Just Before You Go

When Jimmy and I woke up from our impromptu nap, it took Jimmy a while to become coherent. Which was fine, because I was awoken by my anxieties anyway. From the second my eyes split open, I was thrust back onto the rollercoaster of my life. The way I’d treated Tyler weighed heavily on my heart; I wondered if, perhaps, this was why Blair was always so willing to look past the bitter taste Ty had a tendency to leave behind.
The alternative was unrelenting guilt.
I sat in silence, knees pulled to my chest. I ran over the short almost-romance we’d shared and once I’d gotten through its entirety, I ran through it again. I’d been so callous of my effects on him, as if to acknowledge that I’d played any part in his behavior was appalling. But I had, hadn’t I? I’d accidentally bridged a gap that should have been left as void as ever. And then I’d had the audacity to criticize his feelings about it.
Of one thing I was sure: I was impulsive to a fault.
I’d practically trampled on the man’s heart and then turned around and made sweet with Jimmy in front of him. Given Blair and Jimmy’s whirlwind, it didn’t take much guessing to extrapolate just how terrible Tyler must have felt. As if being second place wasn’t bad enough; to add insult to injury, I’d demoted him to last. He had quickly become insignificant; disposable…I hated to think I had the power to make anyone feel anything…But I did. And I’d utterly abused it.
So, then, how much of Tyler’s doing was placed upon my shoulders? Just how much blame could I claim as my own? Was it all my fault? Was it anyone’s? Were these simply the cards Tyler had been dealt and the actions of others simply didn’t phase him at all? I was beyond confused.
Perhaps it’s because I’d never struggled with a mental illness. I’d never known a depth I couldn’t crawl back from. I couldn’t imagine living life in a chasm, where the light reflected off the wings of the ravens circling their prey. It must be lonely down there, dwelling in the hell your mind has created for you despite your best attempts at resistance.
I’d offered a hand only to say goodbye. I’d left him worse off than how I’d found him—there was no way that his darkness was not now partly on my conscience. It was entirely on my conscience…but how much truly fell on my shoulders? Could I ask? Was that insensitive? Was that peeling back the skin of a wound better left to fester?
“You’re making a face,” Jimmy’s voice broke me of my desolation.
I frowned up at him, unable to mask my sincere heartache. The guilt that tore through me was enough to burn the world to fucking dust.
How Blair had lived with this sinking feeling for most of her life was beyond me. This was my first encounter with a life so fleeting and I was absolutely reeling from the pain. The guilt fed into that too, reminding me that this wasn’t my pain. Was I inherently selfish?
Weren’t we all?
“What’s the matter?” he asked sadly, sinking onto the couch cushions by my side.
I wasn’t sure Jimmy was the appropriate audience to voice my concerns to. While I was sure he’d understand, given that he harbored his own darkness deep beneath that exuberant shell, I wasn’t sure I was willing to be so reckless with yet another soul. What good could come from drudging up the past between us? Surely it would sting him the way that incessant sound of a headboard still terrorized my dreams.
“Can I guess?” Jimmy offered sheepishly.
I just sat there, frowning. Like a child in a corner. Spiders built homes around me I’d been sitting in my stew for so long.
Jimmy sighed, “Tyler weighing on your little heart there?”
“To say the least,” I choked, snapping out from my daze.
“Where’s your head at?” he asked casually, as if someone hadn’t just tried to take their own life.
I shrugged with my entirety, “I’m feeling…very…guilty.”
“Why?”
“I don’t think you’re the one to talk to about this,” I confessed feebly. “I think this might be better suited for Blair.”
Jimmy scrunched his face, “I’m just as good as Blair. Ask Brian; he says we’re interchangeable!”
I let a sound that slightly resembled a laugh slip through my down-trodden lips.
“I want to help,” Jimmy pouted. “Let me in.”
“I’m just…” I hesitated, taking a deep breath of oxygen deep into my labored lungs. “I feel like I, kind of, threw Tyler to the side…you know? I didn’t think twice about how it might make him feel…What it might do to him.”
Jimmy nodded along, hanging off each and every one of my thoughts.
“I do that all the time,” I whined. “I just do what I want. I say what I want. Why don’t I have any regard for other people?”
“You do,” he told me softly. “Or you wouldn’t be all worked up right now.”
I sighed, “Yeah, I guess so…I just can’t shake this feeling like I’m not better than my family. Perhaps I’m cut from the same cloth as them after all.”
Jimmy shook his head, “Absolutely fucking not.”
“What I’ve done is no different than what they’ve done,” I noted, the guilt eating at my chest. “I want what I want…and I don’t ever apologize for it. I just…take it.”
“You and I both,” Jimmy concurred. “But I don’t think that sets you in line with your parents, Aria. You’ve never ostracized someone for doing shit differently than you’d do it.”
I couldn’t hear him. I was far too consumed with the worrying revelations my mind was springing onto my warring soul.
“I’m fucking selfish,” I whispered.
Jimmy’s eyes burdened with empathy. I felt a little like I was preaching to the choir, and while normally I think it would have comforted me, this time it did not. I was swimming in the smoke of my wrongdoings and I didn’t want anyone to pull me out. I deserved this. I deserved to choke on the demise I’d caused. This was my fault.
“Aria,” Jimmy finally spoke. “Whatever Tyler is going through…It isn’t your fault. I know that you think it is. But it isn’t.”
“How do you know?” I pressed desperately. “It feels a lot like it’s my fault.”
He shook his head slowly, casting his glance down to the floorboards, “I kind of get Tyler. I don’t talk about it a lot…I’ve seen firsthand what that kind of openness can do to a person’s brain.”
My mind floated to Blair—that worry she wore on her sleeve like a badge of dishonor. Every second of the day, that poor girl looked so endlessly preoccupied. She was helplessly alone, struggling through Tyler’s shadows in every effort to pull him back to the light. She was losing herself trying to save him.
She was a fraction of a person. I wasn’t sure she knew how to be a person.
“I’m not saying I would do what Tyler did,” Jimmy continued cautiously. “But I fucking get it. And it has nothing to do with anyone else. It isn’t your fault. It isn’t Blair’s fault. It’s no one’s fault.”
“You’re saying nothing I did effected what’s happened?” I challenged flatly. “I can’t swallow that pill.”
He shrugged lazily, “I think Tyler would have ended up this way whether he met you or not. I think that while your concerns are totally justified, maybe you’re giving yourself a bit too much credit.”
That felt a lot like an insult. A typical backhanded, usually accidental, Jimmy type of insult.
“All we can do is learn,” Jimmy tried to smile. “If you don’t like the light you’ve cast on yourself, change it. You have a shot to be someone else, Aria. If that’s what you want.”
I nodded, letting that guilt sink deep into my bones until they were warped and broken. There was nothing to be done to remedy this but to wait for time to slip by and hope it took my wounds with it.
But maybe Jimmy was right. Maybe I could change. Maybe I could work to become self-aware. If I could avoid ever stepping over someone the way I had with Tyler ever again, I’d count it as a victory.
If I could save Tyler in the journey to bettering myself, I’d count that as a win, too.
“For the record,” Jimmy added more happily. “I love you just the way you are.”
I smiled faintly, letting Jimmy’s crystal blues wipe away the pain temporarily.
“Will you hate me if I go see him?” I asked lowly.
I was unsure how to muddle through the Tyler/Jimmy waters. Jimmy was wildly less possessive than I was, there was no denying that. But Tyler had been the catalyst that sent the entire Blair debacle into motion.
There I go again.
Tyler wasn’t the catalyst. Tyler didn’t have that power. I did it. It was my fault.
I shook my head internally at myself—maybe I was hopeless. It was going to be a long road.
Jimmy drew his head back as if I’d just slapped him, “I think I’d hate you if you didn’t.”
“Well I don’t know…” I trailed off nervously.
Jimmy smiled, “If you want to step in and try to help the guy, I’m not going to stand in your way. That’s who you are, Aria. I know it. You’re a fixer. You live to help people.”
“How do you know that?” I challenged, in absolute disbelief at that moment that I even possessed a beating heart.
He smirked, “Because you chose me in the first place.”
I scoffed.
“I’m serious!” he insisted. “You knew I was a bit…fucked.”
He made himself laugh with his eloquence.
“But you took on the challenge anyway,” he smiled fondly. “And you’ve loved me despite the shit I’ve done to you…You’ve always pushed me to be the person I want to be. Even when I was a total fuck to you…It’s in your nature not to give up on people.”
I melted a little, “Yeah, but that’s different.”
“It’s not, really,” he shrugged. “Love is love. You can love Tyler and it’s not going to ruffle any of my feathers, man.”
“I don’t love Tyler,” I informed him.
He laughed, “Sure you do. Not enough to leave me…But enough to leave yourself for a while.”
I furrowed my brows at him.
“You’re already doing it,” he grinned, smug in his ability to read me like a children’s picture book. “If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be sitting here obsessing about the ways that it might be your fault.”
I opened my mouth to object but quickly closed it again. How did this person know me so well? I quietly commended myself for choosing such a wonderful creature to share my life with.
“You should go and see him,” he told me, slapping his hand down onto my knee lightly. “And I’ll go see Blair. We’ll tag team this shit.”
I tried to smile. But the idea of seeing Tyler cooped up inside that tiny hospital room again was enough to unnerve me all over again. I forced myself to cling to the positives; he was alive. He was able to sit inside that tiny room. There was still a life left to save.
Jimmy was right, as fucking usual. If I didn’t try to save him, I’d hate myself forever. I was willing to sacrifice my stability in favor of helping Blair to share the load. Tyler may not have always deserved that devotion, but Blair did. Down to her very core, as muddied and thickened with smoke as it was, she was deserving of all the love in the world.
And she deserved Tyler’s love. I could fight for that.
It was then that I realized I must have loved Tyler. In the way I could see Jimmy falling for Blair. It wasn’t an all-encompassing love affair meant to stop the hands of time with its impact. No, no. It was the type of love that you’re only lucky enough to stumble upon a few times in your life. A selfless, loyal, and consuming kind of adoration that you’d never be able to understand if you crossed that line into romanticism.
It was borne out of ashes and carried the weight of the world. In the way that I knew Blair desperately needed the love Jimmy had to give, I knew that Tyler needed it too. They’d leaned on each other for so long that now it was time to fall apart.
And Jimmy and I would work together to catch them both.

Notes

Something (somewhat) uplifting to mark the hundredth chapter! This is typically about the place where I'd bail out on the story, but there's a bit more to tell still. Hope you guys are ready for the ride to come.

It's going to be a bit bumpy.

xx