VoyForums

[ VoyUser Login optional ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, 3, [4], 5, 6, 7 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 06:32:57 05/23/03 Fri
Author: Karla
Subject: Part Three, Chapter One

I know what you're all thinking - "My god! Part THREE?! When's this damn thing going to end?" The answer - no where in the near future. So if you haven't already, get comfortable. Settle in. You're gonna be here awhile.

---

The rest of Christmas break just speeds by. Happy moments, fits of uncontrollable laughter, tears, quality time with family and friends, lots of hot gay sex... you know, everything the holidays are supposed to be about. I won’t go into the whole tearful good bye thing in to much detail cause we’ve all been there before, but the aftermath is sort of important. Well, it’s very important actually. I’m worse again. We were afraid it was going to happen, and it has. I can now with the last few shreds of emotion I have remember fondly the good old days when I had that much talked about, ever elusive ‘will to live’. I know it’s all just stupid self-pity, and that really I have no excuse to be so depressed cause I’m actually one of the luckiest people on the planet, but tell that to my tear ducts. Tell that to the gaping hole where my heart used to be.

The worst thing about now is, I’m not being honest. They all think I’m bummed, but my performance is inspiring such comments as ‘he’s doing surprisingly well’ and ‘I was afraid he was going to take this much harder’. So basically, I’m being a big faker and everyone is buying it. That makes me feel a whole different kind of bad, but there’s this thing that has to do with more bad feelings surprisingly enough actually making you feel even worse and not better that’s causing me problems. What I’m saying is my extra guilt isn’t exactly springing me out of the depths of melancholy. To make matters worse, I’ve been listening to like way too much Dashboard Confessionals and Smashing Pumpkins. I didn’t even like them before (the Smashing Pumpkins) but they’re really great if you’re trying to suck a bad mood for all it’s worth. I listen on headphones of course, so not even my makes you feel like killing yourself music is giving me away.

When you get right down to it, I don’t think there’s really anything easier in the world than feeling sorry for yourself. It requires absolutely no effort what so ever. It’s the getting over feeling sorry for yourself that’s the trouble. And as you know, my track record for getting over missing Celery self-pity isn’t exactly banner worthy. The real trouble as I’ve begun to look at it is that his leaving sucks all the energy (not to mention joy) out of me, and I therefore don’t have any left to drag myself out. I don’t even have enough energy to grab hold of those who would offer their hands as aid. Not that they’re aware of how much aid I’m currently in need of.

It’s because they don’t know, it’s because of the act I’ve been performing so convincingly, that I’m able to be sitting here now, with Jonas cuddled against Kyle at my side. On my lips, the emotionally void smile that’s been there these past two weeks. They’re talking and though I can’t honestly claim I’ve been listening, whenever they laugh at something, I’ll laugh along.

Oh. Hold on. They’re laughing right now. I think Kyle made the joke, something about moose invasions. Which I suppose is some kind of reference to the old British Whose Line Is It Anyway episodes. I’m pretty sure I’d think it was funny if I wasn’t all with the feeling dead inside.

“Dude,” I blink a couple times and wait for someone to talk.

“Dude,” Kyle says again. Talking to me then. Okay. Just give me a second.

I have to blink some more, and shake my head a little, almost like waking up. It’s something I usually need to do when someone talks to me these days. My act’s only major flaw is that I tend to be a little slow on the up take.

“Yeah?” Like a minute later. You know, slow.

“Shouldn’t you be ranting about how Whose Line went to hell after Drew Carrey replaced Clive Anderson as host?” Kyle teases, though there’s a small hint of concern in his voice and eyes.

“Don’t you have that one memorized by now?” I tease back, also struggling to keep my tone light.

“Memorized? It’s been permanently burned into my brain. The routine you and Celery used to do about the fall of Whose Line into crude lameness is something I doubt anyone who ever heard it could hope to forget,” Despite myself, I wince at his mention of Celery.

What’s maybe been the most painful thing about these past two weeks is the infrequent contact between Celery and myself. My suspicion is that he hasn’t been fairing any better than me in all this and that this is what is causing his reluctance. I know it’s what’s been standing in my way. I think we both feel like we if don’t put the other in contact with our sadness, we’re protecting him from something. Insane, since we both know pain is lessened when shared, but sanity really never has been a deciding factor in either of our lives. We’ve only talked three times, and we’ve hardly even pretended to be stock-piling minutes. He’s sounded so toneless, so empty. I hated every minute of each call, knowing my voice was reflecting back the exact same thing. So now it’s been over a week since we last spoke. No one knows this of course. They don’t know any of it.

“Forget? Now why on earth would anyone want to do that,” Kyle gives my head a light shove with two fingers.

“Goof,” I smile. I’m starting to forget what smiling when you really mean it feels like.

“Care?” I look at Jonas.

“Yeah?” His eyes are narrowed.

“What were we talking about before?”

“What?” I say while trying to sound confused and innocent.

“Before Kyle shouted moose invasion for no good reason and we all started laughing, what were we talking about?” Fuck. Fuck. And once more with feeling, FUCK.

“Um,” I falter pathetically, trying to come up with something and ending up with nothing.

He nods sadly.

“That’s what I thought.” He gets up off Kyle and stands in front of me, having to crouch only a little due to his lack of height for us to be eye to eye.

I nervously brush some of my hair behind my ear, twisting the ends and he continues his scrutiny of me.

“This has been going on the whole time?” He eventually asks, voice heavy with sadness and disappointment. The disappointments more with himself than me though I think.

I give up and nod after a minute or two.

“Uh, what’s been going on?” Kyle asks cluelessly. Jonas sighs.

“Carrots here has been pulling a Ben Folds Five,”

“What?”

“But if my minds somewhere else, you won’t be able to tell, I do the best imitation of myself,” I supply dully. Jonas gives the ‘that’s what I’m talking about’ nod.

“So... WHAT?” Is Kyle’s I’m-still-totally-in-the-dark response.

“He’s been acting okay but the idiots we are couldn’t see that he’s totally not,” Jonas spells it out.

“Well I knew that,” Kyle says like he thought everyone did.

“What?” Jonas sputters, shaking his head. “What are you talking about, you knew? You didn’t know anything,”

“Sure I did.” Kyle scoffs. “You’re my fucking BROTHER Carrots,” He says, going eye to eye with me. “Did you actually think I didn’t know what was going on? Oh yeah, the love of your life just left, you’re fine!” He shakes his head, looking unimpressed. “How stupid do you think I am? You think I don’t know you better than that?” Jonas and I are both dumbfounded.

“If you knew why’ve you been letting me get away with it?” He sighs, putting his hand on my shoulder.

“Because I’ve been waiting for you to be ready to talk about it yourself,”

“That doesn’t sound like you,” I say, with what almost passes for genuine humour (the sarcastic kind but hey - progress!). Kyle smiles.

“Yeah well, I know. But this time, bullying you into something was just going to make things worse, push you deeper into yourself - that’s why I didn’t say anything to you goldie,” He directs his last comment to Jonas.

He calls him that sometimes. Goldie. I think its cause of the colour of Jonas’s hair, like, goldie locks you know? The locks are the dreads, the gold leftovers from when he still coloured his hair. Or maybe it’s just cause Kyle’s insane. Either way, Jonas doesn’t seem to mind. The only thing that bothers him is that once or twice, they’ve fought and Kyle’s called him Ben. Which, you have to admit is a pretty low blow.

“You really knew?” Kyle smiles patiently.

“Really,”

“I’m like, impressed,” and I’m feeling forgotten about. But I can’t exactly get mad at them. I mean, how many times have Celery and I done the same thing to them and a million other people?

“I’m glad, but getting back to the issue at hand,” He claps my shoulder once and then releases me. “You’ve had two weeks, that’s long enough. It’s time to get over this,” I say nothing. “Carrots, I mean it. We’re not going down that road again. Not for that many weeks. We’re not going to let it happen to you and you’re not going to let it happen to Celery,” damn him and how he always knows my weaknesses. “You haven’t been calling him have you?” He asks with surprising gentleness, noticing the look in my eyes. “You’ve got to little bro, okay, you know I’m right. Enough with the imitation, we all prefer the real thing. Go call your boy, work this thing out the way I know you only can if it’s together,” I just keep sitting there with a sullen look on my face.

“Dude, you’ve got to!” Jonas like cries out in frustration, “This can’t happen again, you need to--“

Not being even slightly in the mood to listen, I just get up while Jonas is talking and walk out of there. All the way out of the house in the end. Past mom who asks me where I'm going, slipping into sneakers and my jacket, out the door. It's the end of the act I guess. It's totally fucked now, not that I would have had much hope of fixing things after that little scene. I walk for the longest time. My neighbourhoods full of whinedy streets and little like cull du sac thingy's, so the whole going no where in particular thing is pretty easy to do. Other than staying away from the old school ground, it's all about wandering aimlessly. I’m just not ready to face any of it yet.

I’m starting to think there’s something seriously wrong with me. I have NO good reason not to be like singing the Happy Song every second of every day of my life. I’m just like the biggest suck on the planet. I don’t know when I had the time to learn to be so great at feeling sorry for myself and being depressed considering how like picture perfect my whole childhood was. Sure I had the whole gay secretly in love with my best friend thing to deal with, but to be honest that never really bothered me that much. Basically cause yeah, I always pretty much figured I’d be able to get him to love me too. I never told you that. It’s pretty fucked up, but back when I didn’t think he was gay or whatever, I was well on my way to convincing myself I’d be able to get him to love me anyway, just cause I was so used to Celery doing everything for me. He doesn’t get that about himself, or maybe he does and he just doesn’t think its bad thing, but in every way Celery’s dedicated himself to making my life easier. That’s the thing I guess, which is the reason I do so badly on my own. I’m not used to having to deal with my own problems and face things, I’m used to having this big strong blond guy to run to whenever things get tough who’ll just put his arms around me and fix stuff.

Despite what he said about it, I do still think most of my so called progress between Thanksgiving and Christmas was a big lie. The same as now really, except then I wasn’t admitting to myself I was faking it. I was fooling me and the people around me. I don’t know about Celery. Maybe he really was doing okay on his own. Maybe he’s even doing okay now, and the reason he hasn’t been calling is cause he just doesn’t miss me.

I told you I was fucked up. I mean, listen to me. That’s the kind of shit I’ve been convincing myself of lately. I KNOW Celery misses me. There’s no sane part of my mind that doubts it. He doesn’t miss me like beached fish don’t miss water. But I’m still going on these little trips in my head, believing shit like that.

Man I’m cold. Stupid Manitoba. January is the worst month of the year, bar none. It’s dark and freezing and by then any charm the snow seemed to have is gone cause everything’s just dirty and it’s a pain to walk in. You’ve got exams if you’re still in school. Even if you’re not, and even if you live in some like tropical paradise, I bet January still sucks. I’d say we should abolish the month altogether, except then February would have to be a lot longer, and the only thing February’s got going for it is the fact that it’s only 28 days long. Even the extra leap year day ruins February, never mind trying to squeeze the whole month of January in there.

Maybe I should take up smoking or something. That would warm me up wouldn’t it? But no, that’s not the answer. I’d have to smoke outside, which would just make me cold on a regular basis. Plus I don’t have the money for it. Plus, it’s idiotic to pay a company to kill you (props to the gum guy in Clerks). Plus, Celery would kill me. Plus, the second hand smoke would probably kill him. Nope. Definitely smoking isn’t the answer to my problems.

I could become an alcoholic. Drinking makes you forget right? Or maybe I could start smoking pot or something. You kill enough brain cells, who cares how much your heart hurts. But there’s still the whole issue of me not having enough money and Celery killing me. Additionally, I don’t know any drug dealers and I don’t really feel like hanging out with a bunch of drop out space cadets who think it’s funny to buy under aged kids beer. Damnit. I’m fresh out of ideas. And I’m still really cold. I’m bound to wuss out and start back for home soon, except I really don’t want to face that kind of music right now. Gotta think.

Hey! Kaleb. I’ll just go to Kaleb’s. He’ll be happy to see me - he always is. We’ll just hang out for awhile, listen to some music or whatever, just so I can warm up and calm down. Then I’ll think about going home. Or maybe I’ll even stay the night if he’ll let me. I’ll be sleeping on the floor guy for once. That’s one thing I missed out on being friends with Celery - sleepovers at other peoples houses. Their house was never exactly the place to be.

Now, I’m pretty sure I remember where he lives, I know for sure what his house looks like anyway, and what street it’s on, just need to figure out how to get there from here. First of all, let’s figure out where here is. Good. Street sign. Okay. This is excellent, Kaleb’s place is just on the next block. Brilliant.

I blow on my fists and sort of run on the spot, standing on Kaleb’s porch waiting for someone to answer the door. After what sure felt like forever to my poor freezing ears, the door opens.

“Dude, you’re like shaking,” Kaleb says, alarmed and pulling me inside before I even get a chance to talk.

“Thanks,” I say, my teeth chattering. He nods distractedly, looking at me worriedly.

“What’s the matter?”

“Huh? Nothing, I just went for a walk and then thought I’d drop by,” I start to feel a bit bad about just barging it. “Is that okay? Are you busy?” He shakes his head.

“No, it’s just, you look really awful,” I give him a ‘gee thanks’ type smile. He grins a little. “Sorry, but it’s true. You’re all red and like I said, you were shaking before,” He starts getting me out of my jacket. “Are you warming up yet?” I nod through another shiver.

“Thanks,”

“Let’s like go make some hot chocolate and then we can talk,” hot chocolate sounds good, but we’ll see about the talking. I don’t say anything though, I just follow him into his kitchen.

I’ve been to Kaleb’s a few times before, but a lot of the times we’ve hung out we just went somewhere in a group, or at least with Shane. It’s hardly ever been just the two of us, and never the two of us alone in his house.

“Where’s your mom?” Kaleb lives with his mom only. His dad is remarried and lives in B.C. That’s where they lived too before he moved here in the middle of last year. His mom got a new job and I guess he doesn’t get along with his dad so Kaleb moved here with her.

“She’s at work,” He says, measuring out cocoa powder.

“Oh,” He winks.

“I have you all to myself,” I pretend to laugh nervously. Really, I’m not concerned. Kaleb just doesn’t think of me that way anymore, and I’ve never felt about him like that, so there’s nothing to stress about.

“I’m scared,”

“You should be,” He says in a like grave, little kid voice. You know what that sounds like. When some six-year-old tells you something they think is incredibly serious and they look at you with those big serious little kid eyes. Maybe I’m making it all up, I don’t know. Hopefully you get what I’m saying. Not that you normally do.

“And I am,” He just chuckles and finishes making the hot chocolate, the water he got hot in the microwave while I was pretending to be terrified.

“Here you go,” Kaleb says, setting down my cup and sitting down with his. He looks at me intently across the table.

“Thanks,” He smiles.

“Don’t mention it,” he sighs. “So, let’s talk,” I scrunch my lips a little.

“I’m not really in the taking mood,”

“Oh no?” I’m kind of dumb. Why exactly did I think Kaleb would be easy?

“No,” He reaches over and briefly squeezes my hand, looking deeply into my eyes.

“You’re my friend Carrots, you’re a better friend than I ever thought you’d be able to be. I almost ruined our shot by having feelings for you, but the point of getting over them was supposed to be that we’d be able to hang out finally. Well, that and me being sick of liking someone who I knew was never going to like me back,” I smile sympathetically at the memory. “So dude, now that we’re friends, you’re supposed to talk to me about stuff. That’s how the whole friendship thing works. Something’s obviously bothering you pretty bad and I’m guessing cause of the whole roaming the streets thing it’s something you’re avoiding having to discuss with the people at home. But if you thought you could come to old Kaleb’s and not have to deal with anything you were sadly mistaken,” I have to smile sheepishly at that. “Nice try though bud,” He says with a grin.

“You’re really going to make me bare my soul to you?” I pout almost cheerfully. Something about all this is putting me in a weirdly good mood.

“Yep,” I don’t know what it is that he said or whatever it is that’s possessed me, but I actually feel like talking. Maybe it’s cause of his like distance from the whole thing. Or from Celery. I don’t know.

“Okay,” I say, sighing with only a slight bit of reluctance. I lay it all out for him. The way I’ve been acting, pretending to be okay, the distance between me and Celery, the confrontation with Jonas and Kyle, all the insanity. Kaleb just listens silently, nodding at somethings, giving my hand the occasional squeeze, reacting in quiet but comforting ways. I feel a lot better when I’m done.

“So basically, I mean, what I’m getting from what you told me is - you’re just being a total asshole,” I laugh.

“Yeah. That’s about right,” Kaleb gets up and motions for me do to the same. I do, and walk over to him. He gives me a hug. I smile uncertainly.

“I can’t be that guy Carrots,” He says, shrugging.

“What guy?”

“The guy you use to escape your life for awhile. I can’t be the Spike to your Buffy,” I roll my eyes at the reference, accompanied with a small smirk. “Times are tough right now, I get that, but running out of it and coming over here to me,” He shakes his head, “That’s just not going work. Not for you or me. For one thing, I don’t want to risk my old feelings for you coming up cause I really do want to make this thing I have with Shane last. For another thing, talking to me and hanging with me instead of with Kyle and Jonas isn’t going to solve your problems. Denying you feel something and pretending for awhile that it isn’t there doesn’t make things better. I’m not saying I’m not cool to hang out with you - I love having you around - but not for this reason. It’s like, come for ME you know? Not cause I’m some last resort safety,” Damn that boys good at laying a guilt trip on you. Of course, the fact that’s he’s totally right is helping his case.

I sigh.

“I’m so sorry man,” He smiles.

“That’s okay. I would have come to me too if I were you,” he winks, “We’re alike remember? Anyway, since you did come here, I get to be advice guy, and since you’re in my house, you have to do what I tell you,” I eye him warily.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Call Celery,” I knew it.

“No man,” I say like rolling my shoulders. “I’m not ready for that yet,” He shrugs.

“I don’t care. I told you, my house - you have to do what I say,” He walks over and grabs the phone from its holster, comes back over and offers it to me.

“Call him up,” He orders. With some reluctance and a good deal of pouting, I take the phone.

“Um,” He smiles.

“I’ll see you in awhile,” Kaleb says and walks out of the room.

I sit down again and stare at the phone for awhile. I finally find the courage to dial, and drum my fingers nervously as it rings.

“Hello?” His voice sounds weird, like he’s confused. Which is weird, cause I’m the only one who ever calls him on his cell.

“Hey Cel,” I say.

“Carrots?” Um, yeah.

“Yeah, who’d you think it was?” This is very weird.

“Well, I didn’t know. It said T Mackie on my caller ID,” right, cause I’m at Kaleb’s. Of course.

“Oh yeah, that’s cause I’m calling from Kaleb’s house,”

“What?” Sounding a bad mix of worried and upset. “Why?”

“It’s um, like a long story. But, mostly it’s cause I ran out of the house and like roamed the streets until I was half frozen to death and decided since I wasn’t ready to go home I’d kick it over to Kaleb’s house,” There’s a long pause as Celery digests what I’ve just told him.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, or no. I don’t know,”

“Baby you have to explain yourself better than that,” I love his trying to sound clam while panicking tone. And by love I naturally mean hate.

“Well like,” I don’t know where to start. It’s so much harder telling him. Admitting I’ve basically been lying to him, that I’ve failed us. A few more seconds of this and I’m going to start to cry.

“Baby?” Well, not surprisingly, that does it. I start wailing into the phone, to the panicked pleadings of Celery for me to stop. I do eventually.

“Sorry, I... I’m like really messed up right now,” I say once I’ve gotten myself together marginally.

“I’m not doing so great myself at the moment,” He remarks dryly. I chuckle sadly.

“Really? Whatever for,”

“Care,” He says warningly. I do my millionth sigh of the day.

“Sorry, again. Look, the simple fact is I’ve been incredibly pissed off and depressed since you left and I’ve only been faking the whole happiness doing okay thing. I’ve really missed you and we haven’t even been talking much and I don’t really understand why and I’ve just been really upset and sad lately. Jonas finally called me on it today when he figured out I wasn’t even listening to what Kyle and him were talking about and only laughing in the right places cause I heard they were. But instead of dealing with them I ran out of the house. I walked around for ages until like I said I was freezing cold and I needed to warm up. I went to Kaleb’s house and we talked for awhile and he got me to call you cause he’s a really good guy who for some reason puts up with my crap and is somehow able to understand my fucked up brain. So that’s the whole story. I’m sorry if I wasn’t able just blurt that out the second after you picked up the phone,” I wait for him to say something, but honestly, if that outburst surprised him half as much as it did me, it’s going to be awhile before Celery responds.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

[ Contact Forum Admin ]

Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 2.94, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2008 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.