Pact

Friend or enemy, you walked on eggshells around them, and you dealt with a minimum of one nervous breakdown or tantrum per project. But they were one of the only resources we had on hand.

Amanda. My least favorite member of the group of my favorite people.

“You look like you’ve been through hell. It’s only been a week.”
“Has it?” I asked. “Damn.”
“I can’t help but think of the pictures of U.S. presidents before and after they take office. They look drained, aged by years. You look like that.”

For him to be ‘very nearly drunk’ was the equivalent of another man being in the hospital for alcohol poisoning.

“It’s not a kid’s television show,” Andy told me, “where the antagonist makes the Machiavellian plan and then abandons that plan completely the first time it fails. People fail, they revise, they adjust parameters, then they achieve victory through persistence and hard work.”

“These people you owe? Are they dead?” he asked.
“No. Very much alive.”
He nodded. “You’re lucky.”
I frowned. “Am I? Because it’s a quiet sort of hell, knowing you owe someone everything, and once in a while you have to look them in the eye.”

I’d accept your apology, but it’s kind of hard to when we’re talking about me being murdered at your hands.

“It’s supposed to be harder than that,” she said. “Pretty sure.”
“Good thing you didn’t tell me before I tried anything,” I said.

You don’t try to out-scheme the schemer. You do something like send twisted midget psychopaths to stab the schemer and leave him unable to think straight.

“Maybe you could stop? Take a break, eat?” Rose suggested.
“Soon. I’ll eat to build up my strength, but I’m not feeling too hungry.”
“You’re not feeling tired either,” Rose said. “That’s not a good thing. That’s you being in such bad shape that you’re not registering your basic needs anymore.”

It wasn’t a fight like on TV or in the movies or in the books about superheroes. Not an exchange, no trade-off, nothing like that. It was ugly, stupid, nonsensical. One of them would swing. The person they swung at would be seriously, maybe even lethally wounded, or the swing would miss. If the swing missed, they’d be leaving themselves open for one equally serious, equally fatal wound. A skull cracked open, a knife in the belly.

“I like Maggie,” Heather said.
Ben scowled, glancing back. “You like everyone. You’re like a dog with no conception of strangers."

Let go of who you were, and let yourself be who you need to be.

You were just reminding me how high school is meant to instill lessons in all of us. ‘People suck’ is lesson number one. Weren’t you paying attention, way back then?

“We’ve talked about the role High School plays in life, remember?”
Maggie sighed a bit. “I remember.”
“The things you learn are a very, very small part of it. You’re learning how to learn, and you’re learning how to socialize, how to deal with people and problems. University is the same way. Studying is a very, very small part of it.”
“I know. I get that. The rest of it is partying.”
“That’s not what I meant.”

I’ve been telling myself, you know, a few months left until the end of the year, then a year left until I graduate. Then I’m done. Now it’s like… wait, I’m going to University? Three to six more years of studying? I’m not that keen.

It might have helped that I was as tired as I was. I was disconnected enough that I was able to look like I didn’t give the slightest shit.

“You don’t like me very much, do you?”
“I like you fine,” Rose said, in what were maybe the least friendly sounding words I’d heard out of her mouth.