Chapter 29.

Halloween by Phoebe Bridgers

"You look really pretty today, Darbs."

I turned to face the voice, already predicting it'd be Harry. Being right, I gushed as he reached around my waist and pulled me in. I was interrupted very quickly.

"8 days, Harry, how we feelin'!!" Jeff came crashing into the room. It'd been awhile since I'd seen him, but that hardly stuck in my head. He said eight days... eight days?

Harry looked over at me quickly as he talked to Jeffery, putting it in my head that we'd talk about it later. It was always later... and I hated to be that way but time is a fragile thing in my mind and sometimes forsaken in other's.

He looked at me again, my face obviously saying something wrong in it's expression. "I'm okay." I accidentally said aloud, which made no sense inside of the conversation Jeff and Harry were having that my ears somehow just refused to hear.

"How did you feel about the back cover of the vinyl we sent you?"

"Yeah, I think I want to change the font of the tracklist... erm... then when we're in LA for the release we can... use that font for the, um, the-- I can't think of the word."

LA for the release. It felt like he said that just to let me know. That made me feel sick, and I casually excused myself to go get some water.

...

"What was that?" He came up to me in the kitchen a couple minutes later. "Wh- wh-" I was too confused by him to even articulate the words. "No. No, what was that." I whispered.

He wiped the stress off the corners of his mouth. "Darby... Darby just come with me."

"No... you know I can't do that." I kept repeating myself like I was daydreaming and trying to wake up. He kept persisting, something he would always do. "...Is there anything I can say... that would make you change your mind."

"If you're pressured to say it just to change my mind... you probably shouldn't say it."

He couldn't say anything after that, so I rinsed out my empty glass and put it in the sink. I sure was one to unintentionally let my emotions slip out in my tone, I never meant to. And apologizing right away would take away the impact of what I said... So all I knew to do was distract myself and leave.

I'm just tired. I'm so tired I can never write, I spend all my nights just sitting in my kitchen alone half of the time. I had such a spike of inspiration that my downfall insisted on being much harder and heavier. And I was feeling left alone again, and it was a familiar feeling, one of disgusting comfort just because I knew I was about to go back to my normal life and nothing else. I'd be stuck writing stupid verses that didn't actually mean anything in real life, though I knew I'd try to translate my pain into at least something. It would never work, it would never feel right, I would never be able to put into words everything I felt. And so I decided to feel nothing. And write nothing.

"I'm giving you a ride home." He called over to me, in a tone that seemed both annoyed and ambivalently assertive. I didn't have anything to say, I wasn't mad, just closing off. I wattled into his car like a lost kid.

It had become late in the night somehow. It felt like a long drive as I was trying to fall asleep, uncomfortably laying across the middle console where my head rested close to his side. He'd normally put his arm when he drove. Now it rested at the bottom of the steering wheel.

"I've met Phoebe before, did you know that?" He whispered softly. I listened to the song playing; my phone had automatically connected to the bluetooth in his car. Of course it was Phoebe Bridgers. It was probably why I was feeling so unstable.

"No." I said quietly. "I did, I met her at the Grammy's last year. Only two tables away."

"Wow. The Grammy's?" "Mhm." He hummed quietly. "I wish I could write like her." He mumbled.

"I wish I could too." I said.

"You're not going to look at me any differently after you leave right. Me acting like a baby now... I don't want you to remember me like this." I felt like whispering was all we knew now. Everything else was too quiet, we felt we should be too.

"I'm going to miss you."

As much as I hated the saying, him saying it felt alright to me. But I did hate it, and I couldn't bring myself to say what I meant to. I waited in silence for it to come, and something did, but it wasn't a declaration of anything. "You didn't answer my question."

"I... I want to remember... but I understand. And I promise I'll keep your image safe, no one will be able to speak badly about you. I promise." His voice was getting quieter and quieter, almost shaken.

"I hate this." "Me too."

"I mean, what am I supposed to say to you? Things like these happen all the time, do people ever know the right words to say when it comes to saying goodbye."

"I don't think there are good words for it, maybe hard words and painful ones. I've never in my life experienced a nice, clean goodbye." That's when I heard him sniffling; I lifted my head up. "Oh... H, don't... or do... I'm sorry."

"I'm okay." He smiled. His tears were instantly beautiful when he smiled. They pained me, and I didn't understand very well why they had, but they were sparkling with light reflections. I faced the windshield then, to see what lights had been watering in his eyes.

"Are we... close?"

"Not really." He giggled and wiped his eyes with his wrist. "I was just kinda driving to nowhere. Sorry. I wanted more time."

"We have time. 8 days, yeah?"

"Until the release... not until we leave." He sure did hold onto that word, we. Though he could have easily used it to refer to his band, he didn't. He just kept going and he never stopped.

Stay Down by boygenius

"Hey. I'm excited for you. And proud. You worked really really hard, H. They're going to love it. And they're probably going to freak. The whole internet will. No need to be worried." I tried to lighten the mood, but I was pretty sure the density in my mood weighted my words down.

"It doesn't feel like the storyline inside of it..." He started, and I knew what he was going to say. I don't think he felt the words should see the open air just yet. "Is over? Is going anywhere? You can say it, Harry."

"Erm... Yeah. It feels unfinished. Even now that it's... done." We sat in the honey coated silence as he finally pulled up to my apartment. It was completely coated in darkness, feeling like a magically cursed essence of a dark stormy night was all that apartment ever knew. Whether it be for better or worse, I was in love with it's igniting midnight blues.

I never would find words to comfort him then. It was just a truth we both would face. This was unfinished. Discontinued, and tragically so.

"I don't want to say that we'll see each other again, alright? Those make for the worst goodbyes." I said, awfully prone to writing myself the best narratives, though they always seem to reek of typicality. "It's going to be alright, yeah?" He asked. He refused to look anywhere but the motionless steering wheel in front of him.

"Yeah... it is I think."

He slowly lifted his head to the roof, instinctively pulling open the sunroof cover. It was raining, fulfilling my wish that it would. The idea came to my head in a split second, and that split second gave me no time to doubt the sense in my idea.

I booked it out of the car, ran into my apartment building and up the stairs. It was still on the counter, so I grabbed it. I scribbled something in the front cover, and booked it back to the car, only hoping he didn't think I was running away from him. This felt a lot more like running into his arms, I'd say.

I had been too out of it and focused at the same time, I tuned out his reaching calls to me as I ran. I came back to a drenched boy standing only a couple steps from the door I accidentally slammed.

I hid my journal inside of my shirt to keep it from getting wet, and walked slowly back to him.

He was crying, his expressions giving away the tears invisibly coated in raindrops. His whole body was shaking, and he reached out to me thinking he was never to see me again. No words were spoken, but they were given, and I think that that was the best I could do.

I extended my arms, two hands holding the journal as an offering. Before he took it, I remembered the letter I had written in it. It wasn't finished...

I quickly opened right to the page, leaning over the book to keep it from getting wet. I roughly tore out the two pages, and handed him the book. He took it in his one hand, my lasting grasp on it pulled me towards him.

I once thought that that would be the moment that I missed when I would stare at the empty air he was supposed to fill. That kiss would be my favorite, but it wouldn't be the one I'd miss most. I'd miss most the unpredictable and the sweet. The embarrassing ones in public surroundings that I used to hate. I walked away from him and into the house, and I missed the rain that made up for our tears. And the disrupted pavement that encouraged him to step closer to me to avoid the cracks. And I thought I'd miss his sweat-flattened curls, but I'd miss his friends. I imagined missing his eyes, but I most definitely missed seeing the stars in them much more than them alone. The stars would become a dull and lonesome place when they weren't in the lenses that I found much more inspiring than my own.

I would have to see him again, I would say goodbye to Sarah and Mitch and the rest of them. I would have to find my purpose elsewhere, Italy was the right place but new time would need to be found and frozen to keep up with my pre-placed and overrated dreams. I'd move in with Anna after my lease is up, and she would let me. And maybe I'd find myself at Sarah and Mitch's wedding next year. Though I would only subconsciously let that enter my mind, for the thought was too far away to feel for it now.

I am prone to placing blame, and placing it on myself was my new tactic of perfect crime.

___________________________________________________

😀😀😀

tpwk -m