I'm Anything You Want Me To Be.

“I waited up for you.” I say, crossing my legs.

Dani closes the front door behind her, keeping her eyes glued to the floor. “You shouldn’t have.”

“It’s six A.M.” I inform her.

Day 6.

“Lookie, it’s Jay.” she quietly cheers as she sees him asleep on the couch.

“Where have you been?” I disregard her observance of Jay’s presence.

“Out.” she mumbles as she takes her jacket off.

“Specify,”

“I was at the park.”

“No, you weren’t.” I insist, remembering not seeing her there when Halvo and I glided by.

“I was in the tire swing.” she says.

I guess that explains why I didn’t spot her. The tire swing was in this part of the park that was pretty secluded.

“All afternoon?”

“And evening, and morning.” she continues.

“Obviously,” I roll my eyes at the fact that she still felt the need to elaborate. I’m not that stupid.

“You shouldn’t have waited up.” she says anyway.

“No one told me not to,” I reply.

Awkward silence fills the room and this moment between us.

She stands there, staring at the ground, fidgeting with her sleeves.

And I sit here, staring at her, picking at the chair arm.

We sigh at the same time.

Dani shifts her eyes to me. “I’m sorry.”

“What for?” I roll my eyes again.

We both know apologizing had never been the catalyst of each other’s comfort and reassurance.

“I shouldn’t have—”

“Said incredibly stupid and insensitive things about John?!” I spit before I can stop myself.

“Oh, forget it!” Dani exclaims. “Here I am trying to be honest apologize and you just have to freaking shoot me down—”

“What the hell were you expecting?!”

“Nothing!” Dani is now the one rolling her eyes. But not in annoyance. She’s trying to fight back tears. “I just want you to fucking listen to me, but you won’t—”

“You never have anything good to say to, or about, me—”

“You never give me a chance, nor a reason to!” she spits back. “You and John are fucking perfect for each other!”

“What’s that got to do with anything—”

“You’re both so goddamn immature, Iann, I fucking swear to God. You’re impatient and you’re never careful with your words and you two don’t fucking care if you’re hurting me already!”

“Now you’re trying to drag John into this?! What’s that even about?!
I thought to myself that I’m going to wait till John tells me. But now, she’s being unreasonable, and I refuse to take it. “What the crap are you even going on about, huh?!”

“Go to your room.” Dani then sternly commands, pointing at the staircase, dropping my previous interrogatives.

“Excuse me?”

“Riannon, you go to your fucking room.” she harshly repeats.

“No, why would I take orders from you?!” I ask, standing up.

“Because I’m older than you—”

“Yeah, by a small bunch of minutes!” I yell.

“Go to your room!” she screams back.

“Fine!” I try my hardest to stop my shaking so I do not end up violently picking Jay up.

When I do get to my room, I put Jay down on my bed and slam my door.

Where the fuck does she get off, thinking she could just start playing the ‘I’m-older-than-you’ card?! Where the fuck does she get off, rubbing it in my face now?!

Maybe she short age gap between us caused her more wisdom, the fact that she is older than me makes her superior. But if anything, she should know I am sick of her always forcing it down my throat.

It was okay when we were kids. It gave her a sense of potency and responsibility. The mindset that she was older than I was caused the development of said senses.

Her being older simply meant that she stayed on the danger side when we were crossing the street, that she was always the last to exit an area to make sure we wouldn’t have left it messy, and that she gloated about it sometimes, sure..

But I don’t want it one bit right now. I want to fucking bitch at her for trying to throw that card at me now.

Sure, she is older. There is nothing I can do to change that. I could turn this world we live in right now upside-down, but it wouldn’t change the fact I wasn’t born before she was, the fact I was second.

But as the older one, she should just.. Be patient. And, I guess, one can see some sort of evidence of that in the previous fight, as she just swallowed her pride and tried to apologize. Yet, somehow I wouldn’t take it. Maybe I am immature.

I just need someone to be patient with me.

Well, to be more specific, as of the moment, I need Dani to be patient and put up with my shit.

I know for a while, I’ve been going on and on about how I just hate her now.

But that doesn’t change the fact that she wasn’t there when I needed her. There really were times when I just missed her and wished she was just at least there. It wouldn’t have hurt to have her there with me, some reassurance, or help, or maybe even just her company. Because there was obviously too much I couldn’t handle on my own.

But I got none of that, and I got none of her.

But I needn’t anyone, Dani especially of everyone, to tell me. Because she should deem herself aware that she is the reason I’m acting up again.

I take a deep breath, forcing myself to stop crying.

I know that argument didn’t last for more than two minutes, but.. Whenever Dani and I fight, I get frustrated to the point that I just start crying.

I know, these days, I’ve been in too much quick bickering. But with Dani, it’s different.

I swear, we could be fighting over chicken nuggets for fuck’s sake and I would still end up crying, just because I get so flustered and frustrated over the fact that the only person I know should be siding with me finds relief in screaming at me, while I wish I would just fucking drop dead.

When we were kids, I found comfort in knowing that there were these people who were always alone and on their own, but I, meanwhile, had Dani to side with me on everything, using that two-against-one policy. We were never on our own.

And now I’m just… Tired. That’s all.

But there was one attitude I had in mind, and I had to execute it:

Disobedience.

I don’t know how much of what I’m thinking right now is correct, or in anyway, reasonable, but I don’t care.

When Dani told me to go to my room, I did it. And I know she didn’t have to throw a “Stay there.” while she was at it. Just because she knew that I knew how to understand.

But I don’t care.

I gently stir Jay, waking him up just enough to make him aware that I’m carrying him out of my room.

I grab my car keys, pace quickly to my car, strap Jay in his seat and take the wheel.

Then I’m off.

I’m done with having to worry about Dani running away.

It’s my turn now.

I take Jay to an ice cream plus with, I must say, A + ice cream. Dani and I found it a couple of days ago.

Jay starts happily clapping when he realizes what we’re here for. And it just makes me smile.

No matter how terrible Dani is making me feel, Jay will always know how to make it better.

I get us a cone each and we sit by a booth. “How’re you, Jay?” I ask, even though I highly doubt he would have an elaborate response.

He just laughs and shoves ice cream into his mouth.

I pick at a table napkin holder and just watch him enjoy his ice cream.

Smeary, messy.. A little slobbery. But he’s enjoying, and table manners isn’t so expected from a three-year-old.

I just smile at him.

When he finishes, I find my cone melting in my hand. I take a napkin and wipe my hand clean after tossing it into a bin. I decide Jay wants to go for seconds because he keeps licking his lips.

The ice cream shop has obviously been having a slow day, but the lady by the counter doesn’t seem to mind much.

Her face lights up as she sees me trotting back with Jay.

She is scooping the second cone after I’ve given the first I retrieved to Jay when the bell hanging above the entrance of the shop rings.

And she is handing me my cone when the new customer approaches.

“Just some caramel.” he then says.

In the corner of my eye, I see him sliding a bill over to the scooper lady.

But all that’s in my head is how there is just one person I know who actually likes caramel ice cream. Or caramel in general. Especially when it’s on popcorn.

And a half-second later, I realize: I recognized this voice.

I quickly recover from the shock within a short moment as his eyes now start setting themselves on Jay after he hears him giggling.

Then his vision redirects to me. His eyes train on me for a second, as if he’s taking this specific amount of time to just register my image in my head.

He gets shocked too, I can tell by the way his mouth falls half open. But like me, he is able to recover in a matter of miliseconds.

“Iann,” he says coldly, not sounding too excited to see me.

“Nick,” I reply.

I told myself I wouldn’t throw myself at him if I ever did see him again.. But fuck that.

“Nick, I missed you,” I say as I wrap my arms around his neck.

I don’t feel the reciprocation of this gesture as he just stands here motionlessly in my arms. But this time, I can’t tell if he’s purposely hiding any mutual feelings, or if he just doesn’t feel anything at all.

“Nick,” I start to sob. “Nick, I missed you.”

Again, he doesn’t respond.

I pull back a little, keeping him in a gentle hold. “Nick..”

He looks away the second his eyes meet mine, and I feel my tears growing.

“Nick,” I say with my voice trembling.

The stoned expression he puts on his face crushes any hope I had left of him actually talking to me.

With that, I let him go.

He turns to the lady as she comes back and gets his ice cream cone with too much caramel syrup. “Thanks, Cole.”

“Sure,” she says as she hands him his change.

He keeps his change in his wallet and puts it back in his pocket. “When do you get off again?” he asks her.

“Six.”

“Shall I wait till then or shall I just come back for you?”

I look at her name tag and see it.

Cole just shrugs, seeing the way I’m beginning to break down.

Nick glances at me, then back at Cole. “I’ll just come back, I think I hate this place now.” he mutters.

“Oh, really, Nicholas?!” I grit my teeth. “You’re gonna go and be this immature?!”

Nick glances at me again before shrugging and deciding to start leaving.

“No, Nick, don’t you fucking dare.” I threaten, taking his wrist in a violent grip.

“Let go of me,” Nick then commands.

I know holding onto him like this is useless, but I find that it’s worth a shot. A really long, and desperate shot.

“Riannon, fucking let go of me.” he says again, more harshly.

“Nick,”

“I am counting to three, Riannon. If you don’t fucking let go of me, I’ll—”

“If I don’t let go of you, you’ll what?!” I challenge.

“One.”

“Nick—”

“Two—”

“No, don’t do this to me—”

“Two and a half,”

“Why are you still so mad at me?!” I scream on impulse, desperately trying to stop him from getting to three.

“Don’t ask me questions I can’t answer.”

“Nick..”

He stands there with his wrist in my weak but violent grip for the longest time, while I stare at the back of his shirt, just wishing he would not make another attempt at leaving me.

Then my gaze bounces around elsewhere, my peripheral vision follows Cole as she awkwardly leaves the confrontation.

Then he does it.

He turns around to finally face me.

A part of me wishes I had just released him. Because the way he glares into my eyes with that little snarl scares me. So much.

But the other part of me takes this with dignity and composure.

He eyes me from my head down to my toes after, then he locks his gaze with mine again. After a second, he lets out a mirthless and bitter laugh. “I knew it.” he says.

“Knew what?” After hearing my voice again, I try to stop it from shaking.

“You chose him.”

“What,”

“You’re with John now,”

“What?!”

He brings his hand up and traces a circle of air in front my torso.

I look down at the plaid cloth I decided to wear today.

“That’s John’s shirt, isn’t it?”

I realize how loosely it did fit me. I wore it because it was on the top contents of my suitcase. I don’t know how this ended up in my bags in the first place.. “Yeah, so?” I say. “What does that validate?”

Nick rolls his eyes before shaking his head, telling me how stupid I am to be asking that.

“Nick,”

“The real mystery is what you are doing here when you should be with John.” Nick scowls.

“It’s about Dani—”

“Poor John, he must be missing you a ton.” He mockingly pouts.

“Yeah?” I squint at Nick. “Yeah, he is missing me, buy why aren’t you?!”

“Don’t be so full of yourself, Iann. After you lied to me and hurt me, there isn’t much of you to miss.”

“I never lied to you,” I mumble, the tears glazing my eyes threatening to spill over.

“Yeah, but you didn’t tell me you were fucking one of my friends either, did ya Iann?!”

“I wasn’t fucking John, Nick, you know it was one night—”

“No, Iann, I wouldn’t fucking know because you never told it to me straight!”

Nothing in this world could have prepared me for this kind of encounter with Nick.

Heck, I wasn’t prepared for this when it was with Halvo.

It was tolerable when Halvo was talking this way, but I can’t believe it’s coming from Nick now.

“But Nick, you’re supposed to be my best friend..”

“Nope.” Nick negates immediately. “Not anymore.”

“Nick—”

“You’re happy with John,”

“I’m not even with John—”

“Yes, you are—”

“Not officially.”

“Right, right. I forget sometimes, John’s a major wuss.”

“He may be a major wuss, but he’s not treating me as much as shit as you are.”

“Darling, you know you’re not allowed to compare.” he tells me off.

I pitifully feel the urge to fight back the tears again as he calls me ‘darling.’ What he once said out of endearment, he’s now using in such a frostbitten tone..

“But I guess you can’t help it?”

“Nick..”

“You’re better off with John and you know it—”

“That doesn’t give you the right to just throw everything we had away,” I almost plead, sounding pretty much like I’m begging him not to just throw that all away.

“You’re self-centered and fragile and I don’t understand how you can be both at the same time,”

“Nick—”

“I’m done with you, Iann, I really am.” Nick cuts me off surely. “Loving you’s only hurt me and..”

“Nick,”

“And it’s just so hard to be your friend.”

“I never asked you to be my friend!” I spit in a futile attempt to say anything to just get him away from actually saying that he is giving up on me.

“I know,” he answers.

“What happens now,”

“I don’t know but I’m not sticking around anymore.”

“Nick—”

“Look, you know you’ll be fine without me.”

“Nick,”

“See, now you’re crying,” Nick steps forward and uses his thumbs to wipe my tears away. “I’m no good for you, don’t you understand that?”

“Nick, you’re my best friend—”

He just shakes his head. “You need someone who can take care of you better than I ever have.”

“Nick,”

“And I trust John.”

“What about me, Nick, you don’t trust me? You don’t think I can take care of myself—”

“Not anymore,” he sighs. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but we both know you’ve hurt yourself and put yourself in situations you can’t handle more than you should’ve.”

“What are you trying to say—”

“That I still care about you. I don’t wanna be around you anymore. Not now.. Maybe not ever. But I care about you and that’s not gonna change—”

“You just said you don’t want to be my friend anymore, why are you telling me you care,” I spit, sick of his contradictions.

“Because just because we don’t see each other doesn’t mean that I can’t care about you—”

“It kinda does—”

“Well you know I make no sense!”

“Then just forget me!” I blurt out.

I regret saying it immediately, before I even hear his response.

But there he goes, stomping out this joint after yelling “Maybe I will!”

Strike three, and I’m out.