FINLEY DID NOT WANT to do this right now. he did not want to do this right now, or at all -- if he was being honest. but was he ever? was he ever being honest? with all the years that passed, he wasn’t sure if even he could tell who he really was underneath all the layers he had built up. maybe this was who he really was. maybe underneath everything was the same man from the first layer. a lying piece of shit who honestly did not care about anyone. he’d like that. he’d like not to care. he tried so fucking hard not to care. it was a well practice act and he still missed the steps. he tripped and ended up CARING about someone.
and that was when the true mess happened.
SAMUEL WAS TIPPING DANGEROUSLY into that category. someone he cared about. someone he currently cared about. they were two cards in the same deck, same suit but of different weights. finley was a jack. samuel was an ace. he felt like he knew him too deeply when he looked at him. sometimes he felt like same saw through him and it terrified him, like most things did when they got too real. finley hated reality. he hated the truth of it. it was so much easier without feelings, without emotions. it was so much easier when you could walk out a door when someone said something too deep.
SO, WHY COULDN’T HE walk out the door at the moment? why was he still standing there? it was because his ace was talking to him, because he looked hurt. he looked like he was hurting from what finley had said. and he was. of course he was. he was angry, he had a right to be. but so was finley. he was angry because sam was digging past his armor with that quip. maybe he didn’t even know it.
“is that what you think?” the words were not what he meant to come out. he meant to bark back at him, to accept the words and paint himself as the villain of the story. his hands shook. sam brought out bad habits in him. he wanted a cigarette. he wanted to leave. his head was a mess of two feelings, three if you counted the honest truth. “that this makes me feel good? it doesn’t make me feel anything, sam, but like shit. you think you’re the only one hurting here?”
