Chapter Text
Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires.
Andrew didn’t go home for a week.
After bolting from the apartment like a bat out of hell, he’d gone straight to Julia’s dorm room and fucked her so stupid that she couldn’t make it to classes the next day. Though, to be fair, he hadn’t made it to his classes, either. For the first time in four years, he’d taken a sick day. Hah! Imagine that!
He calls his job and makes up some bullshit excuse about being too sick to work, and just like that, he has the day off. Then, he’d fucked Julia some more after that for good measure. And again. And then, he ordered takeout just so they didn’t have to leave her dorm room and have round eight undeterred.
Andrew had been on her the moment that she’d first answered the door.
It’s not about Julia. These moments never really are, if he’s being honest. Fuck, the entire relationship had never even been about her, but admitting that means being far more honest than he’s capable of—it means peeling back all of the carefully crafted layers upon layers of bullshit that cloaked him like flaying the flesh from his bones. It means acknowledging that his entire relationship with the woman that he’d been fucking for three years at this point was built entirely upon the fact that he couldn’t have who he really wanted.
And fuck that.
At the very least, the sex is a mind-numbing distraction that he desperately needed. He needed to bury himself so deep within his girlfriend that he couldn’t think of anything but her cunt, and the infuriatingly soft whimpers she made as he pounded into her so hard that his hips hurt.
“S—Slow d—down, Andrew!” She tries to guide him into a milder pace, something sweet and toe-curling that could have been ripped right out of the pages of the most sensual romance novels that he owns. Usually, he makes an honest attempt at giving that to her. It was the least that he could do. It assuaged some of his guilt to be sweet to her. He can create the illusion of the loving boyfriend who only wants to get his girlfriend off. He only cares about her pleasure and comfort, he swears!
—But that isn’t what he wants right now.
Right now, he wants to ram into her pussy—he wants to empty his thoughts from his head just like he empties his balls into the condom that he wears. Maybe if he comes hard enough—and enough times—he’ll stop thinking about it.
The scent of vanilla clings to his nostrils, as though they were plugged up with it like smog. Andrew remembers the feeling of Ashley’s lips all too clearly—dry and chapped because she didn’t use chapstick nearly as much as she should, but fuck, they’d felt incredible. He could have gone on kissing her for hours, he could have gone on all fucking night—
Ashley had kissed him back, too. Instantly matching him—just as she always did. She didn’t meekly allow him to do as he pleased as Julia did, shrinking into the kiss like it was something to be endured rather than enjoyed. No, she bit at him, nails digging into the fabric of his sweater as she dragged him closer, closer, just as fucking close as they should have always been, like a parasite trying to burrow into his skin.
And he’d let her.
Andrew would let Ashley feast on his innards and dig the marrow out of his bones, but unfortunately, that wasn’t the socially acceptable thing to do. And so here he was.
Faking it.
It’s what he did best.
“Andrew, please, it’s too much—I need a break!” Julia wails, hitting his chest hard enough that he can’t just ignore it and claim that he didn’t notice. Aggravation bites at the edges of his mind as he looks down at the small woman beneath him. Tears cling to her lashes and mar her freckled cheeks. She’d asked for him to fuck her in missionary this time, claiming that she wanted to see his face, and he’d given in if only to shut her up. It’s harder to shut his brain off when he has to look at her—everything about her taunts him.
Everything that isn’t her.
“Can we just—,” Julia struggles to catch her breath. “It was starting to hurt. Can we take a minute?” She looks at him as though she’s begging for permission to say no, and it only makes him hate her that much more. Like she’s scared of him or something—even though he puts his all into being her perfect, nice, loving, and thoughtful boyfriend. He listens to her whining, all of her fears and anxieties, no matter how fucking stupid they are. He endures her rambling, monotonous attempts at conversation with a smile, even though she never has anything interesting to say. He does all that and more, and she still has the nerve to tiptoe around him like she’s caught a glimpse of the monster that he forces himself to contain.
He thinks about really giving her something to be afraid of—all this bullshit, and he can’t even fuck her the way he wants to. What the fuck ever. Andrew sloppily paints on a smile. “Of course we can,” he kisses her forehead and wishes that his fist was slamming against her temple instead.
Hah.
Maybe she did have a reason to be wary.
“Are you alright?” He asks as they fall into a not-so-comfortable silence. Good boyfriends checked in on their girlfriends after sex, after all. And he was playing the part of a good boyfriend.
Julia giggles in that soft, anxious way, “Ehehe…yes. It was just kind of rough, you know?”
Yes, he did know. That’s the fucking point. “Sorry,” he says, not the least bit apologetic as his balls start to hurt from the interrupted orgasm. “I should have checked in more, that’s on me,” he says, and imagines kicking her teeth in as she gives him that small and anxious smile. It’s cute. She’s cute. He should find her cute, but the heat in his chest only grows like a crockpot about to explode.
“I-It’s alright! I’m not accusing you of anything. Y—You just didn’t hear me, right?”
No, he had. He just pretended not to. “Of course not,” he says, feigning disappointment as he frowns. He makes himself look as close to a kicked puppy as he can, seeming to wilt like a sun-starved weed. “You don’t think I’m capable of something like that, do you?”
Panic enters her eyes as she grows pale, and seeing some of it soothes some of his rage. “N—No! I know you’d n—never do that!” She clings to him, tears clinging to her lashes as she trembles. “I wasn’t trying to say that at all!”
Hook, line, and sinker.
“I forgive you,” Andrew says, voice mellow. This part always came easily to him. Making up some bullshit on the fly, finding an angle that he can twist, turn, and bend until the conversation steers in the direction that he wants it to. Julia makes it easy, too. It’s one of the few things that he actually likes about her. He kisses her hair in a pantomime of affection. She uses an apple-scented shampoo that he hates, and the smell fills his nostrils with its overly fruity scent, the same way it fills his mind with disdain. “I just think you’re so wonderful, you know,” He says coyly, curling a strand of her hair around his finger, like he sometimes does to Ashley, “So, it hurts when you make it seem like I’m doing something wrong to you…”
Julia is already sniffling, and ah, it’s good. If he’d been getting soft before, he’s already hard again. “No! You’re not! You’re not doing anything wrong, I promise, Andrew!” She says frantically, her lips are quivering as he uses his thumbs to wipe her tears away. “I love you!” She says, always so apologetic—always scrambling for his approval.
God.
He wishes that she were like this.
Unfortunately, Ashley is nothing but a spoiled, selfish cunt. She’d never be this pliant for him—this meek. He’d cut off parts of himself to feed her for his entire life, but she wouldn’t even do the bare minimum for him. It’s always about her. She’s useless—a hopeless failure who couldn’t accomplish even the most basic of tasks, and she still had the nerve to act as though she could do it all alone—to push him away from her.
Though. He supposes that she didn’t push him away this last time, had she?
He’s the one who had run off—who refuses to face her, even now. Andrew feels a wild panic begin to build in his chest, like locusts have swarmed within him, munching at his organs and intestines. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Don’t think about it.
“I love you too,” Andrew lies, wishing that he meant it. There’s no reason not to love this girl, but he just can’t; like there’s some kind of barrier around his heart that only his piece of shit little sister could penetrate. Only her. It would probably only ever be her, wouldn’t it?
Fuck.
He lightly pushes on Julia's shoulder, reminding himself to be gentle. “Can we try again?” He asks—because his thoughts are starting to spiral again, throat growing tight like just being close to her flesh could cause an allergic reaction. Still, he needs a distraction. He needs his fucking thoughts to stop. “I’ll be gentle. I just want to make you feel good,” he says, and really, he probably deserves an Oscar for this performance. It’s some of his best work. He’s just a caring boyfriend trying to get his girlfriend off. Totally normal. Totally a good guy.
Julia smiles nervously, small and sweet and not at all the way Ashley smiles at all. God, god, he hates it.
“O-Okay.”
This time, she doesn’t protest—even when he gets rough.
“Oh!” Julia says brightly in that, stunned, deer caught in the headlights of a fast-moving truck kind of way, as a thought hits her. She’s in the middle of blow-drying her hair after he’d finally allowed her to go shower. Well, they’d showered together. Then, he’d convinced her to suck him off again. It’d sucked, just like it always did, but it was better than nothing—and she’d been complaining about being sore. “I forgot to tell you!”
And she’d been trying to yap to him about something. Probably whatever she’s about to go on about now. Andrew sighs, letting his arm hang out of the open window to keep most of the smoke out of her dorm room as she insisted. Head from her is fucking awful—like she’s more grossed out by his cock, than anything, but at least it keeps her quiet. He takes a drag from his cigarette in an attempt to stave off the growing irritation.
This is probably the longest he’s stayed with her uninterrupted—and it’s grating on him. As soon as his mood grew too sour, or his thoughts too scattered, so that even fucking or distracting himself with her didn’t do anything, he’d usually return to that rundown, oppressive apartment. Though that wasn’t really an option right now after his massive fuck up.
“Forgot to tell me what?” Why is she even trying to talk with that loud thing on? He can barely hear her.
“I was talking to Rebecca!” She chirps as she turns off the hair dryer. Rebecca. If he remembers correctly, she was one of the members of the bitch brigade who’d bullied Ashley in high school. They’d fought as kids, too—and he couldn’t say that he had much goodwill for the girl for that reason. Julia had been bullied by her, too, but still entertained calls from the other girl that seemed to be used entirely for gloating or gossip. Julia either never noticed or pretended not to, and Andrew couldn’t decide which was worse.
Andrew’s only half listening until Julia says, “She told me that she saw Ashley out with your friend the other day.”
All of the air seems to crystallize in his lungs.
“…Friend?”
Julia turns towards him, looking so stupidly happy that he wishes he could slap her. “Uh, yeah! It was Elijah, I think?”
Andrew’s head feels hot. “Yeah?” His lips curl into some sort of twisted approximation of a smile, like he’s threaded the corners of his mouth with a needle and tugged up. “Is that so? And where did Rebecca see them?”
“They were at this cute brunch place I wanted to check out,” Julia continues on, oblivious to the pressure that’s building within him. “Uh, you know—Sally’s? Remember? I was telling you about it. They make really good pancakes—”
“And Ashley was with Ethan?”
Julia blinks, “Uh, it’s Elijah, isn’t it?” What the fuck ever.
“Right. Yeah. She was with him?” He asks again, because she’s getting away from the only bit of information that he actually cares about—the part where it sounded like his sister was on a fucking date with Edward or whatever the fuck his name was.
His empty-headed girlfriend seems a little nervous—wide-eyed, subtly trembling as she looks up at him, blow dryer frozen in the air. Oh. He hadn’t noticed that he’d stood up, nor that he’d stalked over to her. Well, he’d probably stomped over from how hard he’s clenching his hands. “Andrew, your hand!” Julia places the blow dryer down and reaches for him, grabbing his wrist for some reason. He snatches his hand away from her before he notices an odd burning sensation, along with something that feels close to burning ash.
He blinks and looks at his hand. Huh. He’s crushed his cigarette. His palm stings from where the cigarette butt has burned into his skin. He hadn’t even noticed that, and still barely even feels it. The pain is like an afterthought to the problem at hand.
Ashley had gone out with Friend B again.
His heart pounds wildly—vision beginning to grow red.
His girlfriend shrinks back, perhaps a little unnerved that he hadn’t allowed her to touch him. “Y-You should ice it,” she says, voice small and hesitant.
He’s staring down at her now, still smiling even though his face is starting to throb, teeth hurting from how hard they’re clenched together. “Sorry,” he says in that saccharine way that makes him feel like he’d develop cavities if he weren’t careful. “I didn’t even feel that. Guess I’m kind of clumsy today,” he says, even though that excuse gave no explanation for why he’d crushed a lit cigarette in his bare hand. Still, Julia doesn’t have enough of a spine to question him further about it. She’s looking at him like he’s some sort of wild animal again—meek and careful, like he might rip her throat out if she made one wrong move.
For once, he’s not sure if her instincts are incorrect. “I’ll be back,” he says, trying to keep himself calm even when his insides are burning worse than where the butt of the cigarette had branded into his skin. He leaves Julia’s room, walking to the bathroom of the connected suite that she shared with her roommates.
Andrew runs cold water over his palm, but it does little to numb him—if anything, he feels like he might just rip his fucking skin off. Ashley’s still seeing Elijah, and of fucking course she is. She’d probably been pissed off the moment that he’d run from their apartment, and what better way to get back at him? She already knew it was a sore spot for him.
He’d just shown her the perfect fucking way to drive him insane.
Fuck.
Andrew splashes water onto his face before staring into the mirror.
He looks—rough.
He’d always been a bit raccoon-eyed from his insomnia, but it’s significantly worse today, the bags heavy and deep beneath his eyelids, giving his eyes a sunken look. His skin is pale, too—skin shining from the water, but it certainly didn’t give him a lively glow.
No. He looks like a fucking corpse. A grinning corpse with burning malachite for eyes. He can’t go back to Julia like this, not when he’s on the verge of going fucking beserk. He can feel each hot pulse of his veins and arteries, like they’re being pulled taut, like someone tugging on a string. Fucking hell—it didn’t seem like his former friend had heeded his warning at all.
And why would he?
He’d acted like a fucking crazy person.
Andrew knows that—but knowing does little to quell the rush of emotions that consume him. He can’t help but imagine them together. Friend B walking beside Ashley, hand in hand, speaking softly to each other. Laughing. Ashley is showing his former friend that wide grin that had previously only been reserved for him as they sit across from one another at that fucking brunch place. He wants to fucking throw up.
He shouldn’t have left her like that.
But what else was he supposed to do? Fuck his little sister stupid, just because they were toxically co-dependent and every normal boundary that they were supposed to have had been blurred since they were fucking kids? He knows that Ashley would have gone along with it. She’d probably only go along with it to keep him close, but she’s an idiot who didn’t seem to understand basic social norms unless she wanted to get a rise out of him. No. He should’ve talked to her, maybe? Tried to get her to understand that whatever the fuck is going on with them couldn’t be allowed to continue.
Yeah, fucking right—like that would’ve worked.
Anymore kissing, and there wouldn’t have been any talking happening that night. Anymore, and he wouldn’t have been able to control himself like the sick freak that he was. God. What the fuck is even wrong with him? His blood is pulsing like he’s on the verge of a heart attack.
He had to get himself together.
He was better than this. He couldn’t melt down over his sister potentially dating. His reaction to even seeing her with Elijah was proof enough that there was something horribly wrong between them—something horribly wrong with him. It wasn’t normal. He should be celebrating the fact that his sister had managed to catch the eye of a guy like Edwin. Or Ethan. Or Emmanuel? Whatever—anyway, this should be good news!
This would create the distance they needed. It would help them in the long run. Maybe if he accepted that Ashley was dating, then the feelings he had struggled with for practically his entire life would dissipate.
He just needed to accept it.
Right?
Andrew laughs, dark and incredulous. Yeah, right.
Get fucking real.
He didn’t think he’d ever be normal about this. Even now, he wanted to make his way to ex-friend B’s house and beat the shit out of him. That kind of insanity didn’t just go away on its own. He isn’t delusional, but that was the only real option that he had, wasn't it? He can’t start a relationship with his sister. He can’t fuck his sister. He can’t even entertain the idea.
There was nothing he could do but stitch a smile onto his face and pull deep from some nonexistent well inside of himself to bring about his best performance yet. He would have to pretend to be alright with this—just like he pretended that he was alright dating his girlfriend, or that he and Ashley had a totally normal sibling relationship. Fake it until he made it.
So, he’d do just that.
Andrew takes a deep breath and smothers down all of his rage, indignation, sorrow, and burning jealousy. It’s like throwing a blanket over a lamp, dulling the sharpness of the emotion into something far more manageable. It’s still there, but he can deal with it. He finishes tending to his hand after fishing out a bandaid from the medicine cabinet and waves politely to one of Julia’s roommates (he thinks her name is Mia?), who is currently studying in the common area of the suite, before returning to Julia’s room. He puts on his best “perfect boyfriend” smile and rubs the back of his head sheepishly when he sees his girlfriend sitting on her bed with her knees brought up to her chest.
She looks kind of upset.
Ugh. He was going to have to deal with this.
“My hand is as good as new,” he jokes, lifting his hand to show her where he’d slapped on the band-aid. Time to alleviate her concerns. She’s probably worried because what he had done wasn’t normal. “Sorry if I scared you. I really didn’t even feel the pain at all. It’s so weird—”
“Um,” Julia cuts him off in a stilted voice. She tugs on the ends of her hair, nervously twirling them around her fingers. Her eyes dart around the room, glancing over at a small razor that he notices on the nearby desk. There’s no blood on it, so it doesn’t seem like she’s used it yet, but he’s also not really sure if he cares, so he doesn’t bring it up. It’d probably only make her more nervous, anyway, and she’s already tripping over her words a bit, “Did you, um—get upset? By what I said about Elijah and Ashley?”
Huh. That was strangely perceptive for the girl who often spoke about how cool it was that trees were made of wood, but he supposed his behavior had been pretty bizarre from an outsider looking in. He needs to rein it the fuck in. “Why would that make me upset?” He asks, with a look of perfect feigned confusion.
When in doubt, play dumb! That tactic had never failed him.
“I… don’t know?” Julia frowns, “I… I don’t know why that would make you m-mad! That’s why I’m confused. Ashley… Ashley hadn’t really been a problem for us for a while… I thought it’d be good news if she’s dating and learning some independence.” She wraps her arms around her knees in an almost protective way, like she’s trying to shield herself. “At least, that’s what Jane says.”
Yes, Jane. Because he really gave a fuck about what Jane had to say.
“It didn’t make me angry—or upset.”
“Andrew. You—you crushed a cigarette in your hand,” she stated the obvious like he didn’t know that. Damn. She isn’t dropping this. “Elijah is your friend. I don’t know why you’d be upset if he dated Ashley. Isn’t that… Isn’t that the perfect match?”
Yeah, a perfect match in fucking Hell.
“It is,” he says evasively, “I was just surprised.” Surprise is a good, neutral word. Surprise could explain why he’d crushed a lit cigarette in his hand—let’s go with that. “I, uh, hadn’t seen Ed—,” no, that’s not the right name, you fucking basket case, “—Elijah in a while. I thought that I would’ve heard it directly from him if he was dating my sister, that’s all.” Yeah. That sounds pretty good, actually. Even the most normal of guys got protective when their friends tried to make a pass at their little sisters. Andrew can definitely use that angle!
Julia turns towards him, legs swinging over the side of her bed. She doesn’t look like she believes him at all, so he’d really need to sell whatever he said next.
“So, you’re just… worried? Do you think Elijah is a bad guy?”
“Nothing like that,” Andrew says, more naturally since this was surprisingly not a lie. As much as he hates to admit it, he didn’t think Elijah was bad at all. That’s the problem, actually. He moves closer, cupping Julia’s rounded cheeks in his hands as he looks down at her. She really is cute, with those rounded, almost cherubic cheeks. The observation stirs absolutely nothing within him, though. Not a flutter in his chest, or even a tickle in his belly. He feels nothing but numbing emptiness, like usual—like there’s a hole inside of him.
A black hole.
“I uh, practically raised Ashley,” he said, which was something that Julia already knew. He tended to fall back on this particular sob story often, but it always produced the desired effect. “So, I guess it’s kind of like… I worry. I just wish that he’d spoken to me or told me something first. Ashley doesn’t really have experience with men.”
Julia nods, latching onto that bullshit explanation as though he’d thrown her a lifeline. “I understand. It’s just… she has to learn sometime, right? This could be good for her, and I know Elijah doesn’t have bad intentions,” her palm rests over his as she leans into his hand, nuzzling it. It would surely be an endearing gesture towards anyone who was not him. “This can be good for us too, you know.”
No, it fucking wouldn’t be.
“..I think so, too,” he lied, his smile hanging on by a precarious thread now. He kisses the smaller girl’s forehead because his stapled-on fake grin has grown far too exhausting to continue to hold in place, and this at least distracts her as she giggles in that grating way that he loathes. He wonders if Ashley will be like this when underneath Elijah. Would she melt? Grow all flustered and girlish as he touched places on her body that Andrew had only dreamed of? “We can spend more time together now,” Julia continues to prattle on, “Like, these last few days have been really nice. Maybe Ashley has been distracted by Elijah?”
He wishes she’d stop fucking talking, so he covers her mouth, “That’s enough about Ashley,” he whispers, hoping that he doesn’t sound too threatening. His chest is starting to burn again. “She already comes up way too much even when we’re alone, don’t you think?”
And if this continued, he might really bolt out of there to hunt both his sister and whatever the fuck his name was down. To do what? Fuck if he knows.
“I—I do,” Julia stutters, golden eyes darting around the room before landing on the cross that hung over her desk. Jesus was always watching, after all. “I like it when it’s just us. That’s why—”
“You always have such good ideas,” he says, even though he thinks she hasn’t said a single interesting thing over the course of the three years they’d been dating. “I should really listen to you more often,” his voice sounds far too syrupy sweet to be even close to authentic in his ears, but Julia is barely paying attention as his back hunches forward to press his mouth along the expanse of her throat. She laughs again, a little nervously, but doesn’t notice the state of complete and utter disrepair that his mask is in. It’s ripped to shreds at his feet as she allows him to push her back onto her bed.
“I’m still a little sore,” she says, as she usually does when she’s not in the mood.
Annoying.
“I’ll take it nice and slow,” he promises, letting his hand trace the soft skin of her belly. His fingertips graze off the raised, scarred skin of old cuts there. Back when he was still genuinely trying to love her, he used to kiss them. He didn’t bother with any of that now. Julia didn’t usually like getting completely naked during sex, anyway, and if he managed to get her clothes off, the lights had to be off. It was “to hide their shame.”
“O—Okay,” Julia says meekly. She gives in, just like he knew she would.
Good.
He’s fucking tired of thinking, anyway.
The week passes slowly—each day more monotonous and dreary than the last. He falls into a routine of sorts. Go to class, go to work, go back to Julia, go to bed. Rinse and repeat. Fuck Julia during the scarce free time he had, endure her endless chatter even though he sometimes imagined stepping down on her windpipe, crushing it under his heel so that he never had to hear her speak again.
Think about Ashley.
Imagine Ashley while fucking Julia. Think about Ashley some more. Smoke a pack a day the entire time you’re there.
Don’t call home because it’s not like Renee would give a fuck, and he doubted his father even noticed that he was gone. He probably didn’t even remember he had a son most days.
Do all that again and again.
Same shit, different day.
But that’s just how life is without Ashley.
(Ashley hasn’t called once. Not even one time, even though he’d kissed her. Ashley is probably spending more time with Friend B. Ashley is latching onto someone else. Someone else will become the victim of all of her mood swings, all of her rage and jealousy. Ashley will eat someone else alive for once. Someone else would have to put up with her. Someone else will see the way her cheeks dimpled when she smiles, and listen to every devilish idea and scheme. Would what’s-his-face appreciate his beloved’s ruthlessness? Would he love the way her deranged mind worked, too?
Un-fucking-likely.
The Adventures of Andy and Leyley had been cancelled and replaced with The Dumbass Escapades of Leyley and the Goody Two-Shoes Blond Pretty Boy Who Will Probably Dump Her The Moment She Gets Even A Little Difficult.
Whoop-de-fucking do!
He was free. Completely and utterly free, even if one single thought looped in his mind endlessly like a broken record player.
Ashley didn’t need him anymore—)
Andrew’s routine is broken after the sixth day. He wakes up, heart in his throat and pulse racing wildly as pure dread chokes his heart like a grasping hand. Anxiety. He knows it well and knows from experience that this is only the beginning. It’s not quite a panic attack, but he feels like a hunted creature with wild eyes and limbs tensed with a restless energy that would not abate.
Just like the day that had started all of this, today would be a bad day—he can tell.
He realizes why when he showers in the morning. While he kept a drawer of some extra clothes and toiletries at Julia’s dorm, he’d finally run out. He didn’t intend to go home to pick up more, so he is forced to run to a nearby convenience store with Julia, who tags along because she also needs to buy some extra snacks. She had a wicked sweet tooth, and it seemed to be rearing its head now. He agrees to pick them up for her—a consolation for using her as a glorified blow-up doll the entire week.
It’s the least he can do, right?
She sticks close to his side, putting cheap packaged donuts, pastries, and honey buns into the shopping basket that he lets hang off of his forearm. He thinks they taste like shit, but Julia’s crazy about them, so in the basket they go while he checks out the different brands of shampoo and body wash. He throws the cheapest ones into the basket without a second thought as he and Julia round a corner on an aisle when the world once again decides to pull the rug out from under him.
Across the aisle, standing far too close together were Ashley and Ex-Friend B.
They’re in the frozen aisle, and he watches as Ashley opens the freezer door, taking out a too-large tub of strawberry ice cream. “Do you know why strawberry ice cream always has that nasty ass jam stuff in it?” She complains in that too-loud voice because nothing is ever good enough for her. It didn’t seem that fact had changed even while she flounced around with Sister Stealing Fucking Bastard. “Like, if I wanted strawberry jam, then I would’ve bought jam, not ice cream! It’s fucking stupid.”
He feels Julia go stiff beside him. He doesn’t think that she’d seen Ashley much at all since high school. Whatever semblance of a friendship they had ever had went up in flames the moment that his sister learned that he was dating Julia. Amid all the threats, insults, and harassment, Julia has since made sure to steer clear of Ashley.
And for good reason. Ashley would probably tear her apart, and deep down, he knows he wouldn’t have really done anything to stop her. He knows whose side he would’ve chosen. His hand tightens around the handle of the basket. His pulse pounds with dizzying speed, vision beginning to go red at the edges of his sight, as if a camera lens were tuned out of focus.
He can’t take his eyes off them.
Andrew feels Julia’s anxious gaze on him. “Um,” she stutters, like the spineless and moronic creature that she is. “M-Maybe we should go the other way,” she’s starting to tremble now. “B-Before they see us.”
That’s probably a good idea, but it's like his feet are rooted to the ground—as if cement has encased his ankles.
Blonde Bitch laughs, “That’s just how it is, isn’t it? Can’t say I’ve ever really given it much thought. Why not eat around it, then?” He doesn’t seem the slightest bit irritated by her complaining. If anything, he seems amused. Like Asshole B is able to look at the ungrateful, terrible, awful pile of shit that Andrew’s little sister is and see something that sparkles.
Something beautiful.
Something that only Andrew had been able to see before.
Ashley scoffs, “Too much work. I just want to enjoy my ice cream jam-free. Is that too much to ask?”
“...Do you want to put it back, then?”
“Nah,” she smirks at him, and Andrew sees the faintest hint of a dimple as her eyes crinkle, like she’s fucking thrilled. “You’re buying, so it’s not like I’m wasting my money on it.”
“And now I feel a little used,” he’s still grinning.
“You’ll survive.”
Flirting. This is flirting, Andrew realizes.
Perhaps, he’d been naive. As much as Ashley and he fought—as much as he’d bristled underneath her overbearing presence, stewed in resentment over being forced to raise her, he’d never thought that a day would come when she would actually latch onto someone else. He’d figured she’d always need him—that she couldn’t live without him.
Looks like he’d been fucking wrong about that.
It seems like only one of them couldn’t live without the other—and it wasn’t her.
The cement cracks and the roots untangle themselves from the ground, allowing Andrew to move. There’s not much thought behind his action—he vaguely feels Julia attempt to pull him in a different direction, saying, “Andrew, no—,” but he rips his elbow out of her arms, advancing towards the pair.
“Hey there,” Andrew slaps on a smile that he’s sure makes him look like an alien trying to blend in among humans and failing. “Fancy seeing you both here,” he’s only just noticed that Julia is practically cowering behind him, shrinking even though Ashley appears not to be paying her much mind. No, she’s staring at him—her expression unreadable aside from the flicker of anger he sees in her eyes.
They go dark, like the way they look right before she’s about to scream her head off, but she doesn’t, because he guesses that somehow, while he’s been away, she’s somehow developed a semblance of self-control. She just looks at him. “Hi, Andrew,” she says stiffly. Ned Flanders In Training frowns, lip stiffening like he’s actually about to do something. He’d love to see him fucking try. “Finally crawled out of the hole you’ve been hiding in?”
Well, she didn’t waste any time, did she?
“I haven’t been hiding anywhere.”
“Yeah?” She looks at her nails, as though disinterested, as her eyes flicker back to Julia. “You sure could have fooled me. Don’t rodents usually live in holes?” She’d painted them black today—the polish somewhat lumpy and uneven, but she’d always fucked up her nails. She’d never quite learned how to do it properly.
Once when they were younger, Ashley had somehow convinced him to paint her nails for him because she just couldn’t get her hands steady enough. They didn’t come out half-way bad, but only because he’d taken his time with them. He’d even read up on it, because Ashley couldn’t be arsed to read a book even if her life depended on it. He’d used three coats—and then a finishing coat came last. Ashley clearly hadn’t. In fact, it looked like she’d hastily applied only one coat and called it a day.
Hopeless.
Completely and utterly hopeless. Something wrenches painfully in his chest.
Julia grows stiff behind him, perhaps realizing the rodent in question was her. He doesn’t dwell on that for too long, though—bigger fish to fry. “Is there any reason for you to be so nasty when I just said hi?”
Ashley snorts, perhaps in disbelief, giving him a vicious grin. It’s the kind of smile she makes right before she’s about to say something awful, though Limp Noodle B lightly grabs her shoulder before she has a chance to. “We should just go, Ashley,” he says, and it takes every ounce of Andrew’s restraint not to wrench that offending hand off of her, but he doesn’t take the bait. Not yet. If he’s lucky, Ashley will do that for him because, really, who the fuck did that guy think he was to try to stop her?
She doesn’t, though.
It seems like that actually works to calm her down, or at least allows her to marginally deflate. “This isn’t worth it, yeah?”
“And who the fuck was even talking to you?” Andrew asks, a smile frozen in place on his face, turning his attention to Patsy B for the first time during this entire conversation. The blonde’s lips are pressed into a thin frown. “Who the fuck are you to tell my sister whether something regarding me is worth it or not? You don’t have anything to do with this, so fuck off.” If his mask had been barely holding on before, it had been ripped into tatters now—and those tatters were balled up and then lit on fire.
Julia gasps, as if this is the most shocking thing she’s ever witnessed. Then again, he doesn’t think she’s ever seen him raise his voice. Only Ashley’s seen that, because only Ashley can ever bring this out of him. She made the demons inside of him salivate and snap their jaws, dragged them out forcibly, even as their claws sliced through the floor in their effort to stay in that fucking cage. “A-Andrew, s-stop it! This isn’t, we shouldn’t—y-you shouldn’t be doing this,” his girlfriend tugs on his arm imploringly. He’d almost forgotten she was even still there for a moment. “Let’s just leave. Please. Really—”
He sees the desperation, the fear in her eyes, and feels absolutely nothing.
“God, will you shut the fuck up?” Andrew snaps at her, and he’s not sure how he looks, but it's enough to make her grow pale. Though what didn’t make her look like that? He could never express even the faintest hint of displeasure without her behaving like she was some poor, battered housewife. He’d never even raised a hand to this stupid bitch! He’d done nothing but pretend to be her perfect boyfriend, and still she wanted more. He’s fucking tired of it. He’s tired of all of it.
His head hurts, throbbing like something was about to split his temple right open, but that outburst is enough to make Julia release him, shoulders trembling as though she’d just been slapped.
Well, fuck.
There goes appearances.
They’re starting to get spectators, people stopping in the aisles, or peeking out from around the corner to investigate the ever-increasing volume of voices, but the rest of the world has receded around him. He can only see Ashley, standing before him, eyes wide with surprise, like even she can’t believe what she’d just witnessed. Fake Friend B also looks stunned, before his lips curled in disgust, probably due to his behavior.
Vaguely, Andrew ponders if there’s a way to salvage any part of this situation. Was there anything he could do? Any way he can spin this so that he doesn’t look like a fucking psychopath? Maybe. He could blame this on a lack of sleep. Or sickness, or maybe even feign temporary insanity? He could just walk away now and grovel to Julia so that she doesn’t fucking dump him after all of this. Maybe if he had enough time alone with her, he could manage to convince her. She normally folded like a piece of paper, anyway.
Though he finds that he doesn’t care.
He could walk away right now, but what good would that even do? What the fuck did any of this even matter anymore?
What else is there to do but go all in? If he’s already set on ruining everything he’s been working for his entire life, he might as well really go out in a blaze of glory. He’d give them a show they’d never forget—some real kamikaze shit.
In for a penny, in for a fucking pound!
“Take it easy, Andrew,” his former friend says, taking a step towards him like he’s some sort of fucking hero. He glances back and forth between Andrew and Julia, and Andrew wonders if he thinks that he’s going to strike the waif of a girl. Elijah’s brows knit together, as if he were dealing with a bomb that could detonate at any moment, trying to decide whether to cut the red or blue wire, unaware that both would lead to the same explosive, fiery end. “There’s no need for all that, alright? I think Julia has the right idea here—”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Andrew hisses, before looking at Ashley, who is simply watching this entire slow-moving car crash with wide eyes. Hah. Somehow, he’d fallen so far that Ashley is the calm one between them. “I bet you’re dying for me to leave so you can get back to whatever the fuck this is.” A nasty smile overtakes his features, voice coming out sickly sweet. “Say, is this a date? Oh, wait! This is the pre-date, right? Gonna bribe my sister with snacks before you take her back to your place for a nightcap? You can tell me, man. I won’t get mad.”
Elijah scoffs, “I’m not entertaining this, Andrew.”
“Yeah. Sure, you wouldn’t. You’re the high and mighty one, after all. Elijah’s never wrong! Elijah’s a saint!” See? He could get his name right! His grin widens, “So, what’s the verdict here? Are you both dating? That fucking bitch Rebecca—,” he turns back to Ashley, “You remember Rebecca, right? That cunt that bullied you in high school? Guess she’s still keeping tabs on you,” he shrugs, “Anyway, she said she saw you both on a date the other day. Right, love?” He turns back to Julia. “That is what she said, right?”
His probably soon-to-be ex-girlfriend freezes like a deer caught in headlights at being addressed. Hah! She looks like that shrieking bitch from The Shining right now, cowering in fear like he’s chasing her with an axe. Whatever. “I—,” she starts, but he’s lost interest.
“Has this been a daily thing?” This time, he’s looking directly at Ashley as he asks the question. “Thought you said you two were just friends?”
“What does it even matter to you if it has been?” Ashley asks, folding her arms across her chest, though she doesn’t look angry or disinterested anymore. He knows those expressions well. Now, her eyes are searching his, like she’s looking for something, though fuck if he doesn’t know what it is. Her gaze is unflinching. “Didn’t you bolt off because you want nothing to do with me?”
Andrew’s grin slips, anger evaporating into thin air. He feels like a cat forced into frigid water.
He hadn’t expected her to say that.
“T-That’s not why I—,” left you after kissing you, “—I just…I couldn’t—,” I had to draw the line because you wouldn’t. “It’s not that I don’t—,” want anything to do with you. I want everything to do with you! That’s the fucking problem!
He can’t seem to get any of those words out, though. So, he just stands there, gaping like an idiot as something akin to disappointment appears on his sister’s face before morphing into that fucking face he hates. That deep and pouty frown, the deep hurt that reflects in her cherry blossom pink eyes, the way that her nose scrunches up and wrinkles. That face never failed to make his knees go weak, and his chest grow so tight that it feels like he’s breathing through a straw.
“All of this time and you still have nothing, huh?” Ashley asks quietly. “Nothing but bullshit and lies, anyway.”
Andrew’s breath catches. “Ashley—,”
Ashley looks back at Julia, meeting her eyes with an almost pitying expression. “Guess you finally see the real him,” She says to the smaller girl, who flinches, “There’s all kinds of things that you don’t know about him. I bet you’d be so surprised," she snorts, that shark-like grin appearing on her face again. “But, this isn’t even the tip of the iceberg.”
Julia grew even paler, if that were even possible. Nauseous, like she’d vomit if pressed even a little further. She covers her mouth, horrified. Someone from the audience that they’ve amassed, fake whispers (fake, because it’s actually quite loud), “This is better than pay-per-view.”
“Let's go, Elijah,” his sister says, “The ice-cream is going to melt,” turning on her heel and not even bothering to give him a final look. Like she’s done with him. Andrew can’t believe it—though, she’d been the one to stick to this separation, hadn’t she? Even when he’d tried countless times to mend their relationship, she’d never budged an inch.
Andrew couldn’t breathe when she was around, but he was suffocating without her. Though Ashley fared just fine.
Something shatters inside of him—breaking into so many scattered and sharp pieces that he’s sure that there will be no way to ever put himself back together again. It feels like the floor has dropped out from beneath him—like the edge abyss that he’s been perched on all this time has finally come to swallow him whole.
Elijah shakes his head with a sense of resignation. “…Take care of yourself, Andrew,” he says, like the bleeding heart piece of shit that he is. Hah. Even he’s pitying him. What next? Julia?
Fuck his mask—it’s not like it had ever done him any good. Maybe it’s time to be honest. Who even gave a fuck?
“Go fuck yourself, Elijah,” Andrew responds dully, but it gives him no satisfaction. Elijah doesn’t even seem all that mad, shrugging and walking off after Ashley, presumably.
Well.
That happened.
He shoves the shopping basket into Julia’s arms, who might as well have been a fixture in the store. She makes a sound reminiscent of a small mouse, but grasps it with trembling arms. Heh—just like a rodent. Ashley had been spot on with that one, though he’s realizing that she’s been spot on with a lot of things. “A-Andrew?” Julia stutters; she’s fearful, but even he can hear the undercurrent of anger in her demeanor. The tensed jaw—the narrowed eyes, filled with unshed tears. “Wh-What was that? And where are you going?!” She says as she watches him retreat. “Andrew!”
He doesn’t have an answer to either of her questions.
“Show’s over,” Andrew says gruffly to one of the spectators who is in his way as he leaves the aisle, not bothering to check if Julia is following him or not. It really is all over—in more ways than one.
He storms out of the store without paying.
He needs a smoke or twenty.
Later, Julia comes out of the store after he’s lit himself a cigarette, walking several feet away to the end of the block. She’s not carrying any bags, so he guesses she didn’t wind up buying her snacks. Bummer. She’d probably need them after today. “Andrew,” her cheeks are flushed and angry now. “H-How could you—,”
“How could I what?” He asks in between drags of his cigarette. “You’ll have to be specific. I kind of did a lot back there.”
Julia bristles and balls her hands into fists at her sides. She’s so furious that she can’t even form words, though this isn’t much different from how she normally is. “You—you—”
“How could I confront Elijah? Or were you referring to what Ashley meant?” He asks, saying each word slowly in the perfect mockery of patience.
“All of it, Andrew!” She’s tearing up now, because when isn’t she crying about something? I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life!”
He snorts, amused, “Yeah, I wouldn’t want to embarrass you.”
“Andrew!”
“Why don’t you ask what you really want to ask instead of beating around the bush?” He asks, unable to muster even a fake smile for her.
Julia’s flabbergasted, mouth agape as she slowly processes his words. She stands a little straighter, wiping at her tears as her eyes grow hard, and he chuckles again. Look who suddenly had a backbone! “What was all that? Why in the world…why would you do that? Why do you care if Ashley and Elijah are seeing each other?!” Why, indeed, Julia? Why had he decided to act like a complete psychopath on a whim? Why did he throw away his painfully constructed image in the span of twenty minutes? He didn’t even have the excuse that he and Elijah didn’t run in the same circles anymore. This incredibly public display of idiocy would have actual consequences. If not from Julia, then from her sister, Jane, who would undoubtedly hear all about this later tonight. They all attended the same university, and he’s sure this outburst would be the talk of the school by the end of the week.
“She’s my sister,” he says simply.
He can tell from the bewildered look that paints Julia’s features that she doesn’t understand. And how could she? While she had a sibling, she and Jane were nothing like he and Ashley. They hadn’t been bound together both by and in blood. They weren’t so irrevocably mixed up together that they had no idea where one of them ended, and the other began. But that’s just how it’s always been with Ashley. He couldn’t even remember a time when she hadn’t been there.
She is his.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Julia steps towards him, voice quivering and eyes desperate. She’s too wary to touch him, like she doesn’t recognize who she’s seeing. He can’t blame her. She’d grown so familiar with a hollow mask that the gnarled reality of him is a monstrous sight to behold. It must be frightening to realize that you’ve unknowingly shared your bed with a stranger for years.
Because that’s all he is to her—a stranger who had pretended to be someone who could love her.
“It’s got everything to do with it,” he says simply. “Ask what you really want to ask, Julia.”
Her eyes narrow, “Are you jealous?”
Ah, and there was the seven-million-dollar bill question! He knows the answer, and he’s sure Julia does now, too. She’s just going through the motions, trying to act shocked, trying to fall back on the lie that has been the foundation of their entire sham of a relationship. “Andrew?” He sees the horror in her eyes—the painful realization that she’s hid from herself for three long years. “You’re… You can’t be—”
Can’t be what? Everything that they’d painted him as while in high school? It seemed like he was all that and more. No, he’s worse.
The cigarette in his mouth has burnt down to the filter. He spits it to the ground before crushing the still-burning embers under the sole of his sneakers.
Whatever.
Let her draw whatever conclusions she wants.
“Are we done here?” He asks, bored.
The mousey-looking girl blinks, “D-Done?”
“Yeah. Are we done?” Andrew shoves his hands into his pockets. “I think you and I both know where this is going, so let’s just cut through the bullshit already, yeah? It’s tiring.” He meets her eyes for the first time during this entire conversation. Her mascara and eyeliner are smudged, eyes red and puffy like she’d been rubbing at them. Those freckles look splotchy, as though blotted with dirt. Disbelief is evident within her amber eyes, but something seems to pass over her—something that makes her straighten her back and stiffen her shoulders. Her lips are still trembling, but there’s a certainty about her now. Acceptance.
“Yeah,” she inhales deeply, “We’re done.”
Good. He’s sick and tired of playing her perfect boyfriend.
Still, one for the road. He puts on his best sweet smile—something that would’ve really made Julia swoon before he’d carelessly torn her heart right out of her chest, “Then, I bid you farewell and wish you all the happiness in the world,” he turns his back to her, walking in the direction of the bus stop. “You can throw away whatever I left at your place. I don’t need any of it,” he adds as an afterthought.
Julia doesn’t acknowledge him, and he doesn’t turn to check whether she'd understood.
At least that’s over and done with.
Fucking finally.