kiss, a smile, something. A little pity even. He jars his head away from me instead, as if I'm blocking his view of the wall, and stares blankly at absolutely nothing, fuming. He's still mad about whatever the hell he's mad about and I'm going to suffer endlessly for it. I know why he's mad. I've got the gist of it, I don't need the particulars. It begins and ends with me fucking up. What does it matter what the in between was about?
"That's a fucking shitty thing to say."
Okay, maybe he's mad about something else entirely. Whatever it is, there's no escaping the wrath he's been building in his smoke stacks all afternoon, waiting to purge all over me. Once again, the result remains the same. It's all my fault. I cave in and climb over the back of the couch and fall into the cushions with him until I'm practically using him to sit all over instead of the couch. He elbows his way out from under me.
"I say a lot of shitty things. I thought you'd be used to it by now. At least I'm predictable." I give him the look, the cute one, the "you know you're going to get over it eventually anyway, may as well do it now and save the time" look. He follows me down the path of passive resistance every single time. Except this time. I can't read his reaction. He's just even.
"Acknowledging you're an asshole doesn't make you less of one." He's prickly, and stubborn, and quite fucking annoying. But at least he's still talking. As long as he's talking, it'll work itself out.
"And indulging in your pity parties doesn't seem to make you less pitiful, but I do it anyway. What's your point?" I won't give him this chance to take it all out on me. I've given him far too many already.
"My point is you're an asshole. That's my point." He fakes a grin to emphasize *his* point and drops it just as quickly. I can see the smoke begin to rise to the ceiling. Where there's a spark, there's a flame. He just sits and waits to blow.
I reach for the button on his khaki's and he slaps my hand away. "I'm an asshole. Nothing new there."
"Stop!" The stack comes undone. He really seems to mean it as he wrenches my wrist away from him. "I'm leaving. I shouldn't have come at all."
"Why did you?"
"Because Emmett wanted to welcome me home too. I should have gone with my gut and just stayed there." He sits up a few inches. I can hear the sound of his sneakers dragging along the table.
"You're not really leaving after I just got rid of everyone?" I ask with some implied certainty. But really I just feel dread.
"That's exactly what I'm doing. I'm taking my two perfectly healthy legs and I'm walking away."
He's like a fucking parrot.
"Don't you want to see my tan lines? Oh wait, I don't have any..." This time I can read every bit of disgust on his face. I'm thankful. I can take a lot, but I can't take the dull, muted look in his eyes. It's a look of total defeat. Justin doesn't quit, unless I give him a reason to. I'm not ready for that all over again.
"Fuck you!" He's not the most articulate person when he's angry. He gets points for not beating around the bush however. "Take your pictures, take your tan, take Michael and shove them all up your ass. I'm going home!"
He's halfway off the couch before I grab a handful of his t-shirt and push him back down. "Happy now? You had your moment, for which you get a 9.5 for effort... now talk."
He looks like he might throttle me and I don't particularly blame him. I guess I have one more chance left in me.
"You left me behind. How could you do that?" My throat gets tight from the claustrophobic air in the room. It must be this position, all the oxygen getting caught in my lungs, unable to find a release. I lift my head a little too quickly and stand. I take a few deep breaths to regain my equilibrium and I stare at the wires that hang from the ceiling above. The wires he always thinks are going to set fire to the place. They're totally harmless, at least in comparison to him. All he has to do is sit still and look the way he looks right this very moment with that look I put on his face and I feel my skin sizzle to a crisp and the smoke rise from the ashes of what's left of me.
I don't need this shit. There's nothing in the world that's worth this endlessly repetitive dialogue we keep having. He gets mad, I get mad, we keep chipping away and we get nowhere. I need to get away from this. Away from him. I look down at him, looking up at me, and I don't care how many chins he can see. I would never leave him behind. I just didn't take him with me, because there are places he doesn't need to go. Places I don't want him to go. I sit on the coffee table, before the choice is taken away and my knees buckle without my consent.
"You went away with Daphne. What's the big deal?" I know how ridiculous it sounds before I even say it, but I say it anyway, because I don't know what else to say and because Daphne is always an easy smokescreen to hide behind.
"If you think that's the same thing, then you have serious issues I can't help you with."
"What's the difference?"
He looks like he's choking. He stutters between a few quick breaths and shakes his head back and forth. I can't save myself, how does he expect me to save him? "For one thing, Daphne's not in love with me." Well she was for five minutes, if I recall correctly. But I'm guessing that's not exactly what he means. "For another, I asked you to go with me because I wanted to be with you! That was the only reason. You didn't even think about asking me. You just ran off. I would have gone with you, but I guess there wouldn't have been enough room for me with Michael there." He laughs bitterly.
It doesn't matter about Mikey. It's not a big deal. I've never been in love with him, he's my best friend for Christ's sake! Besides, he's happy and he's in love with someone who loves him back, for once. Justin has nothing to be jealous about. "You had that whole thing planned before I ever set foot in that apartment. Did you really think I was going to say yes?" Minus Grandma, I might have.
"Briiiiaaann, are you listening to me? At all? For, like, half a second?" My name sounds strange all stretched out and distorted like that, but it gets my attention.
"I'm listening and I'm telling you right now Justin, don't make me choose between you and Mikey. That's not a place you want to go." Because I can't and I won't.
"I would never ask you to make that kind of choice," he's emphatic. He looks hurt that I would even suggest something like that. "I'd just like to know that I wouldn't automatically lose. Because I think I would." We just look at each other for a few tense seconds. I don't know what he wants to hear me say, so instead I say nothing. "*That*, right there. That's what fucking kills me. You can't even answer me. You *won't* even try to answer me, even if it's to tell me I'm exactly right." He stares, mournfully, shrugs his shoulders and gives up. Gives in. Just stops trying.
"It was just a vacation. It wasn't even that fun. We would have had a better time," I try. I'm not good at this. I'm going to get this all wrong and that's it, there will be nothing left for him to give me beyond this point.
"You just really don't get it do you? I can't talk to you in riddles anymore." He takes a deep, resigned breath, calming considerably and that bothers me even more. I do get it. I get it so much it scares the shit out of me. He hears everything I don't say, just as loudly as the things I do. He hears my totally silent inability to reassure him. Not that I'm even sure that this is something he needs reassurance about. It should just be that fucking obvious that he doesn't. But he seems to think he does and that should be reason enough for me to do it just because that's the fucking thing a man would do. He leans forward as if his entire body aches from the effort, looks at me with one last hope that I'll come through and make this right and for once concede to something that matters to him without having to pry it out of me. I sit still, unable to move, unable to process a thought, much less lend a hand. "Why are we even bothering? Let's just stop kidding ourselves. I'm not Michael, I won't ever be. I ask for too much. I expect too much. I bother you too much. Well, it's all just a little too much. So now you're getting what you always wanted. For me to leave you alone so you can go back to your life. Congratulations." I feel a swell of anger rising up in me. He stands slowly and looks down at me helplessly. "Later."
I watch his two perfectly healthy legs walk away. From me. This time he doesn't turn around. He reaches the door before I can open my mouth.
"Stay." I say, and I know I say it and even as I'm saying it I know that I'm about to fuck this all up for good, or I'm going to fuck myself. Either way I'm fucked.
"No." I should have expected that. "I'm not doing this again." Doing what? Dragging me by the hair across the cement until I move an inch on my own? If he doesn't do it then no one else will because no one else would be able to put up with as much bullshit as he has and then throw it back in my face. Not even Michael, especially not Michael. "If you have something to say, then say it. Don't talk around it, just say it. Otherwise I'm going."
I realize he's not just puffing smoke, he's fully prepared to just walk away. It's not a game of calling my bluff, it's not a temper tantrum. It's him letting go for his own good. I needed that. For some reason I guess I needed to know that he was fully capable of it, that there's only so much he can take. I don't know why, I just needed to know that he could be on his own without me. That the only thing that would fall apart is me. Not him, especially not him. I need him to not do that.
I realize I'm not ready for him to go.
"You started this. For once, you're going to finish it and not run out the fucking door or away from me." I threaten. "I'm not the one who runs. So get your ass back over here because I'm just as fucking tired of this as you are." There, I said it. Sort of.
He doesn't come back, but he doesn't leave either. He just stands and waits, one hand on the door. I feel the blood beginning to circulate in my legs again and I stand and walk half the way towards him.
"I'm tired of the drama queen shit. I'm tired of you throwing yourself prostrate on the ground like some broken fucking fragile china doll. If you were really hurt, you know I would do whatever I could to make sure you were okay. You know that." I give him no real time to respond. Because I'm not going to go there with him, because I can't and because the more time I have to think about what I'm saying, the less I feel like I'm actually going to survive getting through it. "You don't get to walk out every time it gets to be a little too much and you don't get to expect that you can come back anytime you want." Even though you probably could, but you don't need to know that. "You *really* don't get to be mad because I pulled the same shit on you that you pull on me all the time. So here's your choice, you're either going to stay or you're going to go." I feel the walls move closer to me and feel my feet want to charge past him and out the door. "You say you want us to try, well welcome to fucking trying." My words are surprisingly mellow, because there's nothing left in me to give him. This is as much as he's ever going to get.
"This is your idea of trying?" He asks with a certain amount of disbelief, but also a certain amount of expectance. "And who the fuck are you to get to say what I do and don't get to do? I certainly don't get to tell you, Mr. Every Man For Himself, what to do or how to feel!" He's so incensed his hand lets go of the door and he moves towards me, without even realizing it. He can no longer hear what I'm trying to say or see me giving an inch. "You might not run, but you sure as hell know how to hide. Right in front of me, no less. You leave me lying in a hospital for six weeks thinking you don't give a shit and the whole time you're there. What the fuck is that? You're tired of me, well I'm tired of you playing the martyr! If you ask me I think we're pretty fucking even in the drama department."
The absurd realization that this might be the most we've ever said to each other in one conversation crosses my mind briefly and now I know why I'd rather speak without a sound. Because once you start talking, it just never ends. That thought is quickly replaced with the realization that only a foot or so separates us now.
He considers my form, in that way only he can. Watches me shrug my shoulders in response, in concession. He's the artist, he's the one who sees something more than just flesh and bones, he sees beauty and truth in movement and shadows and light that the rest of the world doesn't see. He closes his eyes and sighs so loudly and dramatically, I almost laugh again because it's just like him to do that. And I'm sort of grateful that I know him well enough to know that it's just like him to do that. I just don't know him well enough to assume he can see I'm all smoke and mirrors. No one else has managed to figure it out, why should he be any different?
He lifts his eyelids and he looks at me. He really, really looks at me, like maybe he's never seen me before and I feel my gut tense. I wait... for him to follow. Because there are places he goes without invitation. He just worms his way in. "Well then try to understand how much things like that fucking hurt me."
"I know, okay? I just do. You don't have to explain." I hold my hand up, to halt whatever question I'm sure is next, because I've reached my limit. I can't explain anymore.
He reaches out and pushes my hand out of the way, pushing himself forward towards me, unwilling to let himself be dismissed. "Then try not to do it. I know you can't always stop yourself, because you're just you. But you can do better than this."
"What makes you so sure?" I feel the hollow part of me slowly fill with something I can't identify and settle in my gut.
"Because if I wasn't, then both of us would really be totally beyond help, and I don't believe that."
"Does this mean you're staying?" He blinks and considers the unexpected question. I am totally fucked either way.
I would never make him stay where he didn't want to be, but I'm not sure I'm capable of letting him go... wherever... whenever he wants.
I'm not sure I have a choice in the matter anymore.