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Owen feels like a piece of crap.
That’s not necessarily new, but right now, it’s a weirdly strong feeling. And holy fucking shit, it has everything to do with Conner.
Conner Friel, his best friend since, what, forever? Since they were in preschool and both had ugly-ass haircuts and grins that were just as much gaps as they were teeth. They’d grown up together, basically joined at the hip. And then Lawrence came along, who had been their best friend, too, and it’d been a dream. The best thing he could’ve ever asked for. Except that now it’s basically illegal to say his name, like in a dictatorship or some shit. Conner would like being a dictator, Owen thinks, and wipes his nose on his sleeve even though he knows how gross that is. He’s been not-so-subtly crying for about half an hour. His head hurts, his face is red, and when he accidentally catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, he immediately starts sobbing again. His lower lip wobbles, and he looks like a fucking child having a meltdown about his best friend moving away. Come on. You’re better than that. Better than him.
But he doesn’t truly believe it; not even now, not even after Conner has taken every metaphorical glass shard on the ground and stabbed him with it. All the parts of his brain that are physically capable of feeling pain are actively bleeding out. And it won’t stop hurting; it never will, because for it to end, he’d have to inflict an even worse ache onto himself:
Leaving.
It’d be a lie if he said he didn’t think about leaving. He did, a lot. But the mere idea of letting go of the only anchor he still has kills him. Conner, the man who will turn water into wine by letting his tears fall into the glass, who can easily transform plastic into gold by touching it; Conner, a god descending from the ashes after setting himself on fire, drowning himself in holy water—Conner fucking Friel, conner4real, Con, his best friend forever. His only real friend, the only one he’s still allowed to have.
Hell fucking no. He’d rather be in pain every single day than actually talk to anyone, especially Conner, about it. But sometimes—like he does right now—he really, really wishes Conner would care enough to just ask if he was okay for once. Maybe if he saw Owen cry, he’d turn right back into the boy he was at twenty-one, patting his back, hugging him awkwardly, telling him it’ll be alright, saying hey, you know what, maybe I’ll call up Lawrence and we can all make music together and be BFFs again, for real this time, and then Owen would say I love you, don’t leave me, and Conner would kiss him, and they’d never have to hurt a second in their lives ever again.
Yeah. Owen knows it’s pathetic. Fucking bullshit.
As he sits down on his bed, he’s suddenly hit by a strong wave of nausea. It doesn’t come entirely unexpected—he always feels shitty after parties—but this time, it’s worse than it usually is. Seconds later, his stomach rebels, and as he throws up onto the floor, he thinks that he probably needs therapy.
But Conner doesn’t need it, at least he manages without, and he’s doing so much more work, so it’s more than likely that Owen’s just weak as shit. Conner doesn’t think much of therapists, anyway—obviously, because Conner is always fine, and Conner can do no wrong, and he never makes mistakes, and even insinuating that he might be at fault for something could cause a mental breakdown. Owen knows exactly what to say and what not to say around Conner, and that’s one of the rules. No mistakes.
But now—now—
It just feels like Conner has made so many mistakes that it’s impossible to ignore, at least for tonight. Not like it matters though, because clearly Owen will just crawl back to him tomorrow. Conner knows that, and even though Owen hates it—he’s right.
In the morning, Owen wakes up alone; he always will, until his body will be torn apart by nature and pulled underground. Maybe, he thinks, maybe at that point, Conner would finally notice.
Or maybe not.
The cracks on his excuses are visible, but they won’t be when the sun rises in a few hours.
He remembers when he was fifteen, and he was so sure he was going to get married. He’d been looking forward to it since he’d been maybe five years old—the comfort of a safe and loving marriage, knowing someone would always hold you, no matter what. It was all he’d ever wanted, to feel someone’s arms around him for all his life. But he knew it would never happen—until he’d one day looked at Conner, who’d been sitting on the other side of the classroom because he’d been talking too much, and for whatever reason, something in his brain or heart or guts or some shit had decided that this was it. And his hope for a happy marriage had ascended into the heavens for about two seconds, before evaporating, leaving behind only a deep void of then-impossibility and one-sided love and self-hate.
Not much had changed since then, except for gay marriage being legal now, but that wasn’t important in the big picture. It only made it worse, actually, because now his fantasies of wearing a wedding band and white-gold suits and watching someone walk down the aisle with tears in his eyes were things that could have objectively happened, if he had just gotten a little luckier. The ideas are still there; they feel like worms inside his brain, eating at his prefrontal cortex.
And Conner was now in love, in love with a girl who was really fucking pretty and who’d always wanted to date a celebrity. And Conner had always wanted to date a pretty girl, so it fit perfectly. They weren’t going to get married, Owen knew, because Conner was incapable of a forever commitment to another person like that. That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try making it appear as if he could do it, though—he was going to try until he killed his reputation and fucked his entire life up trying to perfect it.
The relationship’s first casualty was Owen, but it didn’t make a difference if he was dead. Not to Conner, anyway.
Owen wakes up alone, alone, alone; but he doesn’t even know how to sleep on his own yet.
He’ll learn.