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I eye the door longingly, and he quickly bisects my path before I can so much as even take a step. I glance to the door to Izzy’s room next to me, and the song abruptly cuts off. “I will tackle you to the floor.”
“And you have each other,” I utter quietly. I give my head a little shake. “All three of you do. Even though Waylon’s like me—he keeps it all inside—he still somehow managed to…to have you. To be normal.”
Jeremy you are killing me
you, Izzy, Way, and me…it is what it is. It’s you three on one side, and me on the other.”
“Fuck, I know in a lot of ways it looks like it’s always been the three of us one side, and then you—” “Because it is.” “But there’s me and you too,” he argues back. “You know that, right?”
“Mason…” I push off the sink, taking a step. “You keep pushing me away.” My frown deepens, and I think, I have to. I have to push you away, because if I don’t… If I don’t…
“What about our friendship?” he says quietly. “What about us? Do I mean nothing to you?” You mean everything to me, and that’s the problem.
“You’re my best friend, Mason,” I whisper. My only friend, really. And if that isn’t just the saddest thing ever. “And you’re mine.”
“But you’ll always be hers first,” I whisper before I can help myself. “Theirs,” I quickly amend, turning around to face the sink. I clear my throat. “You’ll always be theirs first.”
I just throw whatever I’m feeling onto a CD, and call it something stupid. Like the one playing now—it’s labeled Sad Shit #3?.
Literally my playlists
“You are loved, Jeremy,” he says fiercely, the words wrenching from his chest. Glittering black orbs clash with mine, bright with unburied emotion. “You are so damn loved by so many people, and you just…you won’t let any of us in.”
“What did I do to make you shut me out? For years now, you’ve been…pulling away. Just tell me what I did.” You chose my sister.
He could never love me in the way I crave so desperately…not in this timeline. Not in this universe. Our stars are only ever meant to exist from opposite sides of the sun burning brightly forever between us.
“Sometimes I feel like…like you only tolerate me, because I’m dating your sister.”
Ouch that fucking hurt
“I’m not that kid in the song, okay?” I say raggedly, my words surprising us both. His eyes flare. “That’s not—” “I’m not history repeating itself. It’s not a prophecy. It’s just a song. That’s all it is. Stop putting expectations on me,” I plead. “Stop putting me into this narrative, where I lose.”
I love that song, I do, I love that it makes me think of him, us… But I also hate it for those very same reasons. Hate it for the image he so clearly has in his head of me. The poor bullied boy who’s headed down a path of destruction.
“You scare me sometimes.” Eyes burning, all I can do is stare back at him, biting my tongue like my life depends on it. And in a way, it does. Because he scares me too. He terrifies me.
“It’s not your fault. The bullying, your anxiety…it’s not your fault.” “From where I stand, it doesn’t make much of a difference. You’re all still over there,”—I gesture in his direction—“and I’m…” I wave a hand around my room. “I’m here.”
He’s got his gaze on the floor, like it has the answers. Solutions to impossible puzzles. And I’ve got my eyes on him, taking their fill while he’s not paying attention.
New York is you and Izzy and Waylon’s dream.” I press a hand to my chest. “Not mine.” Eyes creasing, he says, “What’s your dream then?” You. You’re my dream.
“It is kind of ridiculous. To think we’ll still be the same people we are five years from now.”
OOF.
“Never again.” Something stutters in my chest. “For me.” I frown. “If you won’t stop for you, stop for me.” A rock of emotion lodges in my throat, and all I can do is nod.
If not for me, for him. Always for him. Because I might not be a hero like him, but he is and always has been my kryptonite.
AGE 17, SEPTEMBER
Oh god, here we go
I think of Jeremy…of what my life is going to look like next year, when it’s just Izzy and Waylon and me. How it’s always been…but also not.
I don’t know much about being gay or bisexual or queer…
*insert "You sure about that?" meme here*
And gay or straight, I don’t care, as long as he’s happy and whole and not bleeding from his wrists. Even if…even if that means he can’t be happy and whole here, with me. With us. In New York, living…living our dreams… He’ll be safe there. That’s what matters. Safe and happy.
“Take care of Way while I’m gone?”
Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.
Chuckling, I shake my head. “Go. I’ll see you next week.”
OUCH.
Bag swinging behind him, and bouncing off his— I quickly force my eyes away, chest heaving.
Brooo
I hear the front door open and close behind Jeremy, and all I can think is: What the actual fucking fuck? Followed by, Is that it? What else did you expect? A hug goodbye? A kiss???
Yes :)
Three Days Grace—I
Jessie you are killing me with these throwbacks
She’s been so swept up in practicing for the upcoming showcase—the reason they’re leaving for Florida in the first place.
:'(
It happens insidiously—the way the images in my head shift. Starting first with the eyes, and then the neck, and then the chest. Wrong, so wrong… But by the time I even think that, it’s already too late.
The figure in my fantasy turns around. Before I can fully lift my gaze. A happy trail. A bulge. Fuck! I scream soundlessly into the bathroom, my entire body quaking as I explode into my waiting palm.
Yikes
To say I was ill-prepared for the Florida heat would be putting it lightly.
As someone who lived in Florida for 6 years, can confirm
Even if it is an ill-fitting suit that makes me look like Riff Raff from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Okay but I love Riff Raff
Someone bumps me in the shadows—so dark under here, I didn’t see them in my haste. I murmur a quiet, “Excuse me,” and hear something mumbled back in… Russian?
Oh God I just got so nauseous. I hate they were near my soft boi
It’s a song I fear will follow me to the grave.
Oof.
He’s beautiful. Try as I might to tear myself away, I can’t… Not when it hits me—really hits me—that this is all I’ll ever have of him. That this is the only way I can watch him, with my heart cracked open, and him no more the wiser to it. Because his heart’s too busy beating for someone else, so loud it drowns out anyone else’s. Drowns out mine. In a rhythm that was never meant for me.
It was never just my sister I had to compete with… I see that now more than ever. It’s his love for music. And both are so intrinsically tied, there’s no one without the other. I think of their matching tattoos, and as much as it kills me… I get it now. A Mason without Izzy is unfathomable… Because a Mason without music is unfathomable.
I watch the guy I’m pretty sure might be the love of my life…watch the love of his playing her actual...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
And then a shadow eclipses my periphery, just as someone comes around the corner where the hallway Ts off.
Hahaha my chest is not having a fun time breathing right now
mine is locked on the falcon head handle topping his cane. It’s gaudy and pretentious as fuck.
We’re in a packed convention center in South Palm Beach. What’s the worst that could happen?
Oh Jeremy...
soft, uneven footsteps interspersed with the dull, uneven clacking of a cane come to a sudden stop in the middle of the room. “Well, if it isn’t a little dove flown astray.”
Stay away from him, Viktor
“Most know me as a sort of…collector. But my true passion…” His blue eyes twinkle. “Well, that lies within conducting.”
Ugh I hate him
“Tell me, malen’kiy golub’, do you want to fly?”
I hate this so much
“I see,” the man with the white hair and cane murmurs. He hums, and turns to cast me an unreadable look. He seems almost…disappointed.
Wait so if they didn't take Izzy was he going to take Jeremy?!
It was nothing. What happened in the bathroom was nothing. And yet, why do I feel like I somehow just…barely crawled away with my life?
Because you did, baby
that feeling you get when you’ve forgotten something, but can’t remember anything about what it is that you’ve forgotten.
The twin connection
