Fix You ~Completed~

Act Eighty-One

~Eddie~

A suggestion was made by Gale for Clem to get out of the house for a few hours. It wasn't the ideal situation to the puffy eyed blonde, but Clem admitted a walk would be nice. The tiny boy shrugged on a beanie and some shoes (with no socks) and stumbled out the door. He barely looked at either of us as he did so and didn't even bother changing out of the same holey pair of jeans I knew he'd been wearing for days or that goddamn grey sweatshirt of his. For some reason, he'd ditched the ones Gale and I had collected for him. I guess he was just that pissed at us.

"Does he talk to you? About how he's feeling? I-I keep trying and he's distant. Clemmy's never been distant like this." I tested the waters at the breakfast table after Clem left. It was just Gale and I and the elephant that followed us around everywhere. I missed talking to my best friend. Like Clem, he'd hardly looked at me in almost a week.

Finally, I had gotten the message and given up trying to talk to Clemmy, but that didn't mean Gale had. Asher disappeared periodically inside our buddy's room and called into work for him to let his boss know Clem was "still down with the flu. He'll need a few days." That meant the two had to be on speaking terms, right? Even if Clem hated Gale a little bit for forcing me to be honest, they still spoke. They had to.

A Pop-Tart was torn into awkward shapes on top of the silver packaging in front of my friend. Gale was a notorious food-picker. When we were kids, Georgie would tease him about what a toddler he was, mutilating his food like that. To retaliate, Gale dressed as a clown and shoved a bouquet of balloons into my brother's hands. Georgie had Gale's voice echoing in his nightmares for weeks: "You'll float too, Georgie!"

It took Gale a moment of tense silence to finally response. "Not really," he muttered. "He just keeps saying he didn't need to know. Why did I force you to tell him? Everything was perfect, why did I do that?"

"Why did you force me to tell him? It ruined everything," I brought up, pushing my bowl of Fruity Pebbles out of my line of sight. How could I eat right now? I'd hardly eaten at all since Clemmy cut me out of his life.

"Eddie." My name was one syllable on his lips. "It wasn't like you stole a pack of gum or did graffiti on a private building," he huffed, although I actually had stolen a pack of gum with him when we were freshman. "You killed someone. You killed someone who meant something to Clem."

"Did Kyla have to do drugs? Did he have to hit Clem? Did he really have to drive that poor boy to suicide? No! Absolutely not! If he had just let Clem be-"

Gale slammed his decently sized fist down on the table, halting my speech. I couldn't even remember what I was going to say. Silence so hot it melted me settled between us.

It occurred to me right then that Gale couldn't look at me. My own best friend was disgusted by me. From Clem, I guess I understood, but Gale was on my side throughout this. He hated Kyla just as much as I did. Why was this so hard for him to accept?

"You used to be the best damn person I knew, Eddie. You used to have morals. Strong morals, better than the other jackasses of the world!" Gale cried out, his voice unstable. "How do you sleep at night?"

Honestly?

Clem had commented, when we were still on speaking terms, that I always seemed exhausted throughout the day. During the nights, I couldn't close my eyes. I'd lay beside him in bed and just pet his hair. That never woke him up. Every little move I made usually had him sitting straight up, but not that.

Since I lost Clem, it had just gotten worse. I couldn't sleep without him. I couldn't sleep alone.

"Well," I murmured, head down, "I haven't slept too good for the past months, but now that Clem hates me I just can't seem to do anything let alone sleep."

"You. Murdered. Someone!"

"For Clem!"

"That doesn't make it okay! On what planet does that make it okay? Murder is murder no matter the motive! God, Eddie. How did you expect Clem to react when he found out? You've gotta be pretty fucked in the head if you honestly believed he'd think of you as some knight in shining armor. Lem isn't that delusional."

I clasped a hand over my mouth. We go four days without speaking and look what happens? I thought to myself bitterly, turning away a bit. If he just tried to understand the whole situation from my point of view, he wouldn't be so angry.

"Who would you rather have walking around, huh? That crap bag or Clemmy?" I broke. The tears warmed my face the way Clem's kisses used to.

"I'd rather have my best friend not be a murderer, Eddie." Gale didn't even sound angry. His voice was hollow. He hung his head low and let one single tear plop onto his lap.

"You love Clem. So do I. You know I do, Gale. You know I did back then too. You're the one who always teased I'd do anything for him! I did what I saw as necessary. I just wanted to help him. Stop being pissed at me for trying to take care of him! Fuck, you brought him into our lives!"

"Don't use that." Gale stood. That was fair. It wasn't right of me to try and spin this around to put some blame on him when he was innocent here. "Stop wasting your breath. You need to make things right with Clem first. After that, we can... we can talk."

I found it in me to lift my head and glare at him. "You would have done the same thing in my position!" I tried to reason with him. If he'd walked in on Clem swimming in pills on the floor, if he'd been there to hold that poor baby's hand when he was first admitted into the hospital, if he'd seen the tears in Clem's eyes New Year's Day when he found all those messages on his phone...

If Gale was close to Clem the way I was, if he spent more time with him than Dame, if he loved that blonde nerd the way I did, he would have killed that piece of trash first chance he got.

At least I used drugs. At least I didn't bludgeon him like I would have loved to have. I reigned myself in, though. All I wanted was to lessen Clemmy's pain, not worsen it.

"Why did you even tell me to begin with?" Gale demanded.

"I-I've been conflicted on the whole thing. It was the right thing to do- I know that- but it's hard dealing with knowing that a life's been snuffed off the planet because of you. No matter how horrible Kyla was, I keep struggling with guilt. Honestly, I never expected to feel guilt."

I heard a bedroom door click shut. Gale was gone.

My bowl of cereal went flying across the table and clattered on the floor, coating it in a mix of ugly reds and blues similar to the mess inside my head. 

_____________

Double update today because... reasons!

-The Creators