there’s that self-satisfied smirk, only appearing after compliments that aren’t really compliments which he takes as compliments anyways. it’s a whole thing. he leans against the back bar, arms crossed and ready to evaluate the situation without any sort of integrity whatsoever. people want sympathy, but only when it’s masked as something else. it’s a fine line and he’s become quite the master at walking the tightrope. though he has a feeling she can take as much as she dishes, she’s tough, and while he’s not about to go and pull similarities, so is he. before she can finish he’s stifling laughter, biting against the inside of his cheeks to remain somewhat neutral. he doesn’t miss this one bit, carrying the weight of the world without even asking for it. the conclusion pulls at his heart, but there’s a respect that comes from it. he tries not to put himself in the position of rejection if he can help it, a coward’s way out sure, but he likes to think that he has a lot to lose. ‘ pippa you’re like what, twenty ? wait, don’t tell me. plausible deniability. ’ he plugs his ears for effect, before his arms return to their crossed position. ‘ point is, you don’t have to be fucking anything right now. ’ he wants to tell her that her cunt of a mother can stick it where the sun don’t shine, but mother’s are mother’s and no one craves a good quip over love. his eyes travel to the empty glass, imparting wisdom’s a little tough when he’s adorning a less than stellar rep but he feels the need to become the poster child for a warning against alcoholism. how it fucks in ways that lack pleasure. he doesn’t say anything. ‘ you need a college degree to be what you wanna be when you grow up ? ’ he inquires. she doesn’t seem like the doctor type, maybe a lawyer but the more he looks at her the more he thinks she doesn’t seem like anything at all. he’d say it out loud if he hadn’t posed the question already, and it would be sure gasoline to an unlit flame but the thought isn’t laced with any sort of malice. he means it in a blank canvas sort of way, a lack of stricture with an abandon of possibility. capable, therefore powerful.
She ignores him for a moment, or at least what he says. The important things. Eyes are instead looking past him, honed in on the display of liquor that adorns the wall. “ Can I have something else, please? ” She doesn’t even specify — he knows, already, and she can tell. That she doesn’t crave fruity cocktail Killer Kellers or the mixed drinks in martini glasses that she orders to make herself feel more mature than she actually is — she just wants the burn of something, anything, SOON. She doesn’t let go of her grip on the bartop. “ I don’t want to be anything, ” She says, finally, after a few moments of measured silence. She still isn’t looking at him. And god, even if she wanted to be anything, what could she be? NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING. And maybe that’s why she drinks so much, sits in her room stoned out of her mind whenever she isn’t. Maybe that’s why she makes googly eyes and tugs her top down to show more cleavage at any guy who gives her a second glance, and why she always cries on the ride home, sometimes so hard she has to pull over. And what can one be, in the face of failure? What can one do when they’ve always done nothing, but persist? A whore. A drunk. A pothead. A loser. A nobody. She thinks towards the future — next year, or when she’s Marty’s age. When she’s eighty-five, if she lives that long. There’s no house with a picket fence and a dog and two point five children. There’s no high heels clicking down city streets on her way to a business meeting. There’s absolute, barren, nothingness. And she wants it so, so, so badly. That empty abyss of no tomorrows and no todays and no right nows. “ And if I can be honest with you, ” She looks at him now, really looks at him, and wonders if he’s ever felt the same way she has. If he’s just made it through. If he still hasn’t, and is just alive to tell the tale. “ I don’t think anyone grows up. ”
