✾ Bittersweet ✾
I lay face-down in my bed, breathing through the sheets because I didn't have enough energy to roll over and clear my airway.
"You look shitty."
I groaned. I'd heard her come in, but still hadn't moved.
"Get up, freak," she said, shoving my arm. Sallie grumbled to herself as she used her full strength to roll me into my side without any help on my end. "Why are you lying here like a corpse? Last time you were like this was right after you left home."
"I am a corpse," I said, not playing the part all that well.
Sallie sat on the bed beside me, looking around. "You realize how depressing it is in here?"
"Yes, I realize," I replied.
"So you're doing it on purpose?" she asked, raising a thin, perfectly shaped eyebrow.
"I'm stuck," I said.
Sallie looked at me. "Stuck," she repeated.
"Stuck."
"That's not what it seems like to me," she said, standing up and walking to the balcony. She slid the door open, and a cool breeze snaked into the room, disturbing everything. I winced at the chill.
"It's November, Sallie," I complained.
"You gotta leave this room, bud," she said, walking back towards me.
"I can't."
"You're going to run out of cash, Ren," she said. "You need to get painting."
I propped myself up on my elbows, confused. "How do you know I'm not painting?"
She shrugged. "I have my ways."
"Sallie," I warned.
She sighed, rolling her eyes and drooping her shoulders. "Fine. Liam told me."
"You talk to Liam?"
"Despite how he is definitely a human toilet, when he calls me and asks me if you're ok, yes. I lower myself to his level out of concern for my friend," she said. "Speaking of which, how did I not know that something was going on with you? Since when do we not talk about this stuff? I was the first person you came to after everything with your parents."
"It's not like that," I said, slowly sitting up.
"What is it like?" she asked. "I'm all ears."
My brain felt like organ soup. I closed my eyes. "I have no idea what it's like, actually. But it's not like that."
"You're not making any sense," she said. She slapped a hand against my forehead. "Are you sick? You don't feel hot."
I smacked her hand away. "I'm not sick."
"Then why are you acting like an insane person?" she said. "Sickness would be a valid excuse for not talking to me."
"I don't know what's going on," I admitted.
She frowned. "That might also be a valid excuse. What can you tell me?"
"That I feel guilty all the time," I said.
The frown deepened. "You're not really helping me out here. I know that you're saying that you don't know what's going on, but you probably do."
I bristled at the implication. "You think I'm lying to you?"
"No, I think you're lying to yourself."
I swallowed and collapsed back into the bed. Sallie was a peculiar person, a people mechanic. She understood how they worked better than anyone I'd ever met, all the cogs, ticking bits, and wires. If she dropped some psychoanalytic advice on you, she was probably either not far from the truth or hitting the nail directly on the head.
"Why would I be lying to myself?" I asked, surrendering to her wisdom.
"The classic reason, most likely. There's something you don't want to admit, something that you can't change but you wish you could. So you pretend that it doesn't exist so that you can cope."
"But I don't know what it is that I'm pretending doesn't exist," I said absently. "I'm an asshole, but I've never lied to myself about Beau."
"Beau?" Sallie asked, her eyebrows shooting up.
"Oh."
"What about Beau?"
I sighed and slung an arm over my face. "Nothing."
"Something," she said, prying my arm away and looking me in the eye. "Laser eyes," she said.
I sighed, looking away. "Not about this, Sallie."
"If not about this, what do I get to I use them for?" she asked.
Laser eyes. Sallie's superpower, but also a promise between us. When we were younger, I joked about how Sallie's green eyes were like lasers and that they could make me do anything. The promise was that if she decided to really use them, it would be for a good reason. I'd have to fess up. Of course, it went the other way around, too. If I invoked laser eyes, even without the eye color to match it, she'd have to be honest with me, in return. A promise.
"I've been looking at him," I practically whispered. I couldn't resist the power of the laser eyes.
"You're an artist, Ren," Sallie deadpanned.
"No, not like that," I said. I felt a level of guilt equal to that I'd experience immediately after kicking a puppy.
"Ren," Sallie scolded. Her face fell.
"I know," I said. I felt my heart recoil at her judgement, shriveling up and hiding behind my other organs. I'd been hoping she'd remain neutral, but it was unfair of me to ask that. I was a brute, and I knew it.
"Since when?" she asked.
"A long time," I replied. "A long time. And I keep trying to stop it. I hooked up with Liam because of it."
"Ren, that was so not a good idea! I'm always telling you he's serial killer material. Liam's crazy!" Sallie shouted.
"I know that, but what was I supposed to do?"
"Find literally anyone else!"
"I can't!"
"Why not?"
"Because I don't like Liam, and it's easier that way."
Sallie scowled. "Literally anyone else, Ren."
"I don't want anyone else."
"You don't want Liam?"
"No. I don't care much about Liam."
"So you had sex with Liam because you don't like him, and it's easier to have sex with someone you don't like because you want to have sex with Beau...but you don't want to have sex with him? Because you like him?"
"What even..." I groaned. "I don't want to hurt him. I don't want to take advantage of him or lead him astray. I'm not great with morality, Sallie."
"I know that better than anybody," she said quietly.
"Then you get why I can't bring him into this," I said. "I'm worried about him. I'm worried about him even when there's no reason to be worried about him. And I'm selfish with him. Even when you two are hanging out, a little piece of me is frustrated because I just want him to spend time with me. It's toxic, and I can't stand that I have so little control of it."
Sallie bit her lip. She shook her head. "I don't know."
"What?"
"I don't know," she said again.
"Laser eyes," I said.
She crossed her arms over her chest. "Fine. I'm just wondering, is all. What makes you think you'd be so bad for him?"
"You're kidding," I said. "You've seen my room. I've hurt more people than I can count. I can't even remember some of their names any more. That is, if I ever even knew them at all. I'm an asshole, remember?"
"When have you ever done something to hurt Beau?" she asked. I couldn't answer. "You've helped him so much. I've never seen you care so much about a person. Not even me."
"Sallie, that's-"
"True. Don't lie. I'm too smart," she said, clearly not offended at all. "What I'm saying is that the issue with all those other people, the people you keep stored up in your room out of guilt, is that you never cared about them at all. It's the other way around with Beau."
"I don't know what would happen, Sallie. I become this...gross, evil version of myself. Every time I get close to someone, I somehow find a way to push them away."
Sallie lay down beside me, her hair sprawling around her like a golden halo. What would I do without her? "Because caring is scary," she said.
"Beau's too delicate. If I hurt him in any way, he'd shatter." I looked at her. "I'd never forgive myself."
Sallie rolled onto her side and stared me down. "I know I call him Duckling, but he's much braver than you give him credit. Aren't you the one who's always going on and on about how admirable he is? How strong he is?"
I grimaced. "Maybe. With his parents. With school. But he's so pure. He's inexperienced. Sallie, I met him when he was trying to throw himself off of a building."
Her face changed slightly, but she pushed on. "You think he's the same person he was when you met him? Lying to yourself, Ren," she sang, reminding me of her diagnosis.
"I'm not," I insisted.
"How deep does this go?" she asked.
"Does what go?" But she just gave me an expectant look. "I have no idea what you mean."
"How would you feel if Beau left? Really imagine it. He doesn't live here anymore. He doesn't call. You never see him again. What do you do?"
"Try to find him," I said immediately.
"And if he doesn't want to be found?"
"Try to find him anyway. Explain myself."
"What do you explain?"
"How I feel."
"How do you feel?"
"I don't know," I said, then cringed, pushing myself. "No, I do."
"Let's move past this wall, Ren. How do you feel?" she pushed.
"Afraid," I admitted. "Terrified."
"Why?"
"Because if Beau left me, I think I wouldn't work properly anymore. I think I would shut down entirely." I felt the ache of tears. I'd dislodged something in my chest, and it hurt.
Sallie sat up. She took my hand and looked at me with sympathy. "Ren, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it sounds an awful lot like you love Beau."
"I don't even know what that means." The words were more like an exhale than anything. I composed myself so I wouldn't start sobbing like a child.
"Maybe you're the inexperienced one, Ren," Sallie said, turning and swinging her stocking-covered legs over the side of the bed. I stared at her back, covered in a tacky winter sweater with Rudolph on it, which she somehow pulled off. She stood and offered me her hand.
Maybe I'm the inexperienced one. Did Beau know more about love than I did? Sure, maybe I knew more about sex, but... What was I so afraid of?
"Come on," Sallie said. "Get up, weirdo. Let's grab some food. We'll talk this through more, if you want to."
I nodded, letting her pull me to my feet. "Thank god you came along."
"You've been worrying about this for a while all on your own, huh?" she said.
The blood drained from my face. I held her hand tightly, a thought popping into my head. "Does Beau know? You didn't tell him, right? He's not--"
She rolled her laser eyes. "Calm down. You'd win the olympic gold for jumping to conclusions. I didn't even know about this until just now. How the hell would I have told him? If he knows, he didn't tell me anything about it. And he tells me quite a bit."
"Like what?"
She glared at me. "I get that we're best friends, but I like Beau. I'm not going to tell you anything."
I nodded. "Fair."
"Let's go."
I shook my head. "You get around, huh?"
She smiled devilishly. "People like to tell me things."
"It's the laser eyes," I said. I thought for a second. "God, I can't believe you talked to Liam. You hate him."
"He's somebody else's gum on the bottom of your shoe," she said matter-of-factly.
"He's not so bad. He told me he's going to Florida," I said, tugging my boots on.
"Wasn't that where you two frolicked like a pair of buffoons for a while? Boys-gone-wild style?"
I scoffed. "We kept busy."
"Gross," she said. "I think you should forget about him. Good riddance. Let him go to that sweaty state with the oranges and old people. You stay here and figure this out with Beau. He's a sweet kid, and he deserves someone as amazing as my best friend."
I shrugged my coat on. "That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."
She punched my shoulder. "I'm nice to you all the time. You're just not good at realizing it because you hate on yourself so much. Be proud of who you are."
She pulled the door open and turned to look at me. "Got your keys?" When she saw what I'm sure was a peculiar look on my face, she paused. "What?"
"I love you, you know?" It made sense. The people that are close to you, that care for you as much as you care for them...they're the ones that matter. Love is just a word. It doesn't mean anything until you put a face to it.
She smiled, all soft. The laser eyes faded to sunlight through forest canopy. "I knew that already, but it's nice to hear it for once. Love you, too. Weirdo," she said, pulling me into a hug. "Now...pay for my lunch."