Nobody's Listening

T H I R T E E N

About half an hour later, after Cyd loaned me some pajamas that were too big for her, and we settled down in the darkened basement with blankets wrapped around us and pillows and stuffed animals surrounding us.

"'That '70s Show' sound good?" Cyd asked, flipping through her hundreds of channels. I shrugged and she let the remote bounce away. On the screen, Michael Kelso and Jackie were compromising their relationship. "Okay, Desirae. I want to hear everything about you and Luke."

I kept watching the television, following the characters movements but not following what they were talking about.

Cyd sighed and turned the television off, shrouding us in darkness. "Well?" she asked impatiently.

"I dunno what you're talking about…" I muttered, fingering his jacket. I took an experimental sniff to find that it smelt pleasantly of grass and Gain.

She reached over and pinched the dark blue material. Even in the dark, I could see that the expression on her face was slightly furious but mostly curious. "He gave you his favorite jacket, Dez."

I scoffed. "It is not his favorite jacket."

"It is too! He wears that thing all the damn time."

I took it off. My eyes were adjusting and I looked it over. I recognized the jacket finally. It was the dark blue one that he wore almost all the time. It had a little tear at one of the pockets. "Well, fine, maybe it is his favorite jacket," I conceded.

"Well, are you two dating now?"

"I don't think so," I replied quickly. I sighed and rubbed my eyes with my fists. "I really don't know what to think, C. I like him, and I think he's a good guy and all, but good God, I really don't know what to think about James."

She leaned over and gave me a short hug. "If I was you, I would give Luke a chance. Because… well, James isn't as emotionally balanced as what you need, honestly. And I know that you haven't really been the same since… your dad passed, and even though I hope that you're more emotionally stable than anyone gives you credit for… I'm worried that if James did something stupid, it could really… just hurt you so much." She took a shaky breath. "And I don't know if I could seriously handle watching that without seriously kicking his stupid ass."

I frowned and shook my head. "I don't think he would do anything stupid if he was with me, Cyd…"

"You don't know that, Dezzy!" she snapped. "He is Wesley James Morgan, infamous original emo kid at Northside. He has been physically, mentally, and emotionally beaten by almost everyone, and one day he might just… implode or something!"

I stared at her, confused. Why did she think that he would do that? Was it possible that that could happen? "I don't understand," I said simply.

Her brow wrinkled with concentration, like she was trying to make a connection. "Do you remember Brian Hutchinson?" I nodded; he was the first of our grade to commit suicide in high school. "I talked to him once or twice, a real heart-to-heart. And he was basically born depressed. His parents were okay people, his friends were pretty okay, but he was just born with this mindset that told him that he would never be happy."

"Morose," I informed her.

She nodded. "Yeah, more or less. It wasn't really that he wanted to be unhappy, he just really didn't know how to be happy. He said that the medicine he was taking since he was six wasn't working anymore, and even though he kept trying to find better medicine, he never did get any better. And then in ninth grade… well, you know what happened."

I swallowed, feeling uncomfortable with the memory. A young, fourteen-year-old boy who was neither attractive nor unattractive, exploding one day during school and was pronounced dead the next day. "He shot himself, didn't he?"

She nodded again. "Brian took his daddy's shotgun off the shelf and used his toes to shoot himself in the head."

"I remember him," I reminisced. "Small, un-violent ginger. Quiet. I still can't imagine him going out like that."

"With a bang," Cyd said, completing my thoughts. "But he was always a little bullied by everyone unintentionally, and now… well, he's gone."

"So you're saying that… it's always possible, pretty much?"

"Yeah."

We sat there for a few minutes in silence, trying to make sense of it. Then, something struck me as odd. "Why the hell did he tell you? You're the biggest gossip I know!"

She frowned at me. "You know me. Everyone knows I'm a great listener. And you out of everyone should know the best that I don't tell anyone anything if they tell me not to tell anyone."

I sniffed, uncomfortable with her words. "Sometimes, I don't feel like I really know anyone anymore, Cyd."

She sighed and gathered me up in her arms. She let me cry it out, stroking my hair almost identically to the way my mom did.

When I slowed to a sniffling stop, I pulled away. "When are we going to go to see James tomorrow?"

Cyd smiled. "As early as possible. Now let's sleep, I'm exhausted…" she muttered, pulling along half the blankets and pillows to the opposite couch, the one Luke and I had slept on.

I curled up and fought my way to sleep.