After All, I'm Your Secret Admirer~!!

Ch43 - Peer Review

"What?" Paige gasps. "No! No, no, no!" He pulls up his legs and holds himself as he rocks now. "Leaf, this isn't your fault."

"Where's your proof it isn't?" Leaf snaps.

"Where's your proof it is?" Paige says right back.

Leaf blinks, caught off guard. "U-um..." they stumble. "I—I don't need proof. This." They motion around. "This is the proof." They then gesture to themself. "I'm the proof."

"You're not proof of anything other than how much I can't deal with things on my own," Paige sighs.

"That's not fair," Leaf frowns.

"But blaming you is?" Paige looks down sadly. "I had that freak out regardless of the fact you're here, Leaf. I had it because I can't... I can't..." He trails off with a groan. "I don't know. I can't. End of sentence."

"You did pretty good for yourself while I wasn't here though, didn't you?" Leaf prods.

Paige huffs humorlessly. "Barely."

Days that turn into weeks that turn into months whoosh past Paige in his mind. None of them are clear except for the shining memories of his mom and his friends.

"The last two years of highschool have been... they've been nothing to me," Paige laments. "I don't even know how I passed enough to get here." He laughs quietly. "Somebody up there looking out for my grades, I guess."

"Paige..."

"I don't..." Paige closes his eyes and starts again. "I don't know what I'll do if OJ doesn't wanna talk to me anymore. I'll have put a rift in the Crew! And it'll have been all my fault!"

"Your fault that you got triggered by something?" Leaf asks deadpanned.

"Triggered?" Paige repeats. "I didn't... oh." He stops rocking. "I did, huh. That did trigger me." He sighs. "But why? I've heard things break before! Why did that specifically...?"

"Like I said, it's my fault," Leaf sighs.

"It's—"

"It is." Leaf's voice has a tone of finality in it, one which Paige is too tired to fight against at the moment.

Instead, he sighs. "Okay, Leaf. If you say so." He looks at the door. "But this is all... this is..." He's having trouble with his words. "We still have to apologize and leave soon, I guess. We can worry about who done it later."

"Do you want me to take the wheel?" Leaf asks. "I'll take the brunt of any painful feelings the sorries may bring up."

Paige is quiet for a long second before he mumbles. "...Yeah. ...Please."

Leaf nods and, while not seamless, the two of them swap spaces. "Don't worry, Paige," Leaf says with a small smirk. "I fucked this up, and I'm gonna do everything I can to do right by you."

Knock knock.

"Erm... Paige..?" OJ calls from behind the door. "Can I come in please?"

"Yeah," Leaf says in his normal voice, only to cough and raise it an octave. "I-I mean, yeah!"

The door opens and OJ's form enters the room. He looks pensive and worried and several other syllables for the word guilty.

"H-hello, Paige, he waves. "How are you doing?"

"Say we're okay," Paige instructs.

"I-I'm okay!" Leaf smiles, rubbing the back of his head. "I um... I really needed that nap!"

OJ nods, but seems extremely distracted. "That's.. good to hear." He immediately barrels over that sentence, though. "Can I... M-may I talk with you? A-about something?" He's wringing his hands. "Here, please. Between us."

"Shit," Leaf thinks. "Should we switch again?"

"I don't know..." Paige says, holding his head. "That one took a lot out of me for some reason..."

"Shit. Shit, okay. Um. Tell me what to do, then."

"Yeah, okay," Paige nods. "First of all, tell him yes."

"Oh. Yeah." Leaf blinks back into reality to see OJ watching the two of them desperately. He coughs and says aloud, "Um... sure, OJ!"

OJ nods and closes the door behind him, coming over to sit next to the brothers. He looks over at them once and then away, sighing deeply. "May I be straight with you?" he asks. "There's something on my mind that's been haunting me, and I don't think I should keep it to myself anymore."

"Paige?"

"Of course."

"O-of course," Leaf repeats a bit awkwardly.

OJ looks straight down at the floor and twiddles his thumbs. "Do you recall the Halloween sleepover?" Leaf nods. "Yes, well... I may have overheard some things I shouldn't have during it."

"What do you mean?" Leaf asks, confused. He was there during that entire night and he doesn't remember anything OJ could be talking about.

"When you were talking with Sue downstairs."

"...Okay?"

"Do you... remember what you two were talking about?"

"We were..." Leaf gasps and frowns, looking over at the other. "You... you heard us talking about..."

OJ nods. "I didn't mean to eavesdrop, honestly! But you two were already in the midst of conversation and I didn't want to be heard and assumed to be some sort of snoop." He bites his lip. "Even though I ended up snooping regardless, both then and now."

"Now?" Leaf asks warily. "What do you mean now?"

In lieu of an answer, OJ asks, "...May I ask your name?"

"Wh-what's the big idea?" Leaf has lost his fake Paige voice by now, taken aback. "What are you trying to... what are you saying?"

OJ gives an upset hum. "Forgive me for prying, please. But once I heard about your plight, I ended up researching it. I didn't know what all your experiences were, but from what I heard they sounded like they were a lot to deal with on one's own. So I thought maybe, if I were to find out more about what you were talking about, I could help you in navigating whatever it was.

"I did a lot of searching with a lot of different keywords and hit a lot of brick walls. I don't think I'd ever hit so many brick walls in any of my research, honestly. But, eventually things started to make sense as I narrowed down on several different things that could be ailing you and ultimately settled on the one thing I think matched up with everything I heard. And, with what I just heard, I can only reaffirm my thoughts."

He looks up at Leaf and has a small, pensive smile on his face. "So, um... I suppose to close off all my roundabout rambling, I can only ask one question. Paige, do you know what dissociative identity disorder is?"