Secrets, Parts 43&44&45/46
Story type: High school/college/roommates AU
Warning: Angst.
A/N: Almost there. I’m leaving the last part for tomorrow.
Go >here< to start from the beginning or >here< to re-read the last part.
Part 43/46
>May 2012<
The first few minutes after you wake up you indulge in the twilight world of your not-yet-fully-awake mind. But it quickly becomes clear that you’re not dreaming and you really are wrapped up in Brian’s arms. The embrace is familiar which doesn’t surprise you because you dream about it almost every night. Back when you were a teenager you used to sometimes wake up enveloped in him and after he was gone, you were afraid to forget how his arms felt around you, so you made yourself remember every day until it’s become part of your nightly dreams.
He’s still clingy when he sleeps. But he doesn’t snore. When you were teenagers, Brian used to snore in his sleep. It wasn’t very loud; more like a wheezing sound, comforting somehow. He doesn’t make that sound anymore. You wouldn’t be surprised to learn he got rid of it simply by sheer will. You miss it a little; not so much the fact that it’s gone, but that it happened without your involvement. What else will be different once you’re both awake enough to face the day, after last night?
You try to imagine best case scenarios, but all you can think of is how long it will take you to pack your shit together and moved out of this place. You guess everything could go back to how it was before you’ve run into him again. Your life was sort of bland but... constant back then; constant in the sense of missing any and all highs or lows. But that can be a good thing, too, right? Maybe you can go back to that. Or maybe things don’t have to change at all. This night can forever remain a slip of judgment. Maybe you and Brian can agree to forget it and go back to being friends. You’re equal parts terrified and happy about this prospect. But it’s an illusion, because things already are different.
“It’s too early for this shit. Stop!” Brian’s voice is muffled by your hair, but it’s clear that he’s not simply talking in his sleep, but addressing you.
“I’m not doing anything,” you protest.
“You’re packing in your head.”
You don’t look at him - you can’t. Gently trying to extract yourself from his embrace, you pull back and fix the fold in the bedspread, playing idly with it. He’s right of course. That’s why you can’t look him in the eye.
“This doesn’t have to change anything,” he says, echoing your thoughts from only moments ago.
“It already has,” you tell him and can’t keep the sadness out of your voice.
He doesn’t reply immediately, taking a moment to think it over. “Not if we let it.” You feel his eyes on you and look up. Suddenly you’re too aware that you’re naked. Strangely, the fact that he’s naked too doesn’t bother you even half as much; you’re probably too used to seeing him without clothes on. But you feel bare. Defenseless and vulnerable. “It was just one night,” Brian continues. “We can forget this ever happened. Go back to being friends.”
No, wearing clothes probably wouldn’t have softened the blow either. How is it that you still haven’t learned your lesson? How much more often will your face have to hit the pavement before you learn to brace yourself for it?
You get up from the bed and act busy, pretending to look for clothes. They’re not there and you remember that you both relocated to his bedroom after shedding them on the couch. You quickly ponder whether to walk out of the room like this or if you should throw on a sheet or something; maybe one of Brian’s shirts.
“Justin--”
“No,” you jump in, not wanting to hear it. You don’t want to be persuaded into being friends again. You’ve made the decision so many times already; it’s time to finally act on it. “No, Brian. We cannot be friends. Not anymore. Not when one of us wants to be more.”
There, you said it. It’s now out there and it’s his turn. You look expectantly at him, not really sure where you’ve got the guts from, but he’s not responding. He doesn’t even look at you, instead staring at the floor, looking almost embarrassed. And it’s this exactly that makes you let go - let go of hope, and dignity, and... him.
You nod sadly, quietly acknowledging the reality that he doesn’t want you, is embarrassed by your admission or your feelings, possibly both.
It was hard enough to come to terms with the fact that he’s not interested in you because you’re not his type. But knowing that, on some level, he could find you attractive but simply doesn’t see you as anything more… anyone to have a relationship with… It’s going to be close to impossible to accept that.
Your messenger bag is crammed full already when he emerges, wearing only a pair of sweatpants and carrying the odor of last night’s activities with him. He leans against the door jamb of your room, quietly watching you for a few moments before asking, “Where will you go? Where will you live?”
You shrug, not turning around. “A dorm maybe. It’s not too late to apply for a room.” You haven’t really taken that into account, but now that the thought’s in your head, you put it out there.
He releases a humorless laugh. “You can’t live in a dorm. You hate sharing living space.”
“It won’t break me,” you answer. But this might.
You dawdle because he’s still blocking the doorway and you don’t want to squeeze yourself past him and risk physical contact. Your nerves are too frail for that.
“Would it help if I said I’m s--”
“No,” you cut in again, “it wouldn’t.” You don’t want to hear it. The last thing you want is him apologizing for what happened last night. Because it isn’t something that you allowed to happen; you wanted it too. Probably more than he did. In fact, you’re certain of it.
Finally, you gather all of your courage and turn around. Your eyes stay mostly down and you only allow them to travel up to his chin, not daring to look higher, not wanting to see the expression on his face. You fumble with the strap of the bag over your shoulder and look pointedly at the doorway which he’s currently blocking.
Before he moves aside, he takes another breath and tries one last time, “You said you wouldn’t leave. You promised.”
“Obviously I didn’t know what I was promising.” You figure, what’s one more lie on top of everything? “You know what, Brian? You made promises too. Guess we’re both not trustworthy.”
He steps aside and lets you pass after that. And after that it’s up to you to pick up the pieces of your life from the debris of your own mistakes.
Part 44/46
>November 2012<
Summer comes and goes and by the time that trees have lost their leaves you’ve become a model recluse. Now, with winter knocking on the door, it’s easier to pretend that it’s because of the weather that you stay inside a lot; or under your blanket, to be exact. Baoling, the girl you’ve met through a ‘roommate wanted’ ad on the college bulletin board and are now sharing an apartment with - because Brian was right, you would never be able to share a dorm room with anyone - has watched you grow anti-social for a little over four months and has recently announced that she’s not going to take it anymore. She’s Chinese and you often tease her about being a cliché of an Asian overachiever, but you both know that that’s only half the truth. Baoling studies hard, but she parties hard too and lately she’s made it her mission to schlepp you to every party she’s invited to, which are many.
She’s younger than you and also petite; it should be a waltz putting her into her place, but she’s feisty and once she’s on a mission she becomes a real pit bull about it.
“We’re about to be snowed in,” you try to argue in an attempt of getting out of going to the floor party her girlfriends of Holland Hall are hosting tonight.
She throws a perfunctory look outside and waves away your fake concerns with a throw-away motion of her hand. “I hope we get snowed in,” she replies enthusiastically, already in love with the idea. “It’ll make for a nice story to tell your grandchildren someday. No risk, no fun. Live a little.”
“I’ve lived plenty,” you mutter while exchanging your sweater for a warmer one, in case you really do get snowed in.
“Yeah? When was that exactly? When you’ve been moping your way through Europe?”
You choose not to reply to that. Sometimes she reminds you too much of Daphne. You knew it was wrong to allow those two to meet the last time Daphne visited you in Pittsburgh. You secretly suspect that they’ve somehow managed to exchange numbers and possibly teamed up to force you out of your self-imposed solitude.
“This is not going to help,” you complain once you reached the party venue. You have to raise your voice to be heard.
“It won’t do you harm either,” Bao counters. “Try to forget Brian for a little while, okay?” she adds in a softer tone. She’s never met Brian, or she would know how epically impossible to execute her request is. But you just nod and half-heartedly resign to try to actually have fun tonight.
You’re not exactly sure when fun has become equal with alcohol, but minutes later you find yourself at the makeshift bar someone set up on a rickety table placed along the wall between two dorm rooms. You drink something that tastes like a terrible concoction of rum and vodka that someone tried to improve by adding more rum and vodka to the mix.
The second sign that coming here tonight was a bad idea (the first being the steadily falling snow outside) is the blond head you spot in a dimly lit room on the exact opposite side of the hall. All of the dorm rooms have been wedged to stay open, so party guests can move freely from one to the next. You can only see the head’s profile and other people keep flitting back and forth in front of you, hindering your vision, but you’re pretty sure that it’s Lindsay. Of course spotting Lindsay at a party does not necessarily mean that Brian is close, but the fact alone that she’s here makes you think of him which defeats the whole purpose of you coming here.
It’s not that you’re apprehensive about meeting her, or Brian, for that matter, even though you haven’t so far; not once ever since you moved out. When you were clearing out your things, you even timed your trips to yours and Brian’s apartment so that you wouldn’t run into him. It’s just that you’re not okay yet. And you really want to be okay when you run into him. Or her. But you’re still waiting for the pain to subside and for the fun to return to your life, though Bao has been an excellent stand-in so far.
It’s been six months and life hasn’t been easy. You sort of feel like a brat thinking that. It’s not like you have it all that bad; substantially, you want for nothing. But your days have been tiring. Every morning you have to force yourself out of bed, drag your ass to classes that you will yourself to sit through; you have to remind yourself to eat, because if it wasn’t for the reminders, or for Baoling, or your mother, you’d forget; and by the time evening rolls around you’re just always so exhausted.
You know you’re a coward, but you’re relieved about not having run into Brian yet. Or any of Brian-related people. Maybe, you try to convince yourself, Lindsay is a good place to start. Whether it’s this realization you’ve arrived at just now or the alcohol that makes your movements bold, you’ve no idea, but all of a sudden you find yourself taking tentative steps in the direction of the room you spotted the person you believe to be Lindsay in.
“…and want to stay here?” The voice that carries over the common party sounds is familiar and you know for sure now that it’s Lindsay. You position yourself close to a small group that is gathered in the hall close to the door. They’re currently discussing a recent ball game of sorts and are doing this very loudly which makes it so much harder to hear the voices in the adjacent room. If it wasn’t for the dubious vodka/rum cocktail, you’d feel stupid, not to mention creepy, spying on a girl you barely know.
What you hear next, however, quickly makes you forget any and all reservations. It’s just an indistinctive grunt, but it’s male and… so familiar.
“Brian, you can’t avoid the issue forever. Eventually you’re gonna have to do something about it,” you hear Lindsay say and your heart misses a beat when your worst fears are confirmed. Your first impulse is too flee, but your feet are rooted to the spot. It will never cease to amaze you how you can tell by an incomprehensible sound alone that he’s not okay. You think, put to the test, you’d probably even be able to tell how much alcohol he has in him just by listening to him. You don’t want to admit that this level of familiarity still causes a warm tingle to break out across your skin. You’re so not over him; you’re not even close. If Brian knew, he’d call you pathetic.
“’ve no idea whatcha talkin’ ‘bout.” It’s so unmistakably Brian, it makes your heart constrict painfully with how much you miss him. He sounds drunk, or at least like he’s well underway there. You strain your ears to hear Lindsay’s reply, but a sudden outbreak of maniacal laughter from the group you’re sort of hiding behind cancels every other sound out for a second. You swear internally and inch closer to the open door. The last thing you catch before Lindsay emerges from the room is Brian’s grunted, “I don’t.”
At the door, Lindsay pauses and you catch her throwing a sad look inside before she reaches for the door, releases the book that’s been used to hold it open and pulls it close, though it remains a little ajar. She heads in the opposite direction from where you’re standing and you peek inside, careful not to be seen. The only light illuminating the dark interior is the halogen bulb under one of the bookcases that doesn’t scatter far and leaves the rest in relative darkness. You can see a vague outline of Brian draped over a swivel chair, but otherwise the room is empty. You stand there, contemplating for a few moments whether you should go inside. But what would you say? Hello? I missed you, did you miss me? And where would that lead you except back into a cycle that not only made you miserable but also depressed and worthless and a liar.
You wait too long.
Before you can make up your mind to leave, Brian’s voice can be heard again. His voice barely audible, he’s obviously talking to himself. It’s still slurred, but you can hear him perfectly. “I don’t love ya. Ya hear me, Jussin? I. Don’t. Love. You.”
There’s a moment of shock, a split second where you think he’s talking to you; and then there’s the plummeting. It’s like free fall and you wait for the crash. It follows immediately after. And you can’t stop the tears. You try to gulp them down, but there’s so many of them. You don’t want people to see and push through the crowds, trying to reach a bathroom. But you don’t know where the next one is located and your face must be a mess, because people start to notice you, a few of them asking if you’re alright. ‘No,’ you want to scream at them. Stupid, blind idiots. All of them.
You’ve known of course. But you haven’t known-known. And hearing it in such candid words, spoken with such a bluntness, just breaks something inside of you. It isn’t even that you’d still hoped, because you know you haven’t. It’s just that… you feel… rejected. It’s not a completely new feeling; you’ve been a loner almost your entire high school career. But being rejected by Brian, by the only person who’s ever meant anything to you, weighs heavier.
Part 45/46
>November 2012<
Later, you won’t know how you got home. You will wake up in your bed, in the middle of the night, and you’ll remember a dream. A strange dream. You will dream of Brian and you’ll see the past months and years flash before you, every single minute since the day you’ve run into him while apartment hunting. But you won’t see it through your own eyes; you won’t think your own thoughts. You won’t be Justin.
You will see him pull out of a dance with you. But this time, you’ll realize that it’s not because he doesn’t want to dance with you; it’s because he wants it too much.
You will see him be an asshole to Ethan. But it’s not because he’s angry with you; it’s because he’s jealous.
You will see him lie to you, the same way you’ve been lying to him, though you prefer to call it ‘keeping secrets’. Not because he wants to hurt you, but because he’s afraid to tell you the truth.
You’ll see parallels where you’ve only seen disappointment before.
You will see his drunken declaration of not loving you for what it is: a fruitless attempt to convince himself of something that he doesn’t believe in.
And it will all make sense and the picture will right itself. The world will not stop turning, no fanfares will sound, no angels will sing, but you will breathe easier. You will wake up with a shy ray of hope glimmering within you. You will smile and it won’t be forced and it won’t feel like a difficult task anymore.
You’ll call Daphne in the middle of the night whose only comment will be, “By George, I think he’s got it,” before she hangs up on you. You’ll tell Baoling, needing a sounding board for your theories. You’ll tell her about high school, about Europe, about college and the reasons for coming back, about the night six months ago, and the nickname ‘Sunshine’ and she’ll nod and understand, because you won’t be able to stop smiling.
next
Warning: Angst.
A/N: Almost there. I’m leaving the last part for tomorrow.
Go >here< to start from the beginning or >here< to re-read the last part.
Part 43/46
>May 2012<
The first few minutes after you wake up you indulge in the twilight world of your not-yet-fully-awake mind. But it quickly becomes clear that you’re not dreaming and you really are wrapped up in Brian’s arms. The embrace is familiar which doesn’t surprise you because you dream about it almost every night. Back when you were a teenager you used to sometimes wake up enveloped in him and after he was gone, you were afraid to forget how his arms felt around you, so you made yourself remember every day until it’s become part of your nightly dreams.
He’s still clingy when he sleeps. But he doesn’t snore. When you were teenagers, Brian used to snore in his sleep. It wasn’t very loud; more like a wheezing sound, comforting somehow. He doesn’t make that sound anymore. You wouldn’t be surprised to learn he got rid of it simply by sheer will. You miss it a little; not so much the fact that it’s gone, but that it happened without your involvement. What else will be different once you’re both awake enough to face the day, after last night?
You try to imagine best case scenarios, but all you can think of is how long it will take you to pack your shit together and moved out of this place. You guess everything could go back to how it was before you’ve run into him again. Your life was sort of bland but... constant back then; constant in the sense of missing any and all highs or lows. But that can be a good thing, too, right? Maybe you can go back to that. Or maybe things don’t have to change at all. This night can forever remain a slip of judgment. Maybe you and Brian can agree to forget it and go back to being friends. You’re equal parts terrified and happy about this prospect. But it’s an illusion, because things already are different.
“It’s too early for this shit. Stop!” Brian’s voice is muffled by your hair, but it’s clear that he’s not simply talking in his sleep, but addressing you.
“I’m not doing anything,” you protest.
“You’re packing in your head.”
You don’t look at him - you can’t. Gently trying to extract yourself from his embrace, you pull back and fix the fold in the bedspread, playing idly with it. He’s right of course. That’s why you can’t look him in the eye.
“This doesn’t have to change anything,” he says, echoing your thoughts from only moments ago.
“It already has,” you tell him and can’t keep the sadness out of your voice.
He doesn’t reply immediately, taking a moment to think it over. “Not if we let it.” You feel his eyes on you and look up. Suddenly you’re too aware that you’re naked. Strangely, the fact that he’s naked too doesn’t bother you even half as much; you’re probably too used to seeing him without clothes on. But you feel bare. Defenseless and vulnerable. “It was just one night,” Brian continues. “We can forget this ever happened. Go back to being friends.”
No, wearing clothes probably wouldn’t have softened the blow either. How is it that you still haven’t learned your lesson? How much more often will your face have to hit the pavement before you learn to brace yourself for it?
You get up from the bed and act busy, pretending to look for clothes. They’re not there and you remember that you both relocated to his bedroom after shedding them on the couch. You quickly ponder whether to walk out of the room like this or if you should throw on a sheet or something; maybe one of Brian’s shirts.
“Justin--”
“No,” you jump in, not wanting to hear it. You don’t want to be persuaded into being friends again. You’ve made the decision so many times already; it’s time to finally act on it. “No, Brian. We cannot be friends. Not anymore. Not when one of us wants to be more.”
There, you said it. It’s now out there and it’s his turn. You look expectantly at him, not really sure where you’ve got the guts from, but he’s not responding. He doesn’t even look at you, instead staring at the floor, looking almost embarrassed. And it’s this exactly that makes you let go - let go of hope, and dignity, and... him.
You nod sadly, quietly acknowledging the reality that he doesn’t want you, is embarrassed by your admission or your feelings, possibly both.
It was hard enough to come to terms with the fact that he’s not interested in you because you’re not his type. But knowing that, on some level, he could find you attractive but simply doesn’t see you as anything more… anyone to have a relationship with… It’s going to be close to impossible to accept that.
Your messenger bag is crammed full already when he emerges, wearing only a pair of sweatpants and carrying the odor of last night’s activities with him. He leans against the door jamb of your room, quietly watching you for a few moments before asking, “Where will you go? Where will you live?”
You shrug, not turning around. “A dorm maybe. It’s not too late to apply for a room.” You haven’t really taken that into account, but now that the thought’s in your head, you put it out there.
He releases a humorless laugh. “You can’t live in a dorm. You hate sharing living space.”
“It won’t break me,” you answer. But this might.
You dawdle because he’s still blocking the doorway and you don’t want to squeeze yourself past him and risk physical contact. Your nerves are too frail for that.
“Would it help if I said I’m s--”
“No,” you cut in again, “it wouldn’t.” You don’t want to hear it. The last thing you want is him apologizing for what happened last night. Because it isn’t something that you allowed to happen; you wanted it too. Probably more than he did. In fact, you’re certain of it.
Finally, you gather all of your courage and turn around. Your eyes stay mostly down and you only allow them to travel up to his chin, not daring to look higher, not wanting to see the expression on his face. You fumble with the strap of the bag over your shoulder and look pointedly at the doorway which he’s currently blocking.
Before he moves aside, he takes another breath and tries one last time, “You said you wouldn’t leave. You promised.”
“Obviously I didn’t know what I was promising.” You figure, what’s one more lie on top of everything? “You know what, Brian? You made promises too. Guess we’re both not trustworthy.”
He steps aside and lets you pass after that. And after that it’s up to you to pick up the pieces of your life from the debris of your own mistakes.
Part 44/46
>November 2012<
Summer comes and goes and by the time that trees have lost their leaves you’ve become a model recluse. Now, with winter knocking on the door, it’s easier to pretend that it’s because of the weather that you stay inside a lot; or under your blanket, to be exact. Baoling, the girl you’ve met through a ‘roommate wanted’ ad on the college bulletin board and are now sharing an apartment with - because Brian was right, you would never be able to share a dorm room with anyone - has watched you grow anti-social for a little over four months and has recently announced that she’s not going to take it anymore. She’s Chinese and you often tease her about being a cliché of an Asian overachiever, but you both know that that’s only half the truth. Baoling studies hard, but she parties hard too and lately she’s made it her mission to schlepp you to every party she’s invited to, which are many.
She’s younger than you and also petite; it should be a waltz putting her into her place, but she’s feisty and once she’s on a mission she becomes a real pit bull about it.
“We’re about to be snowed in,” you try to argue in an attempt of getting out of going to the floor party her girlfriends of Holland Hall are hosting tonight.
She throws a perfunctory look outside and waves away your fake concerns with a throw-away motion of her hand. “I hope we get snowed in,” she replies enthusiastically, already in love with the idea. “It’ll make for a nice story to tell your grandchildren someday. No risk, no fun. Live a little.”
“I’ve lived plenty,” you mutter while exchanging your sweater for a warmer one, in case you really do get snowed in.
“Yeah? When was that exactly? When you’ve been moping your way through Europe?”
You choose not to reply to that. Sometimes she reminds you too much of Daphne. You knew it was wrong to allow those two to meet the last time Daphne visited you in Pittsburgh. You secretly suspect that they’ve somehow managed to exchange numbers and possibly teamed up to force you out of your self-imposed solitude.
“This is not going to help,” you complain once you reached the party venue. You have to raise your voice to be heard.
“It won’t do you harm either,” Bao counters. “Try to forget Brian for a little while, okay?” she adds in a softer tone. She’s never met Brian, or she would know how epically impossible to execute her request is. But you just nod and half-heartedly resign to try to actually have fun tonight.
You’re not exactly sure when fun has become equal with alcohol, but minutes later you find yourself at the makeshift bar someone set up on a rickety table placed along the wall between two dorm rooms. You drink something that tastes like a terrible concoction of rum and vodka that someone tried to improve by adding more rum and vodka to the mix.
The second sign that coming here tonight was a bad idea (the first being the steadily falling snow outside) is the blond head you spot in a dimly lit room on the exact opposite side of the hall. All of the dorm rooms have been wedged to stay open, so party guests can move freely from one to the next. You can only see the head’s profile and other people keep flitting back and forth in front of you, hindering your vision, but you’re pretty sure that it’s Lindsay. Of course spotting Lindsay at a party does not necessarily mean that Brian is close, but the fact alone that she’s here makes you think of him which defeats the whole purpose of you coming here.
It’s not that you’re apprehensive about meeting her, or Brian, for that matter, even though you haven’t so far; not once ever since you moved out. When you were clearing out your things, you even timed your trips to yours and Brian’s apartment so that you wouldn’t run into him. It’s just that you’re not okay yet. And you really want to be okay when you run into him. Or her. But you’re still waiting for the pain to subside and for the fun to return to your life, though Bao has been an excellent stand-in so far.
It’s been six months and life hasn’t been easy. You sort of feel like a brat thinking that. It’s not like you have it all that bad; substantially, you want for nothing. But your days have been tiring. Every morning you have to force yourself out of bed, drag your ass to classes that you will yourself to sit through; you have to remind yourself to eat, because if it wasn’t for the reminders, or for Baoling, or your mother, you’d forget; and by the time evening rolls around you’re just always so exhausted.
You know you’re a coward, but you’re relieved about not having run into Brian yet. Or any of Brian-related people. Maybe, you try to convince yourself, Lindsay is a good place to start. Whether it’s this realization you’ve arrived at just now or the alcohol that makes your movements bold, you’ve no idea, but all of a sudden you find yourself taking tentative steps in the direction of the room you spotted the person you believe to be Lindsay in.
“…and want to stay here?” The voice that carries over the common party sounds is familiar and you know for sure now that it’s Lindsay. You position yourself close to a small group that is gathered in the hall close to the door. They’re currently discussing a recent ball game of sorts and are doing this very loudly which makes it so much harder to hear the voices in the adjacent room. If it wasn’t for the dubious vodka/rum cocktail, you’d feel stupid, not to mention creepy, spying on a girl you barely know.
What you hear next, however, quickly makes you forget any and all reservations. It’s just an indistinctive grunt, but it’s male and… so familiar.
“Brian, you can’t avoid the issue forever. Eventually you’re gonna have to do something about it,” you hear Lindsay say and your heart misses a beat when your worst fears are confirmed. Your first impulse is too flee, but your feet are rooted to the spot. It will never cease to amaze you how you can tell by an incomprehensible sound alone that he’s not okay. You think, put to the test, you’d probably even be able to tell how much alcohol he has in him just by listening to him. You don’t want to admit that this level of familiarity still causes a warm tingle to break out across your skin. You’re so not over him; you’re not even close. If Brian knew, he’d call you pathetic.
“’ve no idea whatcha talkin’ ‘bout.” It’s so unmistakably Brian, it makes your heart constrict painfully with how much you miss him. He sounds drunk, or at least like he’s well underway there. You strain your ears to hear Lindsay’s reply, but a sudden outbreak of maniacal laughter from the group you’re sort of hiding behind cancels every other sound out for a second. You swear internally and inch closer to the open door. The last thing you catch before Lindsay emerges from the room is Brian’s grunted, “I don’t.”
At the door, Lindsay pauses and you catch her throwing a sad look inside before she reaches for the door, releases the book that’s been used to hold it open and pulls it close, though it remains a little ajar. She heads in the opposite direction from where you’re standing and you peek inside, careful not to be seen. The only light illuminating the dark interior is the halogen bulb under one of the bookcases that doesn’t scatter far and leaves the rest in relative darkness. You can see a vague outline of Brian draped over a swivel chair, but otherwise the room is empty. You stand there, contemplating for a few moments whether you should go inside. But what would you say? Hello? I missed you, did you miss me? And where would that lead you except back into a cycle that not only made you miserable but also depressed and worthless and a liar.
You wait too long.
Before you can make up your mind to leave, Brian’s voice can be heard again. His voice barely audible, he’s obviously talking to himself. It’s still slurred, but you can hear him perfectly. “I don’t love ya. Ya hear me, Jussin? I. Don’t. Love. You.”
There’s a moment of shock, a split second where you think he’s talking to you; and then there’s the plummeting. It’s like free fall and you wait for the crash. It follows immediately after. And you can’t stop the tears. You try to gulp them down, but there’s so many of them. You don’t want people to see and push through the crowds, trying to reach a bathroom. But you don’t know where the next one is located and your face must be a mess, because people start to notice you, a few of them asking if you’re alright. ‘No,’ you want to scream at them. Stupid, blind idiots. All of them.
You’ve known of course. But you haven’t known-known. And hearing it in such candid words, spoken with such a bluntness, just breaks something inside of you. It isn’t even that you’d still hoped, because you know you haven’t. It’s just that… you feel… rejected. It’s not a completely new feeling; you’ve been a loner almost your entire high school career. But being rejected by Brian, by the only person who’s ever meant anything to you, weighs heavier.
Part 45/46
>November 2012<
Later, you won’t know how you got home. You will wake up in your bed, in the middle of the night, and you’ll remember a dream. A strange dream. You will dream of Brian and you’ll see the past months and years flash before you, every single minute since the day you’ve run into him while apartment hunting. But you won’t see it through your own eyes; you won’t think your own thoughts. You won’t be Justin.
You will see him pull out of a dance with you. But this time, you’ll realize that it’s not because he doesn’t want to dance with you; it’s because he wants it too much.
You will see him be an asshole to Ethan. But it’s not because he’s angry with you; it’s because he’s jealous.
You will see him lie to you, the same way you’ve been lying to him, though you prefer to call it ‘keeping secrets’. Not because he wants to hurt you, but because he’s afraid to tell you the truth.
You’ll see parallels where you’ve only seen disappointment before.
You will see his drunken declaration of not loving you for what it is: a fruitless attempt to convince himself of something that he doesn’t believe in.
And it will all make sense and the picture will right itself. The world will not stop turning, no fanfares will sound, no angels will sing, but you will breathe easier. You will wake up with a shy ray of hope glimmering within you. You will smile and it won’t be forced and it won’t feel like a difficult task anymore.
You’ll call Daphne in the middle of the night whose only comment will be, “By George, I think he’s got it,” before she hangs up on you. You’ll tell Baoling, needing a sounding board for your theories. You’ll tell her about high school, about Europe, about college and the reasons for coming back, about the night six months ago, and the nickname ‘Sunshine’ and she’ll nod and understand, because you won’t be able to stop smiling.
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