@exjerk asked: that night, when we were at that party, and we said things to each other .... did you mean it?
she smiles for a moment, throwing her gaze towards him jovially, as if it’s a joke. as if he asks in passing, in gentle prodding –– she stares at him with the anticipation of a smile, that trademark smile that steve always had a talent for that would make her feel like she couldn’t do or say anything wrong, anything at all.
[ WHY DO I FEEL SO SMALL ? an old letter resurfaces, one she’d written years ago with no intent to send. it read, in inked out words, written with a red pen because she couldn’t find another one so late at night, she hadn’t the energy to search for it, and she had too many thoughts to risk sparing even a moment. DEAR STEVE,
i never thought, when we stopped talking, that i’d think about you so often. that sounds mean to say. that’s alright, you won’t read this. but i thought, very honestly, i thought it would be easy. because, i thought, or i didn’t, but i did, that there was finally some kind of path, or something, to being happy. it’s convoluted. you made me happy. you made me really happy. but it hurt, to look at you. i thought, if i were with you, i’d never stop hurting.
–––– but she finds his expression sincere. and a little hurt. only a lingering feeling; it’s been years, after all. it’s been, long, there have been, months, time, ages, aching ages, which have been put between the pair of them, years, years, years . . . he is genuine in his hunger for an answer. she can tell that much. and suddenly, as the years become compact, and she finds her mind thrust back into her youth, she becomes overwhelmed by the itch to give him one.
teeth graze against her bottom lip as she shakes her head away and loses the light curve to her lips, and turns, herself, serious. mouth hangs agape for a prolonged moment as she searches for the right words to say, because there are many, many that come up now organically, and many that have been sitting atop her brain for the last decade or so, and she hasn’t forgotten them.
it’s not hard to tell i was wrong, because i’ve realized, after a few years, you know, it was me. i’m the thing that makes me hurt, which really sucks. but i know it because whenever i’m with the people i love, i feel sick, like my hands are clammy and my neck is stiff. i feel like it’s not supposed to be like that. and that’s how it felt with you, sometimes. that’s how it felt.
❝ steve . . . ❞ voice is soft, nearly a whisper. she speaks his name in the same cadence she’s said it a thousand times before, with the shadow of something deep behind it. with the renewed sense of comfort that came so easily between the pair of them. even now, even with her clammy hands and twisted stomach. ❝ i hardly, i don’t even –– remember that night very much. ❞ IT’S OBVIOUS, she realizes it nearly immediately as she speaks, that even now, still, after all of this, she still speaks in code so as to protect him. but it’s by her own standards. she learned this, from ximena in parts, actually, that she has a terrible tendency to speak so lovingly and so carefully but never say the right thing only because her loving nature is inherently restricted.
the way nancy speaks is sometimes akin to a mother speaking to a child about death, saving the more horrifying notions for later. speaking so simply that it left the ones she loved feeling left behind. kept in the dark without the need for it. even unaware of her love for them, sometimes. and love she had. love she felt. it was so hard to tell when you were loved by nancy wheeler, but she always knew. she would always catch on to it. it was only that it was hard to say. it was hard to admit.
it feels so bad, so awful, because i love you. loved you. i don’t know you now, so i suppose . . . i can’t be sure. i can’t say anything presently, because the last we spoke, i knew you, well. you knew me well. and that was very hard to do. i don’t want to presume, now. sometimes i think of you, i think of you a lot, but sometimes i think of you in particular in your own little life. i think of you living, and that makes me happy. which is why i won’t send the letter, because i like to think that you’re doing well. i like to imagine that. i would never want to ruin that. steve, i want very badly for you to be happy.
when we spoke that night, i don’t remember it well. but i remember the look in your face when you told me about it the next morning. i remember how hurt you looked, and i knew exactly what i had told you, because i must have said to you everything i had been thinking for the last few months. i must have spewed out things i had always intended to keep quiet. i always felt bad you heard them like that. that was unnecessarily cruel. it wasn’t fair. i’m very sorry. i’m so sorry about that.
❝ i –– know i meant it, ❞ she says, tone like a confession. ❝ i knew when you, when you told me about it . . . i meant it. ❞ she can’t meet his gaze, now, because she knows it would have been better to make something up and be insincere. to tell him she didn’t mean it, that she wasn’t convinced at the time that she and him were indescribably doomed, and that they had played so terrible a role in barbara’s death, how stupid she thought it was that they were dancing and pretending and going on. GOD, TO GO ON : this was it. this was always it, that it ached to go on. she hated it, so much. so deeply.
❝ but not, i remember –– when you told me, you’d asked me if i had meant it at the time, when you asked me to tell you i loved you. it was the next day, and i remember you said that, and i always regretted . . . i didn’t, steve, i never could have - have not loved you. i wasn’t sure, i couldn’t say it at the time, because i felt sick about it. and i thought that meant, with everything, i thought that everything that i said that i had meant, i thought it must have meant, then, that i didn’t . . . maybe i didn’t love –––– but i loved you so much, steve. ❞
i would like you to know, but i’ll probably never be able to tell you this myself, that i am happy for whatever life you’re living. i can’t kick the sick feeling of being close to people. makes me itch all over, kinda. but you never had that. you were always so good at that, at loving people. you have that in you, ingrained, i think. you can’t be bad at loving someone even if you wanted to. your heart’s so big, steve. i’ve never forgotten that. i’ll probably never forget that.
for now, i’ll send only the most sincere hope from my very unfortunate heart that you’re doing well. that you know love better now. that someone was kinder to you. i want that for you. i want you to be happy.
