Baby Pink 24

[starphotographs]

Name: starphotographs
Story: Corwin and Friends
Supplies and Styles: Graffiti (Summer Carnival, Lilith Fair Second Stage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4emYaDbaJ8w)
Characters: Corwin (POV), Martin
Colors: Baby Pink 24 (People in glass houses should not throw stones...or sleep naked.)
Word Count: 477
Rating: PG (I think?)
Warnings: Choose not to warn.
Summary: Turn away or understand.
Note: Gah, this is too similar to other things I’ve written, but I still kinda like it. (Title yanked from a Paper Chase song I was just listening to, because why not?)


You Owe That Much at Least

Since your body really started falling in on itself, you’ve been acting like a gigantic asshole. I mean, you were an asshole right out of the gate. But there was usually some rationale behind what you did, even if it was petty, or really dumb, or something I couldn’t quite understand. And it was rarely directed at me. Only if I was being an asshole myself and actually deserved it.

Now… What? Am I just the last thing you have to use as a chew-toy or something? Because, these days, it seems like it’s always directed at me. You snap at me when I try to help you. You mock me when I tell you I’ll miss you. You berate me for worrying about you.

Well, you know what? It makes me want to throw in the towel. Say, “all of this is your problem now. Good luck.”

I don’t think it would be unjustified. And hell, half the time, it seems like that’s what you want.

(If it is, you can tell me.)

It’s just that I did it once before. And it didn’t help.

When you were lying in that white bed, plugged into all those machines, staring at the ceiling, I eventually threw up my hands and left. I couldn’t handle it anymore.

But it isn’t like I could handle it any better after I decided to stop visiting you. You were out of sight, but that didn’t change the fact that there wasn’t anything I could do for you.

And I just kept thinking of that night in my apartment, when I was ranting about the terrible weight of a pressure you couldn’t feel. You answered me calmly. Either told me what you would do, or shook your head and say that, no, you didn’t know what I meant. Looking back, it was all very reasonable. I, by contrast, wasn’t reasonable at all.

I accused you of being a sociopath and made you cry.

I didn’t even know you could do that.

And, by the week after that, you were dead.

At first, I thought it was just run-of-the-mill guilt. But, there was a connection between the two events that I didn’t notice.

You couldn’t feel what I felt, so I wondered out loud if you could feel anything at all. You got stuck in the revolving door to the great beyond, and I wondered why you didn’t just break the glass and meet me halfway.

I rejected you instead of trying to understand you. And, looking back, I can see hundreds of smaller events falling in line, in the same pattern.

(To be fair, it’s not like you never did it to me.)

I guess I’m trying to be better this time around.

I really do want to understand where you’re coming from.

…Could you at least try and return the favor?

Comments

[novel_machinist]

:( Oh Corwin.

[bookblather]

Seems a fair request.

[shipwreck_light]

As if Martin would ever leave without calling someone an asshole on the way out.

I salute all of your crazy diamonds. They are the best!