To Put On An Act [bxb]

Chapter 32 - DYING IN A HOT TUB

And through all of that, he was supposed to remember anything? He just hadn't- existed up to this point in time. Nothing had ever come before now. Yet the weight of six painful weeks pressed down on his chest.

"I don't know shit," he concluded, and Margo sighed.

"Where are we right now, Alex?"

Where was he? Not hell, apparently. He blinked slowly, then looked around. Light, and dark, water around him and the night sky above him, the moon, not quite full, staring back at him.

Not hell, certainly. Quite the opposite, actually. A familiar place, surroundings he'd seen a million times before, because he'd been spending summer nights and snowy afternoons here for years. The first place Alex had ever been able to call something of a home.

The backyard of the Villanueva family was spacious, big enough for three kids (four, if you counted the basically adopted Alex) and the ambitious building projects of their father. One of these projects was a lovely fire pit, then there was the pizza oven built from clay, then the swingset, and lastly, the hot tub.

So he was alive. He was real. He wasn't dead, he wasn't dreaming, he was right here and alive and still a broken mess.

"What happened?" His voice had begun shaking as soon as the realisation hit him. That things were real. That he was real. That something must've happened, and he still felt the aftermath.

"Some idiot knocked you into Min's pool." The feared angel lifted her veil. She, too, was real, she existed, was familiar, was a relief to face. Beneath thin fabric and a painted on skull were Lani's eyes, glistening like emeralds, a sight Alex had believed to not see again so soon. "You can say thanks to Margo, she jumped in and pulled you out."

Margo nodded, pretended to put a proud look on her face. It was easy to tell how much pain laid behind it though.

"And they say HRT makes your muscles shrink!" She then cleared her throat, her act dropped immediately. "Also, I mean, a couple of people helped to actually pull you out of that pool."

"And?" What else did Alex want to hear? What else was there to explain?

"And? And then we tried to keep you from passing out, didn't work by the way, and then we stuffed you into my car, and then you threw up in my driveway, and then we dunked you in here because you looked like you were freezing to death." Lani exhaled, anger still filled her voice as though it had never left her after the argument.

"Sorry," Alex let out, sinking deeper into the hot tubs bubbling water.

"Alex, don't-" Lani exhaled, stared down at her legs that she had only dipped into the warm water, unlike Margo who sat opposite to Alex almost fully submerged, still fully clothed. After a couple of seconds of silence, she looked back up a second time, eyes brimming with frustration. "How are you feeling?"

He'd fucked it up last time she'd asked him this question. Alex hadn't learned. Never would. Never in his life would he ever learn anything.

That was his curse. That he'd mess things up, and then repeat to do it. The same procedure, the same result, and yet Alex always expected something to change. To bend. To go out well for him. Or maybe he didn't. Maybe fucking up was all he wanted.

He could've just come to terms with it. That nothing ever worked out and that he didn't want things to work out. He didn't care about himself, he could've just finally accepted it. For nineteen years he'd just existed and let everything around him crumble because when the fuck had he ever cared?

When had he ever actually enjoyed and cherished things, moments, people? He'd always just existed, and sometimes he'd been able to taste what life could be like, just to become scared of it again. Like a beaten dog terrified of gentle touch.