Gena/Finn (27 page)

For You:

I have to get out of the house. I can't take you walking around like the ghost of a stranger. I can't take listening to you crying in the shower and then whistling while you fix your hair like nothing's wrong. I can't deal with the way you're so on top of everything, except when you're not and I have to help you in and out of your sweaters and you slump against me and shiver and don't talk.

And I don't want to hear any more about Steven. So that's a thing.

You smiled this morning, and when I asked why, you said you were excited to tell Steven something. I can't remember the last time you smiled about me.

“He gets me,” you say, the clear implication being that I don't.

And maybe it makes sense that I don't, because everything we are, whatever it is, grew out of fandom, and you are raging at fandom. You sign on to your computer for stretches of five or ten or fifteen minutes at a time, click through journals, slam it shut and sit there shaking with fury. I've tried to stop you, weirdly and passive aggressively, by piling a bunch of stuff on top of the computer and hoping you won't think about it if it's not out in the open, but that doesn't work. And maybe I should be glad you're feeling something so straightforward. But somehow, angry at fandom just feels like angry at me.

“Out of the house” in this case means Charlie's bar. I've been here for about fifteen minutes, and of course he can't come straight over. He keeps making little hand gestures that are meaningful between us – tugging his ear, biting his knuckle, this customer is an ass, I'm glad you're here.

Okay. Here he comes, with a beer I can't afford. Good thing he can tap it out for free. We need every damn dollar because your hospital bill came today. Happy belated birthday, I guess. Even after Up Below's insurance, the copay is more than I've ever seen on a bill, ever. It's going to wipe out our savings, and I have no idea where the money's going to come from for your Zyprexa next month.

I'll have to get a job.

But the thing is that I found your shoes in the trash today, your written-on shoes, twisted so the soles cracked like maybe you didn't like what you'd written and tried to crumple them up like paper, and I'm freaking out because I left you for an hour to come down here for a beer I can't afford, so how am I supposed to leave you alone all day? How am I supposed to leave you on bad days?

Today's not a bad day. Today's a Steven day.

Steven, with his similar trauma, with his ability to relate to you, Steven who understands. Steven who I sent you to because I couldn't help.

And I know that's the point of the group, and I feel awful. That's the whole reason I wanted you to go, isn't it? If Steven's helping you, I want you to have him. I want you to get better.

No. I wanted you to go so you'd get better enough to talk to me. You're my best friend. I thought I was the one who understood you.

God, how selfish. I am the worst person I know.

That's a self-indulgent statement if there ever was one. I'm not the worst person I know. I'm jealous and insecure and I miss my best friend, and this is nothing I haven't done to you every time I prioritized Charlie. I'm not awful. I'm just sad.

Why can't Steven be there to help you out with the trauma stuff, and I'll still be your go-to person for...

For what? Fandom? You need a trauma buddy now, and you don't need me, except to pay for therapy and drugs (and apparently a new pair of shoes).

It's not gonna matter anyway if we can't figure out where to get the money to keep you in group. And despite my fucked up conflicted feelings, I do want you to stay in group.

Charlie's smiling and making drink your beer gestures, why is he fucking amazing, so what the hell. The beer is cold and light and feels like being irresponsible with everyone's heart.

So...

God.

I shouldn't have gone out.

I got home about an hour ago. You were sitting in the middle of a pile of broken laptop components, trying unsuccessfully to break a piece of casing in your hands and crying.

“Finn?”

“Yeah?”

“Did I do it?”

“Break the laptop? Yeah, baby. It's okay.”

“No...”

“It's okay, Evie.”

You let me sit you down on the stool in the bathroom and wash your face and hands, take down your ponytail, brush your hair, get you ready for bed. Now you're just staring at the wall and acting like I'm not here, which I guess I might as well not be. But I'm not going to leave you alone again tonight.

Charlie got in about ten minutes ago and stuck his head in here, but I sent him away. Tonight it's just you and me. He kissed us both before he left, and left behind a brown leather journal with a cat on it.

It's much nicer than mine, and I'm jealous (for a change, ha), but Charlie says it's for you.

Maybe we won't have to get you new shoes after all.

in Charlie's notebook

My favorite fics were the ones where you were cold.

I could have read those a hundred times

read each individual one

a hundred times

some of them I did, over and over

bad writing, trite cliches, the same tropes in all of them

it was the tropes that I liked.

It was you shivering that I liked

The ones where you were cold had Tyler with a down jacket ready to

wrap you up

they had pretty frozen fingers

scared eyes

sometimes your hair would be wet

sometimes you'd have a fever, hot really

but cold to your bones

and no one could warm you up.

But Tyler would never stop trying.

Those were my favorites.

that doesn't mean that there weren't times

that I set you on fire

I saw it

that's the thing

I saw smoke coming from that light

and I thought to myself

okayokayokay

you don't smell burning plastic mannequin skin fake LA
plastic reality machines

you don't hear anything starting to burn and whistle

you don't see smoke coming from that light

I could have pulled a fucking fire alarm

a poet

should like irony.

it matters less than what I wrote about

your shivering is bigger than my shallow breathing and your burning alive

I scrape feelings out of your grave

making out with a tv screen

I prefer delusions

I prefer poems

with pretty line breaks

and timing

it's just that I'm waking up in the middle of the night

invisible hands on my throat, invisible smoke in my lungs

not shiveringwaiting for

a part of me

to like it

in Charlie's notebook

after group

Steven and I lie in the grass outside the rec center

waiting for finn to pull up

he taps my nose with the stem of a dandelion

What show was it again?” he says

I tell him

or I tell him the name.

I don't watch much TV,” he says, not like

he's judging me, not like

it matters really, just like

it's a useless fact about him

a color hair he doesn't have

something he doesn't think about

a person he doesn't know

"TV raised me,"” I say, and I tell him about learning sex from Boy Meets World

drugs from Degrassi

family from Man of the House

He's never heard of any of them

a hundred voices in my head

and here is a boy who has never heard of any of me

I go home and kiss Finn's shoulders and pretend it is all

the parts of her