"She didn’t realize how much depends on what you’re remembered for. Sometimes, it’s so much better to be forgotten."
—Lauren Oliver
chapter 15
"I swear to potatoes there's something in my eye." Gus groans, rubbing his palm from his eyebrow to the side of his nose.
"It's brain cells," Fen says. "They're trying to crawl out of you knowing they don't belong because you have no brain."
Ouch.
Bar instantly glares at the hot-tempered chick, knowing that his best friend was probably taking the words to heart.
"Why a-are you, you being so mean today, Fen?" Clementine asks, popping a piece of an orange into her mouth as Bar hands it to her and kisses her forehead.
He often peeled her oranges, knowing the little goddess hated doing so herself but loved the taste.
"No reason." Fen scowl argued with the words as she crossed her arms as she leans back.
"I called my future bae Aspen-Faye— Hey! That rhymes!— instead of AJ or Fen and now she's being a crabby, beautiful ass towards me." Gus explains, beaming towards Clementine.
The little goddess giggles and nods and everyone goes back to their respective activities.
Law tried to help a confused Gus with school work and momentarily failed— a common occurrence, but tried again nonetheless.
Fen beings to talk to Elijah about divinities and religion, momentarily dragging Bar into it while Clementine sat on his lap, contently eating an orange.
"Do you believe in God?"
Bar snorts. "Fuck no."
How could he believe in a God that allowed a father like the one he had to live an unpunished life with no shame?
"Why?" Eli looked confused.
Fen was indifferent, believing in nothing— no afterlife, no divine intervention pulling at strings, no big man in the clouds, and no slandered angelic son rotting away in hell.
Eli, on the other hand, was a firm believer that there was a God, and that he is kind.
"Because," Bar shrugs. "Even if God was real he wouldn't have my faith. Good is hard to believe in. Bad is easy to see, it's everywhere. Besides, the God you are talking about isn't benevolent. What sort of God is kind when they make beings who so easily are ready for their own demise?"
A God that lets a father beat his child.
A God that let Bar hurt Clementine.
A God that didn't care about his children or prayers or bad sons or bad fathers or dead mothers or bullies or abuse.
A God whose an absentee father himself.
"Ugh!" Conway suddenly groans, disrupting the tension strumming through Bar as he slams his phone onto the table, slumping in his chair. "Why are the girls who like being choked and submissive during sex the same ones who cry when yelled at?"
What a dick, Bar thought.
"Because, asshole," Bar snarled. "There's a big difference between being sexually dominated and verbally amused. I hope to fuck that any girl who respects herself stays away for you, and the ones who don't."
"T-they do," Clementine whispers into Bar's ear and he snorts.
"Come on, Red." Fen rolls her eyes. "If no girls went around him, he'd be left with blue balls."
"And I care because?" Bar blinked.
"Because then he'd start hitting on the baby orange again," Fen said, making Conway turn to the goddess and wink.
Without pause or hesitation, Bar struck his leg out and toppled the brunette out of his chair.
Shrieking, Conway crashed to the floor, eyes wide and mouth shocked open.
The whole table bursts out laughing besides Clementine, who stifled her giggles neck, and Gus who is too preoccupied being frustrated.
Glaring, Conway pulls himself up while Fen high-fives Bar.
"Ugh! I'm worthless," Gus grumbled a moment later, starting in disdain at his math homework.
To anyone else, it would've been an innocent comment.
A comment that was thoughtless, perhaps, or just simply one of pure vexation— one not really meant to be taken seriously.
But Bar and Lawrence?
They knew better.
But, before they could interject and correct Gus of his actual value, Fen cut in and said something she really shouldn't have.
"No you're not your worthless," She rolls her eyes. "You're just really good at worthless things. Like being annoying. So useless, not worthless."
Eli and Clementine don't even seem to notice the importance of the conversation and Fen, joking, doesn't care much but the other trio of best friends were frozen in their spots— waiting for what they knew would come next.
Bar and Law shared a look before they slowly edged closer to Gus.
"Augustine..." Law started slowly, cautiously. "You're not—"
But Gus didn't stick around to hear what he had to say.
He bolted from his seat, basically tripping over himself in the process, feet slapping against the cafeteria's tiled floor in rapid succession.
His chest was heaving and his body was shaking and Bar could tell— Bar could tell with just one look that a panic attack was on the rise.
And he knew why, that much was obvious.
Fen just fed into Gus's dark thoughts.
Fen agreed with him; she helped him prove that his worthless, self-assured status was right.
She just fucked up— bad.
"Gus, wait!" Law shouted and swore a second later when his best friend only broke out into a sprint.
Gus, like Bar, was a runner.
He had to be caught to be calmed down but that wasn't the worst of it— the worst of it was that his lungs protested running and that protest could prove to be lethal.
Asthma.
"Damnit," Law slams his fists on the table, not caring about an angry looking Bar and everyone else at the table now pin-still in confusion as he rushes after Gus, pulling out an inhaler as he did so.
Both Bar and Law kept an extra one of Gus's inhalers on them at all times, in case something like this happened.
Quickly but with tenderness to his touch, Bar lifted Clementine off of his lap and placed her on Law's old chair. He kisses her forehead and ignores the questions in her minty eyes.
He doesn't have the time to answer them, but he does remember to give her a finger boop.
Standing immediately afterward, Bar snarls out, "Never fucking tell him he's worthless or useless, got that? Never. You— fuck it."
Bar didn't even look at his little goddess as he started to run after his best friends, prepared to take out everything in his way.
He had to get to Augustine.
He just had to.
There was a reason why Bar, Law, and Gus were such close friends.
Why they trusted each other with secrets— why Bar trusted them with his abuse and everything going on in his head, why they knew about Law's father and how that deadbeat abandoned him because of his epilepsy, and why they knew about Gus's crippling self-worth and why Gus was that way, too.
All of them, at one point or another, were told they were worthless, useless, that they were better off dead— and they believed it.
And Gus?
He got it the worst of all with his insecurities; worse than Bar.
Bar hated himself because he thought he was a monster and that he was incapable of being loved— but Gus hated himself because he thought that he didn't deserve to be loved even if he could be. Even if he wanted to be.
Gus thought he was a burden.
His emotionally and mentally abusive, unstable mother made sure of that.
Gus and Bar and Law have been through too much for a lifetime— too much pain and abuse and too much self-hate.
Gus didn't deserve it, Bar knew that. He knew that neither of his best friends did.
Gus was a loveable goofball, he loved annoying people and loved seeing how much it took to rile them up.
Because it covered up his fears.
He'd rather be annoying for reasons he could control than for his personality, he'd rather piss someone off on purpose than make a mistake, he'd rather wear a mask than have his true self analyzed.
It was something the three of them understood.
Gus blankets up his insecurities with a stupid, go-lucky smile and charismatic attitude; Law covers up his sensitivities with swear words and a calm demeanor; Bar hides away his kind heart behind a dagger-edged tongue and steely glare.
Fen telling Gus that he, in fact, was useless was worse than any physical blow.
It reinstated the fact that he wasn't wanted, that he was and never will be good enough.
And it triggered something inside of Gus to just... switch and it would be for a while from this day forward.
Something more mellow, something sad, to be presented in his behavior.
Fen, unknowingly, really screwed up.
When Bar found his best friends Law was crouched by a shaking Gus, who panted between puffs out of his inhaler, back to a set of lockers and eyes welled with tears.
Fuck, now Bar really wanted to fight someone.
No one should be able to hurt his best friend and get away with it.
Even if it was a goddamn accident.
Bar sat next to his best friend and slipped off his warm jacket, wrapping it around Gus's shoulders and leaving him in a loose long sleeve.
He knew that Gus hated feeling vulnerable, so being covered helps.
Law sat next to them too and locks eyes with Bar— communicating silently.
Both of them know that this won't be something the goof could just slip off his shoulders, no, this will dig into his skin like peddles do when you fall on broken concrete and if it could, it would've drawn blood.
This will hurt.
This Gus won't forget.
"You're not worthless or useless. Fen wasn't serious, that isn't an excuse but still." Law started, trying to comfort Gus.
Bar continued, "She shouldn't have fucking said that because we all know it's not true. It's not true, you matter. You matter."
Gus shook his head and took another deep inhale, tears now staining his shame-stained, red cheeks.
Bar frowned and wrapped his arm around his best friend's shoulders. Both him and Law gave Gus a side-ways hug, trying to make him feel secure in his spot and self.
Though, Bar knew it did little to help.
But all someone really needs at times is a reminder that someone else is there for them.
All someone needs is to not feel so alone anymore.
"It's literally so fucking impossible for you to be worthless, Augustine." Bar informed sharply. Law nodded along, agreeing. "You fed my cat when I was out of town, you help me calm down when I... try to do something stupid, you patch me up after my bastard of a father takes a couple of hits at me, you help me with this loser," He slaps Law's chest. "Whenever he gets a seizure. You're genuinely cool to hang out with. Like, the hell, if I thought you were the least bit worthless or useless I would've kicked your ass to the curb a long fucking time ago. You know that."
Gus did know that, and it helped.
Bar and Law sat there, talking to Gus about all his good qualities and the bell rings and they stay.
They sit there and comfort their best friend, trying to get Gus to see the value in himself.
They sit there, comforting their weeping friend.
They sit there even after his shaking stops. They sit there until the inhaler can safely be put away. They sit there until the tears stop.
They sit there and try to be good friends; to be the good people everyone says they can't become.
By the end of the day, they're tired but successful.
"You okay?" Law asks, breaking the comfortable silence.
Gus just nods but pretty soon, he bawls his eyes out again, gasping for air, and nails digging into his palm.
A tragic, heartbreaking sight— to see someone so pure suffer.
Bar thought, just like himself, Gus wanted to feel something other than that crushing weight of depression.
They all did.
Law and Bar stayed next to their crying best friend until the halls became too crowded and not even their hardest glares could keep the rambling students and nervous freshmen away from them.
But since the last bell just rang, everyone was eager to get home and they understood the rush.
"Come on, man." Bar held out a hand to Gus as he stood, pulling the puffy-eyed teen up with him. "Let's go get some food and break shit."
"Okay, I want a tattoo." Gus rubs his nose and sniffles, more embarrassed about the panic attack than crying— by now all three of them knew there was no shame in tears.
"Yeah?" Bar says. "It'll hurt like shit the first time."
"It's going to be the mouse from Cinderella," Gus concludes, ignoring Bar's comment. "Y'know, the one named Gus?"
"I think that's a cool idea," Law said. "This weekend?"
"Yeah."
And just like that, the conversation died and all three of them are left to their own thoughts.
The trio walks together, Bar in front and making people edge away from them with his vicious glare. Gus in the middle and Law off to the side, daring anyone to come closure with his stone-faced, 'I can kill you' look.
As soon as they were in the hallway, the formerly weeping boy spoke up.
"Does Fen... Does she actually not like me? Hate me?" Gus mumbled out the question and Bar glanced over his shoulder to see as he rubbed his arms self-consciously.
"Nah," Law shook his head. "I don't think so, man. I just think she's one of those girls who likes to tease the shit out of you when they have a crush."
"She likes you, alright." Bar snorts. "I think a fireball of 'fuck no' flying right at my face would describe her personality pretty damn well, but she likes you. She didn't mean what she said, either."
Gus only shrugged in reply, an unnatural frown on his face as he stares at the ground.
Bar knew that his best friend wouldn't believe him until that hot-tempered girl herself told him.
The three of them take a right and find the little goddess nervously waiting by the lockers with her brother, the twins holding the trio's bags.
They quickly walk over, grimaces on the best friend's faces as the little goddess and Obsidian try to read them— trying to guess what happened.
It was evident by expressions alone that Clementine told her brother about the incident at lunch.
She was confused. They both were.
No surprise there.
"Wow," Gus sniffled again, eyes red as he takes grabs his back. "You're awesome, Potato Queen, my cookies are in there. Couldn't live without them."
The usual pep and happiness in Gus's voice is gone but he manages a weak smile that makes Clementine frown.
"Are you, are y-you okay, Auggy?" The little goddess asks, voice soft and full of concern.
"I'm okay," Gus smiled and it was real, and all because of the nickname Clementine gave him. "Or I will be. Sorry that I'm being weird, I'll be better tomorrow."
Bar hated that Gus felt like he needed to be some joy-filled, goofball to be liked.
He wished Gus was just himself— his actually silly, sweet self instead of trying to be annoying.
Because the actual Gus was a very good person to have around.
"You don't n-need to a-apologize." She said. "Because even, even if you're not o-okay, that's okay too. You can be a-as weird as you want. I'll be your friend no m-matter what."
Bar could've scooped Clementine up into a kiss right then and there by how he could tell the little goddess and her words were cheering up his best friend.
Law and Bar made Gus feel better but they're like brothers; Clementine was a breath of fresh reassurance that made Gus important.
Bar was exceedingly grateful.
"Thank you, Queeny." Gus ruffled her hair in an affectionate, platonic way. "I'm gonna return Bar back to you now because if he doesn't get enough of your attention, he goes really fucking crabby."
Bar frowns, not even denying it and asks, "You sure? I can always go with you."
The brute really wanted to make sure Gus would be okay.
"We can just call later." Gus rolled his eyes, shoving Bar's shoulder making his long sleeve wrinkle. "I'll be with Law, winning at the magnificently confusing chess game."
Bar slings his bag over his shoulder before walking over to Clementine and wrapping her in his arms, enjoying how her head rests on his chest like it was meant to be there.
Hugging her always felt like returning home after being overseas in a strange, terrifying world.
It was always welcoming.
Pulling back a second later, Bar kisses her nose and holds her hand to keep contact while their bodies disconnected.
"It's not confusing," Law said. "You just don't have a particular talent towards it, you always lose."
"Eh." Gus grinned. "Makes you annoyed, so that's a win for me."
"Dickhead," Law scowled, grabbing his bag from Obsidian who had a lost look on his face the entire conversation.
"You love me," Gus sings, before turning to the older twin. "You wanna be our Bar 2.0? Renewed and better and as a replacement?"
Bar refrained from swearing at his best friend.
Blinking, Obsidian cocks his head to the side and shrugs, "What're you doing? And I'm fine being an Obsidian 1.0, I don't think I can pull off the tattoos or swear words as nicely."
"Yeah." Bar agreed. "And you can't fight for shit."
"At least I don't fight." The older twin retorts.
"Might come in handy one day, dandelion ass."
"Anyways," Gus claps his hands together. "We're getting fries and milkshakes and we're paying so we're kidnapping you, c'mon."
Wrapping his arm around the shorter boy's neck, Gus drags a protesting Obsidian away.
"Stop, idiot! I never agreed to this!"
"That's why I said kidnapping, you're slow."
"I'm not slow."
"Uh-huh, then why are you being dragged?"
"Because I'm being kidnapped!"
"Pfft, who would believe such rubbish?"
Once their friends and Clementine's twin was out of earshot, the little goddess faced Bar as they walked and frowned.
"Will h-he be okay?"
He appreciated that the little goddess didn't ask what happened.
Bar wouldn't know how to explain it all.
"Gus is tough." Bar sighed, running his free hand through his ebony strands. "He could probably go through anything and be okay in the end. Always bounces back. So yes, but not right away. Fen really hurt him, sweetheart. She didn't mean to but fuck, he even had a panic attack."
"O-oh." She looked down. "Is there any way I, I can help?"
"You already have, babygirl." Bar brings up her hand and kisses every knuckle. "So, thanks for that."
With a blush, Clementine responds, "I-I don't know what I did b-but you're welcome."
"Just being there for him is what you did." Bar explained. "He doesn't have a lot of support besides Law and I."
"That's s-sad and it sounds lonely."
Clementine truly had no idea how loneliness had a habit of crawling into Bar's and his best friends' beds well past midnight and keeping them awake, whispering how alone they were and making them feel like they deserved it, too
She had no idea how much Bar wished he could change that, either.
She really didn't.