Just Before You Go

I left the bathroom only once Blair was firmly reassuring me that she was alright to bathe alone. It didn’t seem like a good time to engage in some lesbian fantasy, so I obliged her and left her to her privacy. When I emerged from the abyss, Brian was weepy as hell. He’d never pegged me as empathetic; it was a little heartwarming, if you removed the severity from the situation.
“Is she okay?” Brian asked.
“Would you be?” I retorted more callously than was deserved.
Brian sank into himself.
“I’d be a wreck if you died, man,” Jimmy informed Brian with a hand planted firmly onto his shoulder. “I can’t imagine having a friend that dances that line...I don’t think I’ve ever given Blair enough credit.”
Brian shook his head, “Me neither.”
“We need to keep her afloat,” Jimmy announced to our little group.
Brian and I both nodded.
Jimmy looked around quickly before slapping his hands against his knees, “How do we do that?”
“Fuck, I don’t know,” Brian sighed, leaning all the way back into the sofa.
The air was thick inside Blair’s small apartment. I was still stunned by her lifestyle; but this wasn’t the time to marvel in her modesty.
“We should go,” I spoke for Jimmy and I. “I think Blair needs you right now,” I said with a lazy point at Brian. “We’re just in the way.”
“I want to help,” Jimmy frowned.
“That is helping,” I tried to smile.
Brian nodded, looking further away from reach than ever. I hoped I never had to face a situation like this ever again. My heart was aching for Blair and my soul was burdened for Brian. It’s the most difficult thing in the world, to watch someone you love in pain. I think it’s worse than enduring the infliction yourself.
We said a quick goodbye, instructing Brian to let Blair know we’d be around to check in. Brian gave us the keys to his car and made Jimmy swear he’d drive like a normal human being.
I adored the way Brian was always ready to protect Blair. From herself, from Tyler, from the world. There was absolutely no denying his affection for her.
“Are you okay?” Jimmy asked me as we sauntered down the hall.
I nodded.
“I know Tyler is important to you,” Jimmy thought aloud. “It’s okay to...you know, not be okay.”
And there was absolutely no denying Jimmy’s affection for me.
“Can you do me a favour?” I asked in a hurry.
“Anything.”
“Can you take me to him?”
Jimmy nodded as I got to work on my monologue. There were so many things I wanted to say... so many things that needed to be aired. I wasn’t even sure there would be an ear to lay into when I got there... but for Blair’s sake, and my own, I had to try.
We parked as close as we could, walking briskly into the only hospital in the area. There could be nowhere else to go. We tried to talk some sense into the front desk receptionist but she flat out refused to give out Tyler’s information.
Even as a B-range celebrity, he was under lock and key.
“Well fuck,” Jimmy grumbled. “Now what?”
I didn’t want to call Blair. I refused. There had to be a way...there had to be something I could do without burdening Blair before she was ready.
And then, as if my magic, I saw Justin round the corner ahead. I dragged Jimmy as I began my hot pursuit.
“Justin!” Jimmy screeched, tired of my game of cat and mouse.
Justin whipped around, a wave of relief washing over him. He and Jimmy exchanged an ultra masculine one-armed hug.
“Where is he?” was all the formality I needed.
Justin gestured lazily up the hallway.
“Is he...” I couldn’t bring myself to say it.
Justin nodded, “I was just going to grab coffee, but I got totally fuckin turned around. This place smells like malaria.”
“It does,” Jimmy agreed seriously.
“What room is he in?” I asked, annoyed by their casualness.
But I supposed for Justin this wasn’t out of the ordinary. Blair’s reaction had somehow suggested that it was...even though I knew that to be untrue. I think there’s a difference between living it and wading in the shallows of the aftermath. Justin had the luxury of floating while Blair drowned.
“216B,” Justin told me.
“I’ll come help you with your search,” Jimmy volunteered, giving me a quick but reassuring smile.
I waited to pull my roots up. I waited until they were long gone and then I waited some more.
I ran through my thoughts one more time. He was going to get a piece of my mind. Feeling satisfied in my worried rage, I set out to find him.
The door to his room felt impossibly bold. It towered over me, fangs hanging from its glassy mouth. With every ounce of courage I had in me, I pushed myself through to the other side.
Every rehearsed thought I’d had slipped away in the very instant that my eyes met Tyler’s. He was in the bed, hooked up to four machines, each beeping more distinctly than the last. His skin was ghastly pale and he looked like he’d just crawled back from death’s doorstep. I guess he had.
“Aria,” he said, his voice surprised.
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to be. So I stood awkwardly by the door and sobbed my guts out.
Despite everything that had happened, I’d care about him once. I cared about him still. Just because he’d said some awful things to me doesn’t mean I wanted him to...die.
“Stop,” he cooed, almost with a laugh.
“I’m so mad at you,” I told him through the tears, trying to will them away.
He sighed.
I dared to approach him, feeling powerful as I loomed over him like a gargoyle. His eyes were emptied of all the life I’d always known.
“What happened?” I asked sternly. “What have you done?”
He shrugged, waving a bandaged arm around as he tried to walk me through his darkness.
“It doesn’t matter,” is what he landed on.
“It doesn’t matter?” I repeated back to him. “It doesn’t matter?!”
He nodded, “Right. We all have to go some time, Aria. What difference does it make when?”
“Do you understand what you’re doing? What you’re doing to the people that love you?”
He scoffed, “I’m disposable. Everyone is. There’s nothing that I offer to this world that someone else can’t do...maybe even do better.”
He really was sick. He offered these rationalities to me with such a nonchalant attitude that I almost let myself listen.
“And what about Blair?”
Tyler stiffened, “She’ll be okay.”
My mouth opened and closed as words failed me.
“She has Brian,” he shrugged. “And Jimmy. And you. She has the whole world at her fingertips...Fuck, she has herself. She can pull herself back from anything. She’d be okay.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” I breathed.
“I’ve known her forever,” he offered tiredly. “She...She deserves better than this. If I go...She’ll have a shot at a decent life.”
“Tyler, no.”
“I’m fucking tired, Aria. I don’t expect you to understand but Blair gets it. She’ll understand. She’ll forgive me.”
“Enough about you!” I heard myself shout. “Jesus Christ, Tyler! What about HER?”
He didn’t understand.
“I just came from her...She’s...She’s a mess.”
“No she isn’t,” he discarded, turning his gaze away from me. “She and I have been down this road...She’s never been a mess about it. She understands.”
“Understanding and accepting are two different things,” I informed him callously.
He swallowed hard.
“What is so wrong with your life?” I asked desperately.
His eyes snapped to lock on me, “It isn’t my life, Aria. You don’t get it.”
“Then help me!” I pleaded with an exasperated sigh.
“It’s...it’s,” he tapped at the side of his skull. “It’s like walking around in a cloud. Everything is hazy and heavy...the world below is so small and insignificant...and you know that you belong there, but then you know you’ll be small and insignificant too. Everything you touch, everything you do...none of it matters. It isn’t enough.”
I tried my best to wrap my head around it. I’d never struggled with depression. I didn’t know what it truly meant. I didn’t understand any of it, as much as I desperately wanted to in that moment.
He sighed, “It isn’t circumstantial...It’s existential.”
“You can’t just give up,” I said softly.
“What’s the alternative? Muddle on, pretending to be happy when I’m not?”
“Why don’t you fucking fight?” I challenged him, finding my footholds. “Instead of maintaining this bullshit outlook, why don’t you fight, Tyler?”
“You think I haven’t?” he asked me shallowly.
I shook my head.
“There’s nothing worth fighting for!” he growled, letting his shoulders slump. “It’s all for nothing!”
“What about Blair, huh?” I growled back. “Isn’t she worth fighting for? How can you do this to her? Don’t you love her?”
“Of course I love her,” Tyler gasped at my accusation. “I love her more than...more than anything.”
“Then why can’t you fight for her?”
He fell silent, like he’d asked himself that very question time and time again. It was no wonder Blair lacked all sense of self worth. She’d wrapped it up inside Tyler for so long that every time he failed her, she felt like she’d failed him too. Failed herself.
But I was envious of their relationship. I’d never had someone who would step up to the plate for me, even when they knew I was wrong. I’d never had anyone paint themselves in my doings, coating themselves in my mistakes.
“Isn’t she worth it?” I pressed.
He snapped, “She’s worth everything.”
“It shows.”
He rolled his eyes, “She knows.”
“Does she? Does she really? Because, I’ll tell you...She is a mess,” I went off. “Covered in your blood. Asking why she isn’t fucking enough.”
“Enough for what?” Tyler asked solemnly, his eyes absently finding the cotton bandages tied around each arm.
I tried not to notice just how big each bandage was and just how far they stretched.
“You,” I seethed.
Tyler’s eyes began to well.
“If you take yourself away from her,” I muttered. “You’ll ruin her forever. Even if she finds a way to get over the loss, she’ll never be the same. You know that, don’t you? Why would you want to hurt her?”
“I don’t,” Tyler groaned. “But I can’t live for someone else.”
“You mean the way Blair lives for you?” I countered pointedly.
Tyler stared at me.
“Please don’t do that to her,” I pleaded quietly, almost in a whisper. “Please don’t kill her, too. Because that’s what it will do, Tyler. It will kill her.”
His fingers picked at one of the bandages as he mulled over my words. I could tell they were pooling above the cracks in his shell, slowly dripping down into the core.
If Blair wasn’t strong enough to confess her unbridled need for her best friend, then I was thrilled to be her voice. I’d never seen another human so distressed; and I wasn’t going to let her stay that way.
After what I’d done to Tyler, as unintentional as it had been, I owed it to myself to try. I owed it to him to try. I just wanted so badly for him to hear me.
“I don’t know how to let this go,” Tyler told me quietly. “This is who I am...I don’t know how to stop being who I am.”
“Find a new person to be,” I offered pathetically. “Find a reason to crawl out of this...and then do it. You can’t stay in this place, Tyler. I won’t let you.”
“Why do you even care?” he seethed.
I shrugged lamely, “Because I care about you. Because I care about Blair. Mostly, though, because you were my friend once. I...I would hate for you to go. I think you can be an asshole...but I want you to be happy. That’s all I’d want for anyone. I care because you’re important. You’re not disposable. No one will come out of your death ‘okay’; including me. So it’s time to challenge that kind of backwards thinking.”
Tyler almost smiled. Almost.
“I’m really glad you’re still here,” I told him heavily. “You can still turn it around. You’re still here.”
He nodded.
Just as he opened his mouth to speak, the door burst open behind me.
There was a Blair, dressed all in black like the girl I knew. Her eyes were permanently stained red, all makeup peeled from her skin.
Tyler sat up at the sight of her, his soul bursting apart as her bottom lip quivered. This was not the Blair I knew; and from the look on Tyler’s face, this wasn’t the Blair he knew either.
“B,” he sighed.
Her forehead wrinkled as she tried her best to fight back her emotions.
Tyler burst into tears, realizing for the first time in over a decade that maybe Blair wasn’t okay at all. And maybe he was to blame for that.
“Come here,” he instructed her, holding his arms out wide.
She dashed across the room, diving into his chest as her heart poured itself out. He smiled faintly as his IV ridden arms wrapped around his best friend.
“Please don’t leave me,” she pleaded as she sobbed. “Please don’t go.”
He shook his head, “I’m not leaving. I’m right here.”
I took my leave, letting the two loves rekindle what was nearly ripped away. With my head thumping quietly against the closed door, I let myself break.
I wasn’t sure if tough love was the way to go but it was the only play I could think to make. For another day, at least, Blair had her lifeline; and I decided to take solace in that.
“You okay?” Brian’s voice asked.
I hadn’t seen him squatted up against the wall, his head hung low.
“Yeah,” I sighed. “I think so.”
He nodded.
“Are you?” I asked, wiping at my tears as I quickly regrouped.
“I get it now,” he told me quietly. “I’ve been thinking about what my life would be like without Jimmy... how I’d be if I knew he was going to die. That’s why she is the way she is, right? Because she knows he’s going to die?”
The sentiment ripped my heart out.
“She has those fucking walls because she has to,” Brian exhaled. “She worries herself to death because she has to...because she loves him. I get it now.”
I didn’t know what to say. I decided to say nothing at all. Instead, I slumped down next to him and offered a sympathetic smile.
“One day,” Brian said, deep in thought. “She’s going to realize she can love more than Tyler...that someone can love her back.”
I nodded.
“Until then, I guess I’m going to have to find a way to tolerate him,” Brian groaned.
“I’m just glad he’s alright,” I sighed, finally letting a tiny ripple of relief sore through me.
Brian half-smiled, “So am I.”
“You were great today,” I told him like it mattered. “Remind me to call you if there’s a crisis.”
He laughed, “Wouldn’t be the same. It would be weird if it was.”
“What? Weird?” I asked confusedly. “Why?”
Brian shrugged, keeping an intense stare focused on the wall across from us; like it held the secrets to life. The secrets to preserving it.
“Because,” he finally said. “If It were the same...That would mean that I’m in love with you.”
My jaw dropped.
“And that your best friend had died,” he added. “And seeing as how you and I have the same best friend...I don’t think I’d be fit to call.”
I was still hung up on the ‘in love’ part.
“I pray to god this never happens again,” Brian said seriously. “To them...or to us.”
“I’ve been praying for that all day,” I nodded.
Brian’s eyes met mine, “Here’s to keeping the ones I love alive, I guess. I hope it’s worth something.”
“It is,” I assured him. “It’s worth everything.”

Notes

I heard you guys. I heard you.

And for once, I listened. I'm blaming it on the sickness I'm dealing with. Take solace in my mercy because, well you know...It likely won't last ;)

I think my tower's crumbling. Better go find more bats to trap and do my bidding.

Huddle around Kiss my sas because she performed a labor of love for the rioting mob and saved your dear Ty. Just sayin'.