Ty and I stared down that pier, the cliff we'd looked upon all those weeks ago. It'd felt like an eternity since we'd sat there, talking-- talking about our futures, but now... I'd just about forgotten my new year's plan, the three G's. In just a few weeks, my life had become muddied, jumbled into something I'd never hoped I might recognize.
It reminded me of my mindset even before high-school. Broken, yet without hope that I might be fixed. Or rather, the will.
He was there-- I was there in that moment, in a similar way to when I'd spoken to Tora on that night, and I felt a similar way, refreshed and seen. It was a feeling I thought could never be replicated: I thought I'd never feel that same feeling after that night, but there I stood, speaking without any mask, with a friend, a friend I'd had for a long-long time.
Who was I kidding? I was trying to convince myself that Ty and I weren't friends... to save myself from the shame of snapping at him. It was shameful thinking about it and standing beside him, but glancing at him, he looked indifferently into the setting sun, clouds accumulating upon the horizon.
"This is you, huh?" He muttered. "The real you..."
I didn't respond. There was no way of responding to that question.
"It's nothing to be ashamed of, Am." He adjusted his stance, hands akimbo. "Not everyone is who they feign to be. You and I... You and that guy... It's all the same."
Assuming he meant Baun, I could understand what he was trying to say. I wasn't alone in this struggle to conceal oneself from the outside world... just people do it for different reasons. I'd felt a glimpse of it before as I slept beside Lorelai, that feeling of sonder... a truest empathy. Yet, with my mind parading around that idea of revenge, I'd disregarded something so important to being human alongside others.
"Why are you like this?" I groaned.
"This?" He raised an eyebrow.
"Why do you persist to remain friends with me."
"Hmmm?" He chuckled a bit. "That's not one I get often, but I'll level with you."
He turned toward me and I to him.
"You interest me..." He stated with that straight face. "...And in becoming friends with you, I grew to pity you."
"I... understand that disposition." I scoffed. "You interest me as well... yet I've never had the wealth for pity."
The matter was dropped just as quickly as it'd arisen, and we paused for a moment, turning our attention back to the orange-stained sky.
"If you wanna have any semblance of normalcy in your life, you've gotta stop pitying yourself." Ty put his hands in his pockets. "Ever since that night, you've been removed, far more removed than normal. I don't think there was a week I never caught sight of you, not one time, but for the past while, you've been eluding me."
"I know..." I mumbled.
He threw me an estranged glance, his tone changing back to what I knew him for. It was more familiar than aggressive, making the conversation seem a bit less life-less and robotic. With just the change of tone, I felt as if he cared, and it struck me in an odd fashion.
"You know?" He raised his eyebrow. "I know I said this before-- If you know, why do you still do it?"
"I-I don't know."
He pulled back, a smile growing on his face as he rubbed his chin in a surprised manner.
"heh... I guess that's just the difference in upbringing." He looked down, no longer facing the setting sun but the suburb beneath our feet. "Much like you, I've lied to myself and lied to others for my own benefit. There's likely not a man nor woman on this earth that could say otherwise. But there's a difference in motivation between you and most people. That much, I see."
He gave me a side eye.
"It's as if you're trying to hold yourself together by threads, each thread representing a different part of who you are, who they think you are, an' who you wanna be." He hypothesized. "...An' to protect yourself from the consequences of bein' yourself, you're hiding behind those different faces to, in a sense, relieve responsibility."
"What might give you that idea?" I scoffed. "You hardly know a lick about me."
"If you don' see why I see it, then there's a lot more underneath that lie you're holding up... which requires more help than just a friend's qualified to give you, I'm 'fraid." He explained. "But it's that same selfish attitude that's shielding you from what you know to be true, that you're not nobody. Stop acting like you're the victim, Amson."
"Sure..." I brushed the idea aside.
"You can say 'sure' all you want." He challenged my sarcasm. "You don't have to listen to a damn thing I say-- hell, I don' gotta be right."
He pushed his fist against my chest, looking into my eyes with a confident compassion. He was speaking from the heart, that much I knew, but turning anything he said into action felt so out of reach for the breadth of my mind.
He was being so real with me, but I couldn't feel much for him, only myself.
"...But if you're lying to yourself, who the fuck can you expect to believe you?"
That sentence struck me, and I swallowed it, closing my eyes and chewing the bittersweet reality. I knew he was right: I knew he hadn't uttered a single falsehood before he'd said a word, but hearing him say it so clearly wasn't something I'd thought I might have to stomach.
When I opened my eyes again, I felt something different as I looked at Ty. It wasn't something I felt so strongly-- so literally. It was nothing akin to anything I'd allowed myself the right to feel.
I believe it was some iteration of respect.
"And that's the thing that gets me, man." Ty continued. "Sure, you've got your own blessings an' curses, but you've clouded yourself from the truth for so long... it's not only that you don't know who you are, but those aroun' you don't trust you to show who you really are behind all this."
I took a deep breath, in and out.
'You're right...' I thought I said, finally seeing myself from outside. 'I am not everyone... I am neither nobody nor am I necessarily myself. I am a mirror, reflecting that which I want to be. In order to appease people.'
Ty paused for a moment before placing his hand on my shoulder.
"I can tell just by looking at you, Am. You don't come from bad people. You've got a family that cares about you, but I'm sure you've discredited their affections. Down the road you're headed, the most an' least you can do is disappoint." He folded his arms. "Maybe, if you tell them now, you can soften the blow."
"B-But I can't." I assured him, assuring myself.
"What's stoppin' you, though?" Ty questioned, his voice much more careful. "What's got you pinned so bad?"
I couldn't look at him anymore.
"I'm dirty, Tyriq." I pronounced. "They wouldn't want me, anymore. Beyond this face-- beyond all the shit I've done... I can't imagine a world, looking into my dad's eyes, knowing he knows what I allowed to happen."
"Dude..." Ty looked upon me, concern underneath that disbelief. "What the hell happened to y--"
"Ty..." I interrupted. "What is your family like?"
"We can't just--" He tried.
"Just entertain me... just for a bit."
Ty paused, unfolding his arms.
"...My parents are stiff... and stubborn." He groaned. "An' my brothers... they're more like me than I can keep track of, sometimes. Sometimes they'll say some shit that I feel like only I might say, then go back to playing videogames an' reading comic books."
"You have two younger brothers?"
"One younger, the other a good deal older than me." He elaborated. "My older brother, he's... sometimes I feel like we swapped roles when I was born. He'll have his moments of 'cool older brother', then revert back to a candy-eating, manga-junkie, kid."
I scoffed.
"So you feel like the older brother, almost?" I asked, piecing together an image of his life.
"I feel like I'm the most mature in my family, when I shouldn't be." He explained. "My parents are slothful creatures, an' I can't stand to watch it unfold before my eyes."
"You make it sound as though that weighs on your mind."
He lifted his arms, gesturing a lot more passionately. It only further solidified the words coming from his mouth.
"How wouldn't it?" He spat. "The two people you expect to lead you to a better, more fulfilling life, sittin' on their asses, day-after-day... I can't lie. It motivates me just as much as it pisses me off."
"hmm..." I acknowledged, retreating to thought.
After all this time, I hadn't the slightest idea-- or rather, the care to take a single glimpse into Ty's life. Listening to him talk about his family, even without seeing them myself was an eye opener to me. This entire time, I hadn't known anything about him because I consciously pushed him away for all four years of knowing each other.
The amount of times we'd met on this very pier since meeting one another escapes me, and looking at him now, I just hadn't noticed how much the look in his eyes had changed from being so inspired and devoted to so restricted yet never content.
He was never weak minded. He was always strong and true to himself... the complete opposite of myself. But even he has some troubles, as closely knit as his own family, too. It's likely he wouldn't tell me the entire story: it's only human he wouldn't, but for the first time, I felt interested to hear more.
The level of 'give a fuck' wasn't left upon that first answer.
"An' that right there is how I know you're from good people." He added. "Just makes it all the more frustrating seeing you throw it back in their face."
I looked upon Dutchman again, this time trying my best to truly see it rather than use it to evade looking at Ty. From where we stood, I could almost forget its flaws; its crime-ridden streets and jackass population. Within the shadow of the setting sun, it was almost pretty, the sight, and I stood there, leaving our conversation on pause.
Ty respected the pause, his eyes turning from me to the city as well, but I could sense something different in the way he looked upon it. His eyes held a melancholy, weighing down his eyelids to where they lie nearly closed entirely.
It was as if he were avoiding looking at it, yet forcing himself to.
"When you look at the city, what do you see?" I asked, curious.
"I see... well..." He pondered silently for a moment, his expression unmoving. "Unfortunately, I see a lot of what I don't wanna see-- what I don't like... You?"
"I--I don't know what I see."
"You don't know a lot of things, do you, Amson?"
"I don't know what I don't know." I responded, mildly offended.
"Well..." He paused. "Let me put you onto some wisdom, Amson. Stop sweating little things-- or things that are just outside of your control. You'll never live if you keep suffocating yourself with all these loads of bullshit. Yet sometimes, you're gonna have to do things you don't necessarily want to do. That's what separates boys from men."
"Alright." I acknowledged, looking into a fantasy of my future while anchored by the past.
I already knew as much, but I couldn't just let go of a lot of those things that kept me occupied-- kept me awake at night. Yet I continued to think on it as he looked upon me, as if waiting for me to find a response.
Eventually he gave up on that idea.
"...You see what you'd like for it to be, huh?" He sighed, folding his arms again.
"No..." I assured him. "I'm not so noble."
I stopped for a while, taking yet another look at the broadness of the city, yet comparatively, it was so small, small enough to fill our sight like it did. That idea he proposed wasn't entirely wrong, yet it was wrong enough that I felt the need to deny it.
I was not so noble that I'd say, loftily, that I might wish upon a star that the city might change or go for better. It was a lot more selfish, what I'd want to do. It would likely revolve around myself, taking little more than my own family into consideration.
I guess that was the exact idea Ty was trying to knock clear of my head.
It was so weird to think about, what I might paint over that misshapen canvas of a city. It was all I'd known, yet what I knew it to be was a disorderly mess, a mess I'd greedily reform if given the chance.
It was like my vision of Butcher Cross, yet in that same regard I had done nothing, slothfully disposing myself for three whole years. It was likely that, without some outside force, that disposition would never change, that I would remain within this loop until either the day I graduated or the day I died.
I sighed as I lost control of my thoughts, but suddenly, Ty interrupted.
"I remember..." Ty began. "A few weeks ago, I thought I might sacrifice anything, everything for that pipe-dream, but... I think I lied."
That caught me by surprise.
"Its so strange how one person's entire world can change so quickly." Ty continued. "It's almost scary, man."
"Almost..." I turned to him.
"Yep..." He affirmed. "Almost... There's so many things I've never experienced, but there's so many things I have experienced that others may never. Maybe, just looking down at this city, I can see little more than bad, as the only good I know of it are people... People like you, Amson."
It took a second for me to process the compliment, but hearing him say it so clearly only intensified that feeling of respect I felt for him. The light from the sun was nearly gone now, and as we watched it finally set, something within me awakened.
The sea of clouds above us was hardly visible in the night sky, yet a single drop of rain fell upon by shoulder as my mind settled, and my mouth moved through instinct.
"Ty..." I started. "I feel like I should tell you... about the night of that party."