Post by WESTON BRODERICK on Aug 13, 2012 22:31:30 GMT -5
Wes used to place a lot of value on fresh air. Saw it as an escape, maybe, or just a link to all the things he loved about people that he just couldn’t quite put down. Angel, he thought, was a bit like fresh air.
But he wasn’t going to think about Her. Not today.
That was what this was for. Clearing his head. In the smog of New York City. Just polluting it differently, he supposed. And whatever he did, he wasn’t going to think about Her, or the fact that he could see Her on the street today while he walked, or in the park where he was walking now, or on the bus on the way back to school, or anywhere, really, and not recognize Her simply because She’d changed and somehow, now, didn’t want him.
He wasn’t going to think about Her today.
Today, he wasn’t even going to smoke. For as big a fan of irony as Weston Broderick was, he felt that maybe now wasn’t the time or place for cigarettes of nicotine. They belonged back in the dorm, or on the roof somewhere he hadn’t visited since before that night—no. Not here. Not now. Not today. Not her.
He wasn’t doing this for anyone. Not for his friends, and certainly not for his mother. Maybe for himself? He didn’t even know anymore. There was a time when he’d thought he didn’t exist without Her. Like he’d just fade away and never come back, if they were every separated for two long. It’d be like smoke. Beautiful and continuous as long as something burned, and white, brilliantly white and pure if just the right sort of thing was set aflame. But, of course, he’d learned no one can keep a fire burning forever. Not without casualties. Not without chopping down trees, not without killing something else. Sometimes, it was easier just to walk away from the flame and pretend the smoke had never entranced you at all.
Bullshit, metaphors.
He needed smoke—not smoke, a smoke—because it felt good. And it soothed his lungs and it smoothed his skin and it made him not think about sleeping or dreaming or anything else he hadn’t ever been able to do but hadn’t missed while he’d been somewhere else with someone else. Happiness, he’d found, could be produced in countless wonderfully artificial ways. So who was to say those last eleven years…they weren’t artificial, too?
Still, he didn’t sing anymore.
There was a fork in the road. He took the one more travelled by. It didn’t make much of a difference. He’d been wandering the park for two hours now—more time outside than he’d been in the past two weeks combined, if one didn’t count his mandatory visits to that psychiatrist. He didn’t. He hadn’t talked to anyone yet. He hadn’t needed to. Wes was still very much functioning on a speak-as-needed schedule, and didn’t intend to change at least that bit of him just because someone was gone from his life. And maybe she’d taken his voice with her.
He didn’t sing anymore, after all. There was no one to listen.
But he wasn’t going to think about Her. Not today.
That was what this was for. Clearing his head. In the smog of New York City. Just polluting it differently, he supposed. And whatever he did, he wasn’t going to think about Her, or the fact that he could see Her on the street today while he walked, or in the park where he was walking now, or on the bus on the way back to school, or anywhere, really, and not recognize Her simply because She’d changed and somehow, now, didn’t want him.
He wasn’t going to think about Her today.
Today, he wasn’t even going to smoke. For as big a fan of irony as Weston Broderick was, he felt that maybe now wasn’t the time or place for cigarettes of nicotine. They belonged back in the dorm, or on the roof somewhere he hadn’t visited since before that night—no. Not here. Not now. Not today. Not her.
He wasn’t doing this for anyone. Not for his friends, and certainly not for his mother. Maybe for himself? He didn’t even know anymore. There was a time when he’d thought he didn’t exist without Her. Like he’d just fade away and never come back, if they were every separated for two long. It’d be like smoke. Beautiful and continuous as long as something burned, and white, brilliantly white and pure if just the right sort of thing was set aflame. But, of course, he’d learned no one can keep a fire burning forever. Not without casualties. Not without chopping down trees, not without killing something else. Sometimes, it was easier just to walk away from the flame and pretend the smoke had never entranced you at all.
Bullshit, metaphors.
He needed smoke—not smoke, a smoke—because it felt good. And it soothed his lungs and it smoothed his skin and it made him not think about sleeping or dreaming or anything else he hadn’t ever been able to do but hadn’t missed while he’d been somewhere else with someone else. Happiness, he’d found, could be produced in countless wonderfully artificial ways. So who was to say those last eleven years…they weren’t artificial, too?
Still, he didn’t sing anymore.
There was a fork in the road. He took the one more travelled by. It didn’t make much of a difference. He’d been wandering the park for two hours now—more time outside than he’d been in the past two weeks combined, if one didn’t count his mandatory visits to that psychiatrist. He didn’t. He hadn’t talked to anyone yet. He hadn’t needed to. Wes was still very much functioning on a speak-as-needed schedule, and didn’t intend to change at least that bit of him just because someone was gone from his life. And maybe she’d taken his voice with her.
He didn’t sing anymore, after all. There was no one to listen.
