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“I thought you were dead.” (I mean, I’m happy. I’m so happy you’re alive. But you found me here with your stupid talent for the worst timing ever. You found me scrambling for my shirt, and you’re alive, and I’m happy, but I was scrambling for my shirt, goddammit.)
“Obviously.” (How is it that you haven’t changed? I would’ve expected your hair to dull. I don’t know why. I don’t know why I thought it couldn’t keep that violent, vibrant shade after I thought your dead for years. I don’t know why when Wash told me you were alive, you were in the base, why I expected something different. Something sadder. Streaks of gray. Yet here you are, vibrant and violent and glowing, here you are with someone else. I don’t know why I didn’t expect that, either.)
“I didn’t mean for you to find out.” (It’s not fair that you’re alive. Not fair for you to find me like this. I didn’t have warning. I didn’t have time. I can’t pull myself back together if you don’t give me time. I’m not Carolina anymore. Not really. But you need Carolina. You want Carolina. …You loved Carolina.)
“You mean you didn’t mean for me to find out like this.” (Why did I just think she’d be like I left her. She wouldn’t have changed. She’d be herself, too hard to let anyone in, too proud and competitive and too guarded. I haven’t exactly been a saint, and neither of us thought there was anything to be faithful to, but…but I was the only one who scaled those walls, once. The only one.)
“It’s been years, York.” (Years in which I’ve built myself back from where I was left. Years in which I didn’t have you by my side. Years in which I slowly thought everyone dead. And now, months since Wash confirmed it. Told me you were dead. Told me you were gone. Months and I couldn’t take it, so I took him, because it was easy, because it was selfish. Because he let me. And now you’re back. Years, months, and now, minutes that you’ve been back.)
“I know. I guess I should have expected it.” (I grieved for you for years. I didn’t do it alone, it’d be naive to think I would do it alone. I found comfort in people, in contact, in things I knew you could never give me, because you were dead. So why am I sitting here, dazed, sitting here unable to deal with the fact that you needed the same thing.)
“Didn’t you?” (I don’t want to know how many girls you found after me, like I never want to know how many girls you had before me. I don’t want these things in my head, York, but now that I’ve stuffed one of me with someone else down into your memories, I can’t help but think of them. Shouldn’t I deserve to feel what you’re feeling right now? The sting of betrayal from an all-too-real ghost.)
“So you’re the guy she thinks of.” (I wonder what you look like. I really do. I wonder if she’s been fucking me these past few months because I remind her of you.)
“What?” (I’d forgotten you were in the room. You, whose name I don’t know. You, who didn’t seem to think you should put your shirt back on.)
“You’re York.” (God, how often have I heard that fucking name and pretended it was mine.)
“Tucker.” (I had completely forgotten that you were here. Still here. Watching this. Watching my moment.)
“No, no, this is interesting.” (Fuck this, Carolina. If you wanted me to keep quiet, you should’ve never started this.) “Come on, man, show us your face. I’m dying to know what you look like.”
(My god, he looks so skinny. His cheeks curve in. His eyes are so sunken. I knew I looked worse for wear, but what has he been doing? Sacrificing? Why is he like this. Why is he so frail.) “You look good.”
“Always the great liar, ‘Lina.” (I thought she’d flinch or something. Something at the nickname. But no. She smiled. She smiled back at me. She smiled like an echo.)
(He doesn’t look anything like me.) “You don’t look anything like me.”
(Did he really just say that?) “That was the point, Tucker.” (Why did I have to hesitate in that sentence. Why does his memory always make me so self-conscious. He never did that, not the real him. And here he is, real, alive. Am I still looking at a memory?)
“It’s interesting, what we find to busy ourselves with.” (Oh, he took offense to that, but I don’t think he’ll do anything about it. He’s not going to challenge a freelancer. Even a broken, skinny, shallow shell of a one.)
“Yeah, well, we were fucking in the middle of something, so if you could just leave…” (This is the guy she thinks of. The name she calls out. This is who she sees when she turns out the light and tells me to shut the fuck up. This guy. Right here. And I always squint in the dark to see her face. Her hair. I stay quiet just so I can feel her. And she thinks about this skinny ass motherfucking freelancer from her good old days the whole goddamn time.)
“Tucker.” (Tucker, we’re done. Tucker, thanks for the impersonal sex. Tucker, good job on staying quiet while I got off on a memory. Tucker.) “Get out.”
“Fuck this. You two deserve each other.”
(I probably shouldn’t have smiled as much as I did.)