Once again, huge thanks need to go out to Karen and Scotty T for reading over what is to come. Thanks also to Drewbie, just for being Drewbie, and for forgiving me for not telling you that the first two parts of the story were posted.
And of course, thank you to Matt. There are far too many things to thank you for, boo, so I guess just thank you for everything. SHMILY, sweetie. :)
Disclaimer is the same as it ever was. Nothing contained in this story is meant to in any way represent or depict real life. Well, except for the fact that apple butter and bacon sandwiches are the perfect breakfast food. That part is true, but that's it. The rest is all fiction. It is, however, fiction that has a decidedly adult slant to it. If you're not of age or shouldn't be reading this for some reason, please stop reading now. Otherwise, enjoy!
THE SUN FROM BOTH SIDES
PART 3
Nick arrived shortly before dark with Chinese food. He also came with his luggage.
"What's that for?" I asked, making a valiant effort to keep the slur out of my voice. I pointed at his suitcase sitting in the hall.
"I'm moving in," he announced, putting the bag with the food in it on the counter and picking up his suitcase again. "I'll be staying in the spare room." He smiled at me and headed off in that direction.
"Don't most people wait to be invited to move in?" I asked sarcastically, speaking around the cigarette that was tucked in the corner of my mouth.
"Are you going to invite me?" he asked, stopping and turning to look at me.
"No."
"Then why wait for it?" He continued on his way to the bedroom. He reappeared a few seconds later and retrieved some clean bedsheets from the closet in the hall. Tossing them in the room, he closed the door again and rejoined me in the kitchen.
"Make yourself at home," I said, my tone dripping with sarcasm.
"Don't mind if I do," he said, plucking the cigarette out of my mouth.
"Hey! What are you doing?"
"Making myself at home," he answered, throwing the cigarette in the sink. He turned the water on, dousing it. "We don't smoke in my house."
"Let me rephrase that," I said, taking out my last pack and pulling the silver paper out.
"Too late," Nick said seriously, grabbing the pack and dumping it in the sink. He got the water on just as I reached in, trying to salvage what I could.
I sighed and turned away from him.
"Dig in," he said cheerily, handing me the bag of food. He searched around until he found a couple of plates. I sighed again and reached into the untensil drawer to retrieve my chopsticks. I was already craving a smoke.
"You know how to use those?" Nick asked, looking at me.
"No, I just thought we'd play 'pick up sticks' while we ate," I said sarcastically.
"Can you show me how? I've always wanted to learn."
I shrugged and fished out another pair from the drawer. "Better bring yourself a fork too, just in case." I turned and headed for the living room while Nick got himself a fork.
"Now brace the bottom one against this finger here," I said when we were finally seated. "And then use these two to control the top one." I pinched my chopsticks together a couple of times to show him. It wasn't the easiest thing for me to do at the moment either.
Nick studied my fingers, then tried to duplicate what he saw. He grinned as they clicked together for him, then slid apart again. Resetting the sticks, he tried again, managing to keep them together.
"Now, you just grab your food like this," I said, demonstrating, "and you've got it."
Nick tried to pick up some pork, and frowned as it slipped between the sticks. He looked up as I smiled at him, and he returned it. "Guess I need a little bit more practise."
"A little bit?" I joked, eating a bit more to show him how easy it was.
"Showoff," he laughed, moving his fingers around again, trying to bring the chopsticks back under what tenuous control he had achieved. "I'll get it."
I just nodded, smiled, and kept eating. Having Nick around was nice. Even if he did need a beating for soaking all of my cigarettes, at least he didn't push me to talk about things I didn't want to talk about.
Nick tried to get the piece of pork again, and this time got it almost to his mouth before it slipped to the side and fell back onto his plate.
With a growl, he tried to spear the pork instead, punching the end of his chopstick into the edge of the plate. All this accomplished was to tip the plate and dump half of his dinner onto the coffeetable.
I started laughing so hard I was afraid I might shoot my mouthful across the table as well. I barely managed to swallow in time.
"I think I'll just use my fork," Nick said, grinning. He put the chopsticks down beside his plate and stood up to get a napkin to clean up his mess. "Once I actually have food on my plate, that is."
I wiped a tear from my eye and tried to continue eating without choking as I laughed.
"Well I'm glad you're getting such a kick out of it," Nick said, returning to the room. "You're not the one starving and trying to eat with twigs."
I clicked my chopsticks together for him, underlining both the point that I was indeed trying to eat with twigs, and that I wasn't starving.
"Yeah yeah, shut up," he grumbled, sitting down again. He dumped some more food out of the take-out containers and picked up his fork, giving the chopsticks his iciest glare.
I grinned and continued eating. I noticed Nick smiling as well out of the corner of my eye.
"Nice place," he said, looking around him as he ate. That was about the only thing other than the book that I had managed to accomplish. I had moved across town into a new apartment. That seemed like ages ago. Back when I had thought that the key to getting through things was as simple as a change of scenery.
"Thanks," I said, looking around too. "It's home." That was a total lie. It was where I hung my hat, but it didn't feel much like home to me. Nothing had since--
"Why'd you move?"
"Change of scenery," I answered, forcing myself to smile. "Erron kept the old place, and I moved here."
"I know," he said, nodding. "I talk with him every now and then." I arched my eyebrow inquisitively, making him laugh. "Relax, we just talk. Nothing more."
"Used to be more," I smirked.
"Used to be can cover a lot of things," he pointed out, effectively killing the conversation. We turned back to our plates through an unspoken but mutual agreement.
I, of course, finished first, and took my plate out to the kitchen. I heard Nick flick on the TV as I did. Taking a bottle out of the fridge, I poured myself a drink, then, after a moment of deliberation, I poured one for Nick as well reasoning that if he didn't want it it wouldn't go to waste.
I walked back out into the living room just as the phone started ringing. I sighed and put the glasses on the table in front of Nick, noting his displeasure at seeing them. Looked as though I was going to have to step up and drink them both.
Walking over to the phone, I pulled the reciever off of the wall. Nick turned down the volume on the TV so that I could hear.
"Hello?"
"Is this what you call staying away from Brian?" Jackie asked with no greeting.
"I didn't ask him to come here, Jac..." I looked over to see Nick watching me. I turned away and walked into the hall, which was as far as the cord reached. I had never wanted a cordless phone more in my life. "I didn't ask him to come. He just showed up."
"I don't care what happened," she said. "You just stay away from him."
"Look, if anyone knows how hard it is to control what he does, it should be you," I shot back, glad for the courage of most of a bottle of vodka flowing through my bloodstream. "I didn't ask him to come. In fact, I asked him to leave several times. He won't listen."
"I don't want excuses."
"I'm not offering any," I said plainly. "I'm telling you what's happening. I didn't plan any of this, and I'm trying to get through it as quickly as I can."
"We had a deal."
"And I'm doing everything I can to stick to it," I said. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have company and I can't talk."
"Don't you dismiss me."
"Bye, Jackie. Say hello to Harold for me." I hung up the phone and walked back out into the living room to find Nick still watching me. I put the phone back in it's cradle. "Telemarketer," I said, rejoining him on the floor in front of the couch.
He just nodded quietly and turned the volume back up. I noted that he had indeed claimed a glass. "You don't have anything to mix this with, do you?" he asked, pointing to it.
"I might," I said, standing back up with a groan. I wandered back into the kitchen, ignoring the soggy mess in my sink, and opened the refrigerator. Looking behind bottles and jars, I didn't find anything. "Looks like I'm all out," I called to Nick. "But there's a vending machine in the lobby. I'll go pick up some Coke."
"You don't have to," he called back. "I'll just drink it straight."
"Nothing should ever be done straight," I said, poking my head around the corner. "It's no problem. It'll only take a minute."
"I'll go," he offered.
"No no. You're the guest, right?" I said, using a tone that I hoped conveyed the fact that I still hadn't forgiven him for drowning my cancer sticks.
"Okay, if you're sure," Nick smiled, letting me know that he got the message.
"I'm sure," I mumbled, turning back away and grabbing a handful of loonies and quarters out of the laundry jar. I opened the apartment door and shuffled out into the hallway, heading for the elevator.
I bought six Cokes - as many as I thought I could carry back with me - and made my way back up to the apartment. Nick was still sitting in front of the TV when I got back. I put five of the cans in the fridge and carried the sixth with me, handing it to him.
"Thanks, man," he said. He had moved from the floor to the couch, and his plate was empty.
"No problem," I said, dropping down with him. I grabbed my own glass while he filled the extra space in his with cola. Holding the can out, he offered me some.
"No, thanks."
Nick frowned and set the can down on the coffee table.
We watched TV in silence for a while. I got the feeling that neither one of us was following the show very closely, but to his credit, he didn't say a word. He just periodically refilled his glass with Coke until it was diluted enough for him.
Once we had sat through an entire episode of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer', Nick turned off the TV. "Hey, Nate?"
"Yeah?" I asked warily, fearing that this would be the moment that Nick lost all of the points he had gained until then.
"Do you think I could check my email on your computer? It's been a few days."
I relaxed and took a deep breath. "Sure," I said. "Come with me."
Nick followed me into my bedroom to the desk. I reached out and flicked on the computer, then motioned for him to sit down. When the password box came up, Nick leaned forward and typed it in. I just looked at him inquisitively.
"Brian told me. Before," he said.
I nodded and lay down on the bed. I heard Nick type in what I assume was a website address, and then start to laugh. I sat back up and asked him what was so funny.
"Oh it's just this guy that I email back and forth with sometimes," Nick said, smiling. "He lives in Mississippi."
"Does he have any idea who he's emailing with?" I asked.
"Nope," Nick laughed. "But it doesn't stop him from hitting on me. He sent me a picture not too long ago. Check it out." I got up and knelt beside him, swaying a little bit, as he clicked on a folder and opened another message. "See, not too shabby either."
I squinted at the screen, but the picture remained blurry. Opening a drawer beside me, I pulled out my glasses and put them on.
"Those are new," Nick said, looking at me.
I just nodded and checked out the picture in front of me. Most of the blurriness was gone, but there was some that I couldn't fix with glasses. Only sleep, lots of coffee, and a very painful headache would get rid of that. I examined the photo and nodded again. "Yeah, he's not too bad at all. But I thought you were seeing that girl."
"Theresa?"
"Yeah. That's her."
"We stopped seeing each other about a month ago," Nick said. "It just wasn't meant to be."
"So the search starts anew?"
"Yeah, something like that," he laughed.
"And does it start in Mississippi?"
"I don't think so," he grinned. "He may be cute, but I think I'd rather be able to see whoever it is that I'm seeing."
I smiled back at him and stood back up.
Nick closed the folder and checked for any new mail. Not finding any more, he closed his session and stood up. "Thanks."
"No problem," I said. "Now trade me spots. I may as well check mine."
Nick moved to the bed while I sat down at the computer.
"So when did you get the specs?" he asked as he sat down.
"Oh, nine or ten months ago now, I guess," I said, opening my mailbox. "I was just finishing up the final editing on the book."
"So you just need them for reading?"
"I'm supposed to wear them most of the time," I said. "But they're hard to get used to. It feels like I'm looking out a window all the time."
Nick laughed. "When I got mine, I used to hate the feeling of weight on my nose."
"You hardly ever wear yours," I pointed out, typing in my password.
"Every now and then," he said. "When you're dancing and jumping around half of the day, it's just easier not to bother."
I smiled as I looked over the two new emails that I had. They were both from people that I had met in a chat room. Neither one knew what my life was like, and so neither one could judge me. At the time, that had been all I was looking for. I read each over, but didn't respond. I decided I'd do it later, when I didn't have to play host.
I shut off the computer and swiveled the chair around to look at Nick again. He had the picture in his hands and was looking at it. When he noticed that I was watching him, he looked up guiltily and put it down again. "Sorry."
"Don't be," I said, trying to smile for him.
"You do still love him, don't you?" he asked. There went all his points.
"Nick--"
"Look, I'm not asking for an explanation of why you left him, or asking you to be who you were back then. I want to know who you are now, and how you feel now."
"I feel tired of talking about this now," I said, sitting down with him. "Why can't everyone just accept that I'm not a good person to have around? Look what I've done to everyone I love." I fell back on the bed with my arms above me.
"Then you do still love him."
"Yeah, I still do," I said, amased that I was saying it. "I love him more than I thought possible, Nick. When he showed up here today, part of me wanted to just kiss him and ask him to forgive me for what I did. The other part wanted to push him out the door before I could hurt him again."
"He's already forgiven you," Nick said softly, putting his hand on my shoulder. "Hell, he forgave you before Kevin did."
I felt the tears falling. "That doesn't matter, Nick. I can't forgive me for what I did."
"What did you do?"
"You know what I did. I left him there, hurting, without any sort of explanation. I just walked out of his life completely."
"First of all, that's not true. You left him there, but you've been in his life every day since then. He carries you around with him all the time. Second of all, think about why you did what you did. Brian says you thought it was the best thing you could do for him."
"It was, Nick," I said, looking at him. Suddenly, all I needed was for someone to believe me. "I swear it was. Do you think I would have left him if I hadn't thought I had to? He was everything to me."
"Is."
"What?"
"He is everything to you," Nick elaborated.
I shook my head. "It's too late for that. He can't be. Not anymore."
"Don't you think that's for him to decide?" Nick asked, rubbing my shoulder. "You say that it was best for him that you leave--"
"It was," I said again, pleading with him with my eyes.
"And I believe that you thought that," Nick said, giving me a sad smile. "But more importantly, so does Brian. It's frustrating the hell out of him that you won't explain the particulars to him, but he believes that you thought it was the only thing that you could do. I think it's up to Brian to decide if he can live with what happened."
I shook my head and looked back at my hands.
"I know he still loves you Nate. That has to tell you something. He has enough faith in you to believe that leaving him was the only alternative that you had."
"It doesn't matter, Nick. We can't be together." There had been too many changes, too much pain.
"You don't know that. If you work it out together, I'm sure you can figure a way out of all of this. If you both want to."
"Nick," I sighed. "I'm telling you, everything's changed. We can't be together."
"All circumstances aside, if Brian wanted you back, would you be with him?"
"We can't," I insisted.
"Humour me," Nick said. "Hypothetically, would you still want to be with Brian if it were possible?"
"Of course," I said without hesitation. "Of course I would."
"Then talk to him." Nick reached out and wiped the tears from my cheeks with his thumbs. "Talk to him about this. I honestly don't know if he wants to get back together or not, or even if it's possible given what's happened in his life, but if you can't be together like you were, maybe you can just be friends. But you can't leave things the way they are. You're both miserable."
Nick's words were starting to make sense to me, and I felt all of the barriers go back up. "Can we just not talk anymore about this right now?" I asked him.
"Okay, but we're not done," he said, unknowingly echoing Brian's words from earlier in the day.
"Just not now," I said, already planning ways to avoid taking up the conversation again later.
"Okay," he agreed. There was a moment of awkward silence between us before he spoke again. "So how did the book turn out?" he asked, making a desperate, and completely transparent, attempt to change the subject.
"Well, it's done," I said, rubbing my eyes. "I managed to get it churned out after I came back here. It was total shit, but Carrie pushed me until it was pretty damn good, I think. She really should be listed as a co-author, I suppose. Any other editor would have laughed at what I originally sent her."
"It was that bad?"
I nodded and smiled. "It was horrible. I just wrote as quickly as I could. There was one point where I actually used a character that I had killed off about a hundred pages before," I laughed. "That whole scene wound up getting cut out, and it made more sense than a lot of the last half of the book."
"But it turned out well?"
"Thanks to Carrie, it turned out better than the first one," I said, nodding.
"What's it called?"
"'A Night in Time's Garden'," I said.
"What's it about?"
"You're going to have to read it and see," I said with a smile.
"So I get a copy, right?"
I laughed and rolled my eyes. "Like you can't afford to buy your own."
"Sure I can," he smiled. "But I want a personally autographed one."
"I'll see what I can do," I promised with a yawn.
"You must be tired," Nick said, standing up. "You've had a pretty long and emotional day." I nodded. "I'll let you get to bed, then. Can I use your phone? I want to call my parents and let them know where I am and what's going on."
"Sure, feel free. I'm going to get ready for bed, I think. Like you said, it's been quite a day."
"All right," he agreed. "I'll see you in the morning?"
"I'd say bright and early, but I don't think I can remember the last time I saw bright and early," I laughed.
"So are you going to make me breakfast? I have it on good authority that you make a great breakfast."
"Don't push your luck," I smiled. "Besides, it might be hard to navigate the kitchen with a big soggy hunk of tobacco and paper clogging up my sink."
Nick laughed. "You know those things are bad for you. Now you go and brush your teeth or whatever you need to do. Don't worry about me. I can occupy myself."
I laughed. "Just don't get any fluids on my couch."
Nick gaped at me as I brushed past him on my way to the bathroom. "I can't believe you just said that."
"And meant it," I said, turning into the bathroom and taking out my toothbrush.
I heard Nick laughing as he passed down the hall.
Letting the fake-feeling smile slip from my face, I left the room again and, once I saw Nick enter his own room, headed for the living room. I gathered my glass from the coffee table and slid open the patio door. This had been the main selling point for the apartment. The balcony was big enough to entertain a small party should I ever be in the mood for throwing one. I didn't think it was likely to come up.
Rather than those flimsy iron railings that you saw everywhere, this one was bordered by thick concrete columns, with the rail set waist high. It looked strong enough to support an army if called upon to do so. However, since I had moved in, it had only had me to contend with. Me and the more-than-occasional bottle resting on top of it.
Leaning against it now, I thought about all that had happened in the course of my day. It seemed the complete opposite of what my days had been for months. Day after day of monotany had suddenly been broken with enough emotion and upset to choke a horse.
My mind was still reeling at Brian's sudden appearance in my apartment. I hadn't thought I would ever see him again, let alone have him show up out of the blue to try and help me. Part of my mind was screaming that it was a good sign that he was willing to do that. That it meant that there was still a chance that we could be together. Another part was berating the first one for being so foolish. After what I had done, there was no way we could be together, even if Jackie and the fates weren't standing by to make sure it never happened. A third part was asking me to drown the first two just to shut them up. I sided with that one and took another drink.
Thinking back on it, I was surprised that I had held up as well as I had. But I knew that it was only the start. I didn't know how long they were planning on being here, but I was very sure that they weren't going to be leaving until they thought I was okay. I was also very sure that I wasn't going to be okay for a very long time, if ever. There just didn't seem to be an incentive. I had already lost everything, and I wasn't up to trying to rebuild it from scratch.
Which was what they wanted. The expression 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps' came to mind. As did a visual image of how futile actually trying to do that would be. Like trying to pick yourself up by the hair.
"How do I get you to leave me alone? To just forget about me?" I asked the night. Car horns and sirens answered me. It didn't matter, though. I already knew the answer to that. I couldn't get them to leave me alone. As long as I was in trouble, they would be there trying to help me. I took a moment to curse my former self for making such loyal friends.
Climbing up onto the railing, I sat down. My legs dangled over the side, my bare toes brushing against the column of the railing. If I were to lean too far forward, I'd slide right off the building.
I pondered my situation, considering my very limited options to get out of it for a few minutes, pausing now and then for a nip from my glass. They would be here until they were sure I was out of trouble, and there was only one way I could think of to get out of trouble right away. I was just coming to the realisation that it was completely hopeless, and had turned my eyes downward again, watching the people so many floors below, when I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye.
Turning my head to look into the apartment, I saw Nick take the phone off of the wall. He dialed a few numbers, listened, then hung up again. Picking the receiver back up, he dialed several more numbers, then began to talk. I wondered what his parents were like.
Nick talked for a few minutes, and then shivered and looked in my direction. Squinting, he peered through the reflection from the glass, then gave me a small wave. I returned it, then went back to pondering and watching Toronto move around me.
He joined me a few minutes later, putting his arms around himself because of the chill. "What are you doing out here?"
"Thinking. Drinking."
"You shouldn't drink so much you know," Nick said concernedly, moving to the railing.
I took a moment to assess his state of mind. When I decided that it wasn't going to turn into a lecture, I shrugged. "I've done worse things," I answered him mildly. "I don't think the drinking's going to kill me." Not unless it picked up the pace, anyway.
Nick leaned over the railing and looked down briefly before jerking his head back up and looking out instead. "No, but the fall would," he said, eerily echoing a thought I'd had many times while sitting right where I was now. "Aren't you afraid of falling?"
I considered his words and decided that with the way that my life was going, there were much worse things. That, more than anything else, decided me on what I was going to have to do. "No," I said softly. "That's one thing I'm not afraid of."
He looked at me strangely, and I wondered if maybe he hadn't picked up on one or two of my thoughts. He didn't say anything, but I knew that he was worrying. Forcing myself to smile for him, I slid off the railing again, picking up my glass. "You get used to it," I said.
"There are a lot of things that you get used to that aren't necessarily good for you."
Okay, maybe it was going to be a lecture after all. "Nick, there are a lot of things that you just have to accept and get used to, whether they're good for you or not."
"And there are some that are worth fighting for," he said with a frown. "Some that you should never give up on."
"Those aren't as plentiful as you think they are," I pointed out, draining my glass.
He sighed. "We said we wouldn't talk about this anymore. How about we just get to bed?"
"It's been a long night," I said evasively, nodding my head. He followed me back inside and closed the door behind us.
"Goodnight," he said, brushing past me with a smile.
"Nick?" I said quietly, realising that there was so much that I wanted to say to him -- that I needed to say to him -- while I had the nerve built up. When he turned to face me again, I found that I couldn't say any of them. Pulling him into a hug, I found the strength to say one thing, perhaps the most important one in the grand scheme of things.
"Thank you," I whispered, feeling his arms come together around me. It didn't come close to what needed to be said, but it was going to have to be enough.
"That's what friends are for," he whispered back, making me remember all of the times before that someone had said that to me when I needed help, or I had said it to them when they needed to hear it.
"And you're one of the best ones I've had," I assured him, pulling away before the tears could start again. I turned away and started down the hall.
"Thanks for talking with me," he said, opening his bedroom door.
"Thanks for talking back," I answered.
"Goodnight," he said again as I was disappearing into the bathroom and closing the door behind me.
"Goodbye," I whispered as I heard the latch click shut.
I opened the medicine cabinet and took out my toothbrush, setting it on the counter. I thought about the absurdity of what I was doing and picked it up again, turning it over and over in my hands. Such an ordinary thing, yet I had never noticed how totally alien it looked.
As I closed the medicine cabinet door, I looked at myself in the mirror, surprised at the haggard visage that stared back.
"Aren't you pretty?" I asked myself. I was actually half-expecting my reflection to smile back at me. Instead, it's red, blood-shot eyes stared back at and through me, betraying no emotion.
Sighing, I dropped the toothbrush into the garbage can and looked back to the mirror. Watching from somewhere in the back of my head, I saw my reflection reach up, then slant to the side as the door opened again. This time, I removed Papa's straight razor from the shelf instead.
Just as always: dls_stories@hotmail.com