Just Keep Your Head Above

“Remind me again why you’re doing this?” I asked, watching Linda rushing around behind the dimly lit bar of the Underground, looking quite out of place in her musty surroundings, sporting a bright yellow sundress and pearl earrings, a sparkling, gleaming smile adonring her bright red lips. (Mind you, even with the fancy attire on, she still refused to wear shoes, as if the mere idea of footwear was absolutely ridiculous.)

“Everybody always works so hard around here,” she said, still smiling vibrantly, pouring an alcoholic beverage who’s name I couldn’t pronounce(something Swedish) into a glass and passing it to its designated recipient, a dark haired man with a Pink Floyd shirt and enough piercings to give a metal detector an aneurism, “I thought I’d give them a couple hours—“

“Of paid leave?” I frowned, watching her hand Drink Whose Name I Couldn’t Pronounce Man a bowl of nuts, her cheery demeanor not at all offset by my notable skepticism.

She ignored my question, instead turning to the next customer, a punk kid in an Anti-Flag shirt, sporting a bright blue Mohawk that added a generous five inches to his elfish height. He was trying his best to fit the part of a twenty-one year old, even though he was clearly no more than sixteen, lowering his voice and speaking with forced assertiveness, “I’ll, uh, have a beer.” He paused, letting out a small, girly sneeze, before continuing. “Uh, please.”

She arched an eyebrow at him, and I could see him start to sweat, his pink, chubby cheeks aflame with the embarrassment of someone who’s been caught in a lie. “ID, please?” She asked, her sunny, 1000 watt grin suddenly gone. The kid stopped, looking like he was about ready simultaneously burst into tears and have a heart attack, his jaw tensed, his eyes darting from side to side nervously, as though looking for the nearest exit.

Seriously, kid? You didn’t even bring a fake ID?

He wrung his hands, clearing his throat. “I—uh, left it.” She raised both eyebrows. “I left it in my car, on—on… on my way back from work.” he finished lamely, looking very much like a three-year old who’d just lost an intense thumb war. There was a beat of silence, and, had the offer been made, I would’ve bet a whole month’s worth of paychecks that he was going to piss himself.

He held his breath.

Linda’s already arched eyebrow rose to impossibly heights on her forehead, and had it risen any higher, it would’ve disappeared into her grayed hairline, and even the poor boy’s bright blue Mohawk seemed to cower in fear beneath the heat of her gaze.

Another beat of silence.

Stare-down match: Lady with the Skeptical Eyebrow v. Weird, Sweaty Blue Mohawk-ed Kid.

Finally, she cracked a smile, sliding him a glass of beer, chuckling. “Chill the fuck out, kid. I’m not gonna kill you, and neither is a beer.” He breathed out a sigh of relief, unable to suppress the ear to ear grin that erupted on his face, and fished out three dollar bills, setting them down on the bar and grabbing the glass of golden liquid with his chubby, adolescent fingers, seemingly determined to get out there as quickly as possible, so as not to push his luck. As he hastened away, she called to him, her voice sing-songy and clear. “Oh, and, kid?”

He turned around slowly, looking at her with what looked to be a mixture fright and apprehension.”Yes?”

She thrust a small, white business card at him. “Call him.” She nodded at the coffee-stained card in his hand. “Tell him Linda sent you. He’ll fix you up with a quality fake ID.” He looked at her perplexedly, the old woman in the yellow dress with the ruby red lips, behind the bar at one of the biggest punk clubs in town, her eyes twinkling brightly as she handed him the key to all of his future underage alcohol consumption. Must’ve been a weird sight, from his end. I could only imagine. Having known Linda for so long, it seemed normal to me. But to him, it was probably the weirdest thing that had ever happened in his minor, suburban, small-town life. He reached out his hand slowly, almost afraid to take it.

“Go on,” she nodded at the paper between her calloused fingers, “I won’t bite.”

He looked at it, then at her, then back down at the paper. Then, in a burst of bravery, he grabbed the card and whirled around, drink in hand, rushing hurriedly back to his group of friends, the alcohol sloshing out of the cup and onto the tattered wooden floor below with every step he took.

I turned back to her, where she was watching him, her eyes twinkling mischievously. “You enjoyed that way too much.”

She waved a dismissive hand at me. “Impossible,” she retorted, grabbing a newly cleaned glass and a towel and drying it, “there’s no such thing as enjoying something ‘too much.”

I rolled my eyes, smiling despite myself. She was that kind of person, Linda was, always living in the moment. Happy. Carefree. Just as young today as she was twenty, even thirty years ago. She had always lived for the moment, and I couldn’t imagine her any other way but this one, toying with children’s emotions one second, handing out beer to minors the next, all whilst barefoot. It was just Linda.

But still. This business with her sudden need to become Bartender Extraordinaire was still annoying me. “You can’t just up and decide to give all your employees a break because you think they work too hard, you know. It doesn’t work that way.”

“Sure I can!” She replied, her smile laced with undertones of defiance. “I’m doing it now.”

I opened my mouth to reply, but she cut me off, signaling the end of the discussion. Linda had never been particularly good with rationality, which is probably why music, and its fanatics, appealed to her so much. She wasn’t good at explaining herself, and she was particularly awful at managing things with responsibility, which is why we had Mac, our very own Mr. Responsibility (plus a few tattoos and piercings). “Enough with this talk about me. Let’s talk about you,” She said, leaning forward across the bar, smiling knowingly. I groaned internally, not ready to face this conversation for the millionth time already. I knew what was coming. “Are you nervous?”

Was I nervous?

WAS I NERVOUS?

I had heard this question about bazillion times in the span of about two days, and the answer never ceased to be the most obvious thing in the world. YES. “Oh, no. Not at all.” Of course I was. “Of course I’m not.” I smiled at her, and even though I knew it was fake, and she knew it was fake, she chose to overlook it, nodding, returning to polishing the glass, with a little more ferocity, her smile dimmed slightly and the shadow of a crease between her eyebrows. I suspected she let me slide because she was aware of the fact that the only thing keeping me upright and not hunched over the toilet, hurling my guts into the porcelain bowl of glory in the back of this hell hole was the idea that I had to be strong for everyone else—that I had to keep up appearances—for the sake of my bandmates, my co-workers, my friends, and Linda, I had to pretend to be okay.

But no, I was most certainly not okay. There was that uncomfortable gnawing sensation in the pit of my stomach, the lovely, ever present shaking in my left leg, and the dazed haziness that had seemed to surround my every thought, every movement since Tuesday, when Mac had announced abruptly that my “band”, The Embers, was to perform a Test Run, one of several, as I had understood, on Saturday.

Today happened to be the Saturday in question, and it happened to also be five o’clock, about an hour and a half before we were scheduled to begin the Test Run.

Awesome.

I was, in one word, enthused. Enthused at the prospect of being able to perform under the glare of Mac’s harsh scrutiny of our performance. Enthused at the idea of an additional three hundred people watching us, judging our every move. Yes, that’s right, folks. Three hundred.

Let me just reiterate: THREE HUNDRED FUCKING PEOPLE.

Three hundred and one, if you were counting Mac (and I certainly was).

My worries, however, had not been abated by the numerous “oh, sweetie, you’ll do great!”s and “don’t worry about a thing!”s and my personal favorite: “if you get nervous, just picture the crowd in their underwear!”s. This suggestion, above all else, seemed the most disturbing/frightening. I mean, 1. I’m fairly certain that that’s a form of sexual harassment and 2. How would having a crowd of naked people watching me ease my nerves? If anything, it would seem more intimidating, and slightly more strange, as if I’d be performing as the live-background music to some giant orgy.

Instead of finding solace in their many attempts at consolation, my mental state seemed to get more and more fragile with each passing day. I was skipping meals, ordering coffee and then forgetting to drink it, tripping over my couch at least twice everyday (even though it was in the same place it had been for five years), forgetting where the Beatles records were located, ect. In an act of desperate self-preservation, I had taken to presenting my attitude towards tonight as the epitome of nonchalance, confidence, and comfort. I think I thought subconsciously, if I managed to convince enough people that I was fine, I would start to believe it myself.

She looked back over at me, her rubbing becoming increasingly feverish with each swipe of the glass, her eyes alight with restrained worry. She wasn’t going to say anything, I knew, until I admitted that there was something wrong. It was a silent agreement. If I broke down, she’d be there to help. But as long as I stayed composed(if only on the outside) she was assuming I was fine.

And yet, her worry for me shown through in her actions, the gentle, easy rubbing of the glass had now become a frantic scraping at its already-gleaming surface. She rubbed, quicker and quicker and quicker and quicker and quicker and quicker still, until finally—it dropped. The glass dropped to the floor, shattering into a million tiny, light-reflecting pieces, strewn all over the floor behind the bar. She glared at me accusingly, as if any of this was my fault, before shoving the dish rag into my hands, turning on her bare heels, and storming off.

I glanced down at the graying piece of cloth in my hands. I knew Linda. A worried Linda was not a rational Linda. And I, for one, did not want to stick around to be on the receiving end of one of her infamous nonsensical, rambling diatribes.

The decision to flee was one that came quickly, and within seconds, I had dropped the sad looking rag and whirled around on my barstool, prepared to make a quick exit.

But before I could so much as take a step away from the bar, a wrinkled, but surprisingly lithe hand grabbed me by my wrist, whirling me around and yanking me, stomach first, into the mahogany edge of the bar, which I folded over with a resounding “oof”, the wind leaving my lungs abruptly. As I gasped for air, I was met with a still anxious looking Linda, her eyes tinged with an uncharacteristic motherly protective seriousness, an expression that was, to put it lightly, rarely seen on Linda’s face. “You.” She said, in what I assumed was supposed to be a gruff bark, but came out as more of a shrill squeak. “Stay.”

It didn’t matter that she was completely overreacting, and that, by logical, reasonable standards, I was relatively fine, besides a fairly manageable case of nerves. When Linda was worried, she was worried. She completely disregarded logic and reason, and allowed the panic to overtake her completely, overwhelming her until any attempt at a return to reason seemed futile. She didn’t worry often, but when she did, it was like, the mother of all Mother Bear style panic attacks. Not pretty. So instead of leaving, like any sane, cautious person would have in the face of such unrestrained protective fear, I just sat there idly, watching the light reflect off of the shards of broken glass, patiently awaiting her frenzied return.

It was about a full, peaceful three minutes of silence later, that I felt two people sidle up on either side of me. Two, very, very large people.

I turned my head, looking over my visitors. Two very self-assured looking frat boys, a good four years older than me, each wearing white t-shirts that clung tightly to their bulging muscles, their puny, spray-tan-orange heads looking almost comically small on top of their huge, over-inflated bodies, neither of whom seemed to have any concept of the idea of “personal space.” Neither one spoke. Instead, they just stood there, moronic brutes that they were, looking at me in much the same way Augustus Gloop would look at the World’s Largest Chocolate Bar. I was feeling (and with fairly good reason) a little bit uncomfortable, to say the least. The cloud of cologne surrounding the three of us was suffocating, and my instinct was to run, an action I would’ve gladly taken, had I not been wedged so firmly between the two boulders.

“Uhm,” I managed to wheeze out, looking from Tweedle Dumb to Tweedle Dee with tinge of annoyance and a healthy dose of bewilderment. What had I done to deserve this? I mean, I knew karma could be a bitch, but this seemed like a particularly heinous form of retribution for whatever wrong it was that I had done. Having a couple of meat heads pressed against me, leering down at my petite frame with a hunger in their eyes that was slightly worrisome, if not outright frightening, was not my idea of a good time. We stayed like that for a moment, me, the trembling center of a Douche Sandwich, looking around for an escape route that never seemed to come, before one of them spoke.

“Hey there.” He smirked, and cocked an eyebrow, as if he was being suave and smooth. As if we had not just spent a full two minutes in awkward silence. As if during this two minutes of silence, the wittiest, most interesting thing he had thought to say was not, “Hey there.” Nope, he just sat there, smirking, looking supremely proud of himself for someone who’d just put on an outstanding display of lack of brain cells.

It struck me, suddenly, how odd it was that one person’s face could make the exact same expression as another’s, and yet, each one could illicit a completely different reaction from me. When Alex smirked, it was admittedly: infuriating, but still, sort of (dare I say it?)… endearing? Familiar, at least. But with this guy, the only emotion his attempt at suaveness conjured up was full-fledged, un-bridled disgust. “I’m Rick, and this,” he reached over my head, smacking the other giant’s arm, “is my main man Shtick.”

I frowned, titling my head up at Idiot #2. “Your name is Shtick? Why?”

Shtick opened his mouth to respond, but Rick cut him off, his faux-smile stretching to cartoonishly large proportions across the surface of his tiny head. “He—“ he glared at Shtick, as if sending him some sort of message in Silent Idiot Code, “doesn’t really do much talking. He’s kind of just here for the comedic relief. That’s why we call him Shtick.”

“How is someone supposed to be the comedic relief when they can’t talk?” I asked, looking between the two hulking men perplexedly.

His brow furrowed in agitation. I suspected he wasn’t quite acclimated to the breed of girl that knew how to carry on an actual conversation. He sighed, looked down at me once again, as if debating whether or not I was worth the strain on his brain cells. He must’ve seen something he liked, because he seemed to refocus, and spoke again with renewed enthusiasm. “Well, anyway, we were just headed over here because we noticed you from across the room, pretty young thing that you are,” I cringed. Visibly. This, of course, did nothing to deter him. In fact, by the way he was looking at me, it seemed as if that were the most promising response he’d ever received in reaction to his advances. “looking all lonely and sad and stuff, so Shtick and I decided to keep you company.”

He leered down at me again, his eyes travelling across each crevice and ridge of my body, blatantly, as if it were completely acceptable and not at all demeaning and crass of him to ogle my figure as though I were a piece of meat, up for sale.

That was the final straw. I was done here. I would humor these morons no longer. The jig was up. The jest was over. It was time to get serious. I drew the line at that. I wasn’t going to stand here and be looked at like that. I attempted to force my way past them, making it quite clear that I did not want to be there anymore. Neither boy made any effort to free me from my massive restraints. In fact, if anything, they got closer to me. “Not so fast,” Rick leered at me, his tiny, orange head tilting menacingly, “we’re not done chatting with you.”

Uh-oh.

Suddenly, before I even had time to begin panicking, I felt a firm hand grab my shoulder, and I froze, petrified. If one of those two assholes decided it was okay to touch me I was going to—“I think you are.” A smooth, over-confident voice spoke, his words crisp and terse. I froze. I recognized that voice.

Alex.

Dumb and Dumber whirled around, finally releasing me from their stronghold. “And who the hell are you?” Rick spoke, his voice transformed into a low growl, and Shtick nodded in moronic agreement, as if this were the type of question you could agree with.

Alex, however did not seem to be at all phased by the intimidation tactics of the Twin Towers, his face unaffected, but still serious, and his posture relaxed, but still solid. He wasn’t about to back down, and I silently thanked him with every bone in my body. I don’t know what had prompted him to do it, since he usually just liked to watch me squirm, but he’d decided to adopt the role of my knight in shining armor, and for that, I couldn’t be more grateful. “I could ask you the same question.” He replied, raising his eyebrows.

For the first time since they’d managed to corner me, Shtick spoke.”I’m Shtick, and he’s Rick.” He said, and looked fairly proud of this declaration, as if it had been the most intelligent thing he’d said in years. Which, to be quite honest, did not seem to be too far away from the truth.

Alex pressed his lips together into a faux-understanding smile, nodding slowly. “Well,” he said slowly, after a moment, “Dick and Dick, was it?”

Rick spoke, looking at Alex like he happened to be the densest human being on the planet. Oh, the irony. “Rick and Shti—“

“Dick and Dick,” Alex repeated, interrupting him, looking at them so seriously, without even so much as a trace of a smile, that I couldn’t help but let out a snort. His eyes met mine, and for the briefest moment, I saw them twinkling in the light of our shared amusement. “Now, the young lady,” he gestured towards me, his eyes still locked on mine, “has obviously refuted your advances.” He turned his attention back to them, eyeing them both incredulously, “Tantalizing an offer as that may be.” I let out another snort, and this time, he didn’t meet my eyes, but I saw a small hint of a smile forming on his lips.

“Dude, I didn’t even understand a word of what you just said.” Rick said, his brows furrowed perplexedly, looking like someone who’d just been smacked square in the face with a frying pan.

“Let me clarify.” Alex cleared his throat. “SHE DOESN’T PUT OUT.” He shouted slowly, as if they were not only slow in the brain, but they were also nearly deaf. A middle aged woman sitting at a table nearby glared at us pointedly, but I just shot her an unaffected shrug. I was enjoying this far too much to stop him.

Rick (or should I say: Dick) glared at us, looking equal parts confused and offended. “Whatever, man.” He said, finally, nodding towards me. “Bitch wasn’t even that hot anyway.” At that, both morons turned, and hobbled towards the door, giant masses of muscle with little tiny heads, walking away slowly. If the moment hadn’t been so tense, I would’ve probably laughed at how incredibly funny they looked, stalking away like that.Pinheads.

I saw the look in Alex’s eye before he even made a move forward, and whipped a hand out in front of him, grabbing his arm. He froze, slowly looking down at my hand, his expression unreadable. I pulled him closer to me, leaning up to whisper in his ear. “I think I can handle myself from here, Prince Charming.” I let go, turning and heading towards the stage, leaving a statue-like Gaskarth frozen in my wake.

*

“Piper!” Jack slurred, from the deep purple couch situated in the middle of the backstage area, where he was surrounded by the other half of his band, three fourths of mine, and a few other people, his voice more chipper, and more raspy than usual, a sure sign that he’d been (surprise, surprise) drinking again. He picked up a red solo cup in front of him, pulled a Sharpie out of his pocket (he always kept one there, in case some “adoring fan” were to run up to him on the street and beg, desperately for a signature. His words, not mine.) and scribbled something onto it quickly, before looking over at Carter, who was sitting next to him, and shooting him a sloppy wink, pressing a shaky finger to his lips and whispering, “Shhhhhh, it’s a secret.”

I raised my eyebrows, watching as he scrambled off the couch and stuttered towards me, his eyes wide in what I’m sure he was hoping looked like innocence. He stopped in front of me, thrusting the cup out at me, his eyes twinkling mischievously.”You look thirsty.” He nudged me with the cup, still looking pretty proud of himself. “Have a drink.”

I eyed the cup a moment, before grabbing it. It reeked of booze, something that was not at all surprising, considering the state of the boy before me. But, in a rather surprising turn of events, the best part of the whole situation was not drunk Jack. It was the cup he had just handed me. Or, to be more precise, what was written on the cup he had just handed me. There, in Jack’s unmistakable chicken scratch, was written: “Not a shot.” I let out a loud peel of laughter, momentarily distracted from the roaring claw of nervousness that had made my lower abdomen its home in the last twenty-four hours. That was when I noticed it. More writing, written on the base of the cup. I squinted, looking at the mangled letters, before deciphering an innocent: “I swear.”

Clearly, subtlety was not one of Inebriated Jack’s strong suits. Still, it was the thought that counted. A shot was Jack’s attempt at empathetic solidarity. It was his way of showing he cared. For a boy that quelled every emotion—happiness, sadness, jealousy, anger, fright—with alcohol, a shot was all he had to offer me by way of preparation for such a frighteningly large moment. It wasn’t like he could offer me wise, soothing words. He was drunk. He and I both knew, this cup-full of stuff I would never drink, was much better than any slurred soliloquy he could try his hand at right now. The golden brown liquid inside sloshed back forth as I pushed it towards him, an involuntary smile painted on my face.

“Sorry, Jackie.” I said, handing back the cup. “You know I’m not an alcohol fan.”

“Lame!” Shouted every single one of the room’s occupants, to whom I sent a very polite middle finger.

“Come on, guys. She’s nervous.” I didn’t even bother turning around. I knew who it was. I knew who it had to be.

Gaskarth.

Before—this was how our relationship was measured now, in before and afters; more specifically, before Saturday and after Saturday—I had been able to count on him to appear at the exact wrong times in my life. Where ever there was some sort of sticky situation, he appeared, with no goal in mind but to make things stickier. That had been his job. He fucked things up, he pissed me off, and then he left. That was how it worked, and that was a pattern that I’d grown to accommodate, to account for. But that was, of course, before.

Now, out of the blue, for seemingly no reason at all, things had changed. Something had shifted. He was being… nice? Before, I could have counted on him to show up at all the wrong times, now, he was suddenly showing up at all the right times. Anytime I was in a bad situation (take earlier, for example, with—ahem, Dick and Dick), he was magically there, ready to defend me, or cheer me up, or… punch someone in the face.

And of course, I should’ve been grateful. Gaskank, the Hate of My Life, suddenly being nice? What were the odds? I should’ve been ecstatic. I should’ve been jumping for joy. One less person (or should I say, pest) to worry about. But I wasn’t. I wasn’t. I wasn’t feeling excited, or happy, or elated, or even relieved, as any normal person would be. Of course, I Piper Colins, upon getting exactly what I wanted, hoped for, wished for, was on edge. I was nervous, jumpy, anxious. But, c’mon. Really? Was I really expected to believe that all it took to sedate the Royal Pain in the Ass in my life was some Mountain Dew, a cigarette, and a night of spooning on a lumpy pile of graffitied couch stuffing? It all seemed too good to be true. After about five years of non-stop harassment, he just stopped?

There was something else here, something deeper going on. I could feel it. And even though he had done a complete one-eighty, seemingly over-night, I had a nagging suspicion that this was just the tip of the iceberg. That there was more to come.

And that thought, in and of itself, was ominous.

“We are well aware, dummy!” Jack cried, hopping back down onto the couch and wrapping his skinny arms around my waist, bringing me down with him, so I ended up in his bony lap. “That’s why, I thought, if maybe I could get some shots into her…” Immediately, I saw Alex’s jaw tighten, his eyes harden. Gaskarth was not happy. He was watching us intently, and if glares had the power to make people disappear, I would’ve surely been long gone by then, evaporated into thin air. I could practically hear the bitter, scathing words, poised and ready for battle, right on the tip o his tongue. I remembered this look, this glare, this face. I knew this one quite well. It didn’t come often, but when it did, it was unforgettable.

“Don’t get mad at me, Colins. It’s not my fault you’re a whore.”

Oh, yes. Unforgettable. And I braced myself for what was coming. In fact, I think I might’ve been excited about the idea of getting into it with him again. After almost a week of peace, a fight was exactly what I needed to reassure me that things were back to normal. I could see it, I was ready. I was anticipating it. Any second now.

But he didn’t. He stopped himself. I was reading his expression, and I saw him regain control of myself. And just like that, all my hopes, sick as they may have been, for a return to normalcy, were dashed. Gone. And all I was left with was a bitter reminder of Alex Gaskarth’s past.

“Don’t get mad at me, Colins. It’s not my fault you’re a whore.”

I shook the memory from out of my head. I wasn’t going to let him bother me. Not today. I had too many important things to worry about, and “Gaskarth’s Feelings” wasn’t one of them. Who cared if he thought I was a whore? He could think whatever he wanted. If I wanted to sit in Jack’s lap, I would.

I raised a defiant eyebrow at him, daring him. Threatening him to say something, to do something. How dare he be angry at me? What right did he, of all people, have to say something to me? He noticed my defiant glare and immediately shrunk out of his anger, glancing at me sheepishly before averting his gaze to the ground. There he was again, restraining himself. Being the nice guy.

Why?

“Suggestion!” Shouted a slightly buzzed Rian, breaking my thoughts away from the confusing boy in front of me, from where he was laying on the floor, head in Zack’s lap, grinning in that wide, toothy, Rian-y way of his. “To help keep your minds off of things,” he gestured towards me and the rest of my bandmates, who were each sprawled out at a different end of the floor, looking just about as nervous and stricken as I felt, “let’s play Kranimazoo!”

There was a general murmur of approval between his bandmates, who nodded solemnly, as if anything with the name Kranimazoo could possibly be taken as a serious suggestion. “That’s actually a good idea, Rian.” Alex remarked, nodding in assent.

“Yeah, seriously, dude.” Added Zack. “I think that might’ve been your first.” Rian laughed, reaching up to flick his band mate’s forehead.

Alex laughed along with them, moving to sit in front of Jack, plopping down on the ground and leaning back—directly onto my shins. I flinched.

It was involuntary. I hadn’t meant to do it. But I couldn’t help it. Even when he was being nice, I couldn’t help but feel a slight revulsion towards him. It wasn’t something that could be stopped. There was just this subconscious defense mechanism inside of me, built in to help keep Alex’s taunting, mean-spirited advances at bay. It functioned without my control, without my supervision. It didn’t matter whether or not Gaskarth was in Hissy Fit Mode, there was a part of me that had been trained to bitch him out, always, no matter what-- if only for my own self-defense.

Alex froze, sensing my movement of discomfort, cleared his throat awkwardly, and shifted over, so that he was now directly in front of Carter and not Jack. And not me. I glanced over at him, feeling a sudden guilty sickness sweep over me. He was trying, I could tell. For whatever reason, one beyond my realm of understanding, he was trying. And what was I doing? Being a bitch.

For a split second, I felt bad. I really did. I wanted to shoot him an apologetic smile, or even (god forbid) an amicable pat on the back. I was going to do it, too. I was going to be nice. I was going to breach the barrier, and accept this new phase in our relationship. For the first time, I sensed a side of me, one that had been lying dormant for a long time, stifled by my immediate negative reaction to his presence, that yearned to end this. That longed, desperately, to be…

Friends?