After Before and After

Phase 4: Chapter 16

December 7, 1992. 12:06PM.

Ralph Langley dragged his wounded soul out of the handicapped stall in the men's washroom. He turned on the tap, allowing the water to flow slowly from the spout over his glistening hands. He located the soap dispenser and moved to push the button, but nothing came out. He tried again, and again, before letting out a frustrated sigh. He shook out his dripping hands before drying them the rest of the way with a brown, crinkled piece of paper towel.

"You look like hell."

Ralph jumped at the unexpected sound of another voice, but calmed quickly on account of the familiarity of it. He let out a heavy breath of relief as his eyes found Jack standing in the doorway.

"You scared me" Ralph unnecessarily pointed out as he turned back to the mirror, locking his with his own tainted reflection. Jack was right; he really did look like hell.

"Sorry" Jack shrugged in a dismissive way that suggested he wasn't all that sorry.

While things hadn't been exactly perfect between the two boys in the last month or so before the trial began, there hadn't been this much tension between them since Jack broke up with Ralph over a year ago now, a breakup that barely lasted a month. Ralph didn't know exactly what the reason was for the tension between them now, but that instinctive bad feeling in his gut made it hard for him to do anything about it.

"You holding up okay?" Jack had to ask, perhaps only to break the awkward silence.

"As okay as I can be" Ralph shrugged. "Are you?"

"I've lived through worse" Jack honestly declared.

"We all have" Ralph pointed out, "that's why we're here."

"Yeah" Jack shrugged boredly, "I guess that's true."

Both boys were awkwardly diverting their gazes from one another's throughout the conversation, but in this particular silent moment, their eyes unintentionally locked at the same time. It was almost painful, how tense things were in the small confines of the courthouse public washroom.

"What?" Jack awkwardly questioned as Ralph kept his eyes locked on the other.

"Are we okay?" Ralph needed to know, as difficult as it was for him to find the courage to ask.

"Why wouldn't we be?" Jack wondered aloud.

"I don't know, it just seems like... I don't know" Ralph struggled to find the words.

"Well, let me know when you do" Jack quietly dismissed the other, turning to leave the room.

"Jack?" Ralph stopped him.

Jack didn't verbally respond. He just turned around to look at Ralph, to find his eyes through his own hollow, implacable ones.

"I can't do this without you" Ralph bravely admitted, his voice full of pain and worry.

"You don't have to" Jack assured him, but his tone still lacked any sign of emotion. "But... nothing about this is easy, Ralph. I'm not trying to push you away, I'm just trying to manage all this. You don't really have to worry about getting convicted, but I do. This isn't about you, it's about me."

"That's a lame cliche" Ralph frustratedly pointed out.

"Well cliches are cliche for a reason, aren't they?" Jack proposed. But before Ralph could answer, the blond boy was gone, leaving the bathroom door to gently swing shut behind him.

Ralph knew it was possible that Jack really could be distancing himself from him because he believed he wouldn't be acquitted at the end of the trial. This wasn't the first time Jack pushed Ralph away, and that time he did it to protect Ralph from living through Jack's traumatic experiences with him. Perhaps, he was distancing himself for the same reason now; because he believed that Ralph would get off and he wouldn't. What would that mean for their relationship? It was only the first day of trial, was it possible Jack had already given up on himself?

Ralph thought back to the first whole day on the island. He remembered how Jack spoke of not getting rescued, not only because he didn't want to be but because he really believed they wouldn't be. Maybe this was no different. Maybe Jack really didn't believe he'd be rescued from this either, and the only way to make their inevitable separation easier was to distance himself from Ralph early on. It was certainly possible Jack had already given up.

Ralph made the decision to believe that must be the case, because anything else would've been too much for him to comprehend at a time like this. He didn't want to think that perhaps Jack was simply moving on, that there was some other reason he had been resisting Ralph's attempts to stay close to him lately. Ralph didn't want to believe that, especially with the trial turning their lives upside down right now. Even if that really was the truth, Ralph decided he wouldn't let it be, at least not yet.