Work Text:
You’ve got to stop calling me, Tim.
The rule is, let him call five times before you answer once.
The trouble is, Tim knows to keep trying.
You are nursing a pint of ice cream in front of Thelma and Louise, and he is somehow still filling up your memory, stricken to silence when you tell him that he’s in love with somebody else.
(In the same moment, you told yourself that, aloud in the barren halls of Dillon High—a place that’s never been anything but cruel to you both.)
You are pretending that all this isn’t about him: the ice cream and the movie and the way every inch of you feels too cold and too hot at the same time. You have two much history between you. You live and breathe in too many patterns.
You don’t want this fate for yourself.
Now you are thinking of him even when you are surrounded by the rush and chatter of a work-shift, and you are cursing yourself as you fall asleep because you can’t forget the sound of his peaceful breathing, and you are interrupted by him when you’ve finally managed to take the knife out of your heart for a moment by daring to think of moving on. Which is to say—
Your phone keeps ringing.
A few times, you pick up and hold the call just long enough to snarl something vicious at him, which he both does and does not deserve. He deserves it from you, because he hurt you in a way only the two of you could understand. But life has never treated anyone in this town with justice, and Tim has always been your companion at the bottom of the heap.
He doesn’t deserve to be ruined any more than he is ruined by his own nature. You wish you could bring yourself to hate him and believe that he does, but what you hate more than anything is how much you already pity him.
Is this how you rise? Is this how you escape?
(Is this how it ends?)
He’s got nothing to gain from Lyla—not even Lyla herself. You’re not surprised to see that she’s already moved on. Back towards Jason. Back to the old life that she still, it seems, can put back together.
Hatred isn’t enough of a word for her.
He calls you about homework and you let yourself be drawn back in. He says that he misses you and you tell him you don’t know what to say to that.
You drive home the long way, dirt roads grinding beneath your too-thin tires, trying to get a little closer to the stars. Finally, you pull over at the edge of an oil field, thinking about yourself and the loneliness that comes from having to live with every mistake you’ve ever made, and very little else.
Breathe in, breathe out. Forget it.
You hate to be alone. So does your mama.
Is this how it ends?