We Go Down (Bremmy 2)

Chapterish 59

[Quote Aesthetic of the Chapterish]

I step into the hallway, careful to avoid treading on the broken glass of the bottle now scattered at Brooks's feet. Guess I know what he was smashing. My bare feet shouldn't need to pay the price for his transgressions.

Shit, my hallway is a shit show.

Not as much a shit show as he is right now. His hair is straggly, and I can tell it hasn't been washed in a few days. He doesn't bother to tuck it behind his ears. Also working with a midnight shadow across his face -more stubble than I've ever seen on him. I notice his faded band T-shirt is also spotted in certain places. Stained with beer, no doubt.

"It's 2 AM." ...It's all I manage to say. All I can say.

Void. Void boy all day.

I draw my long sleeve shirt across my chest, aware that I'm not wearing a bra and standing in my panties in the middle of my hallway.

"What are you doing?" I ask, my voice a teetering on the brink of apathy.

Brooks doesn't even look up. Part of me thinks he's no clue where he is. I'm worried about how he got here.

"Ems. I'm -I'm so-"

"Let me spare you the struggle, Brooks. I've seen this movie before. I know how it ends and it fucking sucks. I'm not interested." I fold my arms again, turning to go back inside my loft.

"Jus-Just hear me OUT!" Brooks makes an attempt to sound firm, but it dissipates quickly.

His eyes bore into mine. I'm surprised to discover that he's not nearly as drunk as I expected him to be. I'm also surprised to find that I'm not nearly as affected by his gaze as I usually am.

"WHY? Why do you even care? Leave Brooks. I don't want to hear anything you have to say. Drunk or sober." I shout, my voice growing hoarse. "Leave. Now."

"I can't," Brooks mumbles, shaking his head. "Can't. You don't get it -You don't know-"

"Don't know what? Huh? This should be good! Please tell me what you've come up with now!" I yell.

"It's -I can't leave you, Ems. Because I can't." Brooks shrinks back into the wall even more, if that's possible.

"Why? Because WHY?" I yell.

Brooks looks up, eyes bloodshot from who knows what.

"Because fuck. FUCK!" Brooks pulls at his hair. He looks at me, eyes full of something.

I can't help feel like there's something -a piece to all this that I'm not getting.

"You continue to use me. You don't choose me. EVER." I believe it.

"But I want to choose you. I DO choose you. When all is said and done, I still know to be true that I would trade a lifetime of love for a week of hate with you." Brooks's words are clear as day, but they're also obscured.

Tainted. Rehearsed.

"You choose yourself Brooks, every time. Yourself or someone else. You're a fool if you thought one day I wouldn't walk away," I say. "Hell, you're the one who walked away Mr. I want a break."

"You don't know what my life is. What I go through. Every single day. How fucked up everything is and how much I fuck everything else up! And now -now-" His voice grows hoarse.

"Oh, great sob story. Your life is SO hard. You do approximately nothing. ALL THE TIME! You have money. You have cult fucking friends-"

"OUR friends," Brooks interjects.

"That YOU punch in the fucking face. That you leave. ABANDON in fucking foreign countries." I can't keep the exasperation from seeping into my soul.

"I'm not perfect. Never claimed to be," Brooks spits, almost too defensive.

"That's the problem. You don't NEED to claim it. Everyone just gives you a pass for EVERYTHING. Ten fucking years ago our friends chose you. They chose you over me," my voice cracks. "I'm not letting that happen again."

I slam the door just in time. More tears cascade from my eyes, etching lines into my rosy cheeks. I canNOT take it. My heart cannot take it anymore.

That man (if you can even call him that) outside is broken beyond repair. Yet, I'm the one that feels fractured.

Banging ensues and continues briefly, before Brooks eventually gives up. I wonder if he's still sitting in the hall, still clinging to any shred of hope. Doubtful.

I turn off all the lights, even unplug the paper star lanterns outlining my headboard, and curl up in the darkness. Eager for the saddest song in the world, I play Lord Huron's The Night We Met on repeat.

Total vibe and a half.

I had all and then most and then some and now none of Brooks. It's been a long time coming. The worst is the more he slipped away, the tighter my death grip grew.

The wall shadows consume me in, I imagine, the same way Brooks's demons devour him.

I want to be 15 again. I want to rewind and take it all back. I want the last 15 years to be ahead of me. No college yet. No heartache yet. Bring me back to that sleeper town, when dreams were still undreamt, when I could still hope for what 29 would look like.

It shouldn't be this difficult to become -to feel -like a real human again after a breakup.  I don't think it's losing the person that does it to you. Maybe it's the severing ties with a former version of yourself part. That'll fuck with a person's reality.

I blink away the tears and remind myself that Brooks's Emmy sucked.  Who I was when I was with him sucked. It all sucked.

Jay Brooks was never really my future. Maybe, at a time, he was almost.

Maybe that's as good as it was ever going to get.

Almost is it for us.