Special: Remembering

"You and your poison makes me cringe sometimes.
And Payton was fighting it for me.
I was so poisoned I was blind to it.
Now I can see your evil soul..."

"Sorry. Wasn't sure I had posted it."

"Well you did, but.... I disagree."

"Why?"

"You're my sun, Payton."

"What?" Okay, I understood. That was an expression of shock. "Who's your moon?"

You stared at me, radiating my presence with your tree-filled gaze. "I don't have just one, Payton. I have a circle--people like Annie and Liz and you and Jess and my Mom..... you have two very specific people you hang out with...."

"Hey, that reminds me!" I pull out my phone and open pictures of Finley's gentle-dinner. You smile, wincing at the sting among your happiness for me, and I recognize it.
If you refuse to show it, I know you well enough. If I don't know why, I know when you are hurt.

"We're going to talk one of these days," you say, and I feel a twinge of Finley on your breath, realize what you mean, and stare, struck by this most-fascinating of possibilities. "He's going to be all, 'Do you have any idea how important you are to her?' and I will say, 'Yes. She's important to me, too, but I've been busy.'"

True, that. Even your Freudian personality tests say so.
***
"...She hates me. I always forget, but Kate hates me, and it's my fault. Mine, because I hurt her."

"Do you regret what you said?"

"No."

"Would you change it if you could?"

"No."

"Then why are you upset?"

"I just miss her, that's all. I miss the days when she pretended to like me."

Sunlight sighs at the stench of truth on my breath. "Payton, how often do you see Kate Murley?" No reply. "How often do you WANT to?"

"I just don't want to be lonely, that's all. So many people promised not to forget me and have. I just don't think it's fair that somebody who lies like Kate, all the time, could be more liked and less strange than me, who always tells the truth...."

A moment. You stare, caught between wanting to tell me that's not true; but it is, and you won't lie to me.

I appreciate you wanted to. That comfort is a very real one.

"You're not everyone's cup of Tea, Payton," you settle on eventually. Seeing my expression, you add, "And, despite what you might--and seem to--think, neither am I."

I control the urge of wanting to kick the planet aside like a soccer ball. Any world that doesn't like you is not one I want to live in.

My trembling lips betray my unshed tears. Staring emptily at Silence, my body shakes.

My whole heart is in pain for not being liked; so much I am struggling not to collapse on you, Katie, a big, slobbery mess of star-colored hair.  Quaking, I picture putting my head on you shoulder; some of the pain subsides.

Such a simple pain can cause such a powerful agony in our battered hearts, can't it?

I've been silent too long.

"You know what you need, Payton? An outlet." You rattle off a list of options, shooting them down one by one as they become improbable or difficult to do. You notice I am shaking, however; in an effort to leave you mirage of happiness between we two, I will not tell you why.

We exchange facts; Asthma and Diabetes shake hands by our monologues.

I love you.

You explain your time with Kate, your moment during Moulin Rouge-- your eyes glisten as you offer your heart to me, and I want to commit a most unGodly act of murder.

If I ever cross the one who harmed you, I will kill him. I will be the most horrible person I will be, and I will kill. Ravage, bloody harm is the promise of my fingertips.
***
I remember talking about Weakness. You think my love makes me weak, but I disagree. Love makes me stronger for my weakness, Katie. Always. It gives me fierce strength against the wrongs we watch the walking men sigh for.

Rowan of Rin, Katie.

Remember my Rowan of Rin. Remember that it is the weakest among us who do the strongest things. Think about Harry Potter, a boy, versus Lord Voldemort, a man with fantastic power. In Narnia, four Children ruled for many a year, their kingdom of happiness and magic. Rowan--my Skinny rabbit boy--triumphed because of his weakness. Those who were afraid to show theirs perished along the way.

To be frank, my love, I find that model to be much like life; to suffer in silence is to suffer alone. Only when we share it with each other does that pain become ever bearable. If I speak to you as I do, it is because my weakness isn't yours.

I know yours too.

To me, the only true weakness is not recognizing our own, and facing it.


I love you...