THE BLIND GLASS RAGE

21

a/n: the coat thing in the first paragraph is such a metaphor for all of this im garbage

***

All I could completely bring myself to ponder, that had absolutely nothing to do with Josh, was why I was still so cold, along with the rock digging anxiously into the back of my leg. The wind slapped at all the bodies in the otherwise empty, desolate buidling, trying to crack any sheild they held up, and Josh watched me shake with the air that slung at me. His coat didn't move from his shoulders, though, in any silent, gentle offer, because I was already wearing it.

"Listen to me," he spoke gently, voice somehow slicing through the sharp wind, overpowering it just like he overpowered everything else. For the thousandth time, it felt, my strong resolved threatened to break under his eyes again, the two of us in the near dark, our bodies seperated by a bottle of wine and thousands upon thousands of words we couldn't snatch back and situations we couldn't fix. "Just listen to me while I explain this, okay?"

"Okay."

"Regardless of what the hell you think," was his starting point, and due to the words, and the fact that he technically swore, I knew this wasn't going to be an easy thing to comb through. "Most people basically live off of being the center of attention to other people."

The wind howled again, like it agreed.

"That's a thing I've been thinking about for a really long time, and I am very sure of what I'm saying. And by that, I don't mean every body, but the majority of us love to know that we're critically important, at some point."

My mind stayed clear, and I didn't think about my responses to what he was saying, just like he requested of me. To listen to someone speak, and not just to hear them, is to have your mind quiet, save for their thoughts. All the thoughts that aren't yours. Aren't mine.

"My problem," he continued. His hands began to tremble where they sat on his knee, and around the bottle between us. My stomach quivered, and I took a deep breath when he opened his mouth again. I could imagine butterflies and stars coming from his lips, but I hated how unrealistic that was. Even though all the planets stood in line in his eyes, somehow, I did not. And I wondered if the reason he brought wine, was so that he could make everything blur.

Maybe then, I would look like something he wanted.

"My problem is that I, very suddenly, want to be the center of way too many people. Granted, only two, but one is a lot by its self." He sighed. I agreed with that, but tried to keep my face calm and passive. "Do you see the problem?"

My nod was shaky.

"So, when I told you that I felt like you didn't care about me, I didn't know, uh." He sighed. "I didn't-I wasn't thinking."

"If you ever tell me I don't care about you again, I'll fucking show you how it feels to not be cared about." I spoke lowly, truth seemingly leaking from my words, though every piece of them was fake. Fabricated and calculated, because there is no way I would ever be able to tear apart eighteen years of friendship, stitch by stitch, like the two of us were nothing but a goddamn quilt made out of loose strings. No. I couldn't. "You can't keep making me feel like shit whenever you want to."

"That's not my intention," he replied calmly. "That's never my intention."

Fuck the listening thing, really. Why the hell did I even try to keep my right mind in the right place when I was in such a gross spot? A spot between, not just a rock and a goddamn hard place, but a rock and a cliff. So, I could fall, or work to climb over.