Something I said bit at him harder than I thought it would--a stab somewhere tender that hurt more than his sides did apparently, cuz he snapped back with the bared fangs of an animal cornered. I didn't leave her, he said to me, and I deflated a little bit cuz we were on semantics now and that wasn’t the fucking point.

“But you weren’t there, though,” I said, and it came out as a sigh, a whuff, cuz it doesn’t matter what you meant to do, or how you thought about it at the time. It was the result that ended up fucking her over. A baby was born and it died and you weren’t there for it, and it was your blood.

*Kis hollo? That's not her actual name. It's just what I call her, and always have since we first met as children.*

There was a heartbeat where I could’ve exploded at that--I mean, that’s my point though, isn’t it, I don’t even  know the bitch’ name, that’s not a thing she won’t give up easily-- but the rest of his words caught me up quick. 

...and always have since we first met as children.

Childhood friends.

I turned away from him, then. I looked out over the field where it dropped off into the sky, where you’d tumble down from the mountain into nothingness if you weren’t looking where you were running. I stared there cuz I was running at that moment and I had to be brought up short; I had to stamp out that righteous fire in my breast and bring be back down to earth. There was a moment where I was thrown into complete doubt--like, who the fuck am I to tell him he did someone wrong? Who am I to lay that kind of judgement down on him like that? Who was I to get angry that this guy left his childhood friend, the mother of his child in the blackness of the unknown and look down on him for it when--

(Jiji was out there somewhere--)
(Jiji was a mom, too--)
(She was my childhood friend--)

But I hadn’t seen her in years, hadn’t it?

So who was I to be so wise? Who was I to explain to this hurting dudebro what he did wrong?

…

...but I guess he asked me, didn’t he?

I guess I ain’t too arrogant for offering an answer, if I have one.

*That's what this is about? The others? Shit, shit, shit....There was never the right time for me to tell her...I didn't understand that she'd think that. How could she think that? She's more special than she realises, she's....she's always been....I....*

The confusion in his voice, the panic, was so tangible I could taste that shit; I could even hear the clickof him finally understanding what he had done, what had caused Kis so much pain (still using that name cuz fuck it it’s easy). And it confused me cuz...I dunno, how could someone miss something like that? His mind was structured with a set of rules completely different from my own and it was like speaking two different tongues with this guy. I turned back toward him with tensed shoulders. “It ain’t like she don’t exist when you’re not with her, y’know,” I said with breathless incredulity, “It ain’t like those other ones don’t exist when you’re with her either! The shit you do, the choices you make...they do work even if you forgot about them. They affect people whether you’re there or not to see it. The world is just...it’s more than what you see in front of you, right now, in this moment. It’s...it’s more...” I was losing words, the big Idea in my head slipping through my grasp of communication, “It’s…always.”

He said he loved her. He said he’d always love her. I looked over off the side of the mountain again, measuring my steps, keeping myself in check as I asked my last question. “Would you...would you give them all up for her?” I asked, raspy with emotions I hadn’t planned on feeling that day, “Would you take care of them babies you made, but make her your one and only? Would you stop straying from her side? Would you be…her’s?”

I didn’t want the words to come out like a judgement; I was curious. Besides, it ain’t like I had any room to talk about straying. I was the King of that shit.


"talk"