Today is blue. Yesterday was red. The day before yellow. Every color but green. I can't use the green, not straight anyway. I mix it with black, blue, and yellow and hope that I'll run out before I have to use it, but my hope isn't very strong.
Tomorrow I'll have to figure out how to use the white.
There's been some fairly consistent knocking at my front and back door for the last ten minutes, but I'm ignoring it.
I need to figure out how to use that white. Maybe it'll work with the red paintings from yesterday. But that will still leave the green. Maybe I can just mix all of these colors together and make a shit color that will look hideous. The paint will match the paintings then.
"It smells like ass in here," Johnathon says quietly from behind me.
His voice doesn't even startle me. I knew it was only a matter of time. He's my best friend for some reason, and he knows where I hide the key. I don't respond to him. Instead, I look for a blank spot on my canvas to add more blue.
"Is this like a metaphor for how blue you're feeling, Jasper? If so, it's wonderful. I've never seen so many shades of blue in my life."
I don't bother to tell him that it's shit as usual.
"Oh, sweet. This one is awesome," he says.
He moves across the room. Everything goes in slow-motion. His feet, his exuberance, time. It's slow, and I know what's coming, but I want it to happen.
He steps on the tube of green paint and the paint shoots everywhere. It's like fireworks. Green fireworks. Splatter, shoot, blob, drip, smear, seep. Slow-motion. Green everywhere.
Just as quickly, it becomes too green. It's too green. It's him and I can't think about him unless I'm remembering, and I'm not remembering right now, I'm just... being. He's all over my paintings now. They’re his. They were already his before, but now it's so obvious. He's here, in this room now too, and I can't stand it.
"Oh, fuck, Jasper. I'm sorry. Shit, Jazz, I'm so sorry."
"Get them out."
"I'm so sorry, I didn't—"
"Get them out! Take them. Throw them away. Get them out!"
"Jasper, are you okay?"
"No. Get them out, now!"
"Shit, okay, okay."
One by one, he takes the paintings away, but it's not fast enough. I stand on shaky legs and look at the first one, but it's bitter. It's bitter and hateful and vengeful and it doesn't love me or want me. It's green and it's him, so I do what I impulsively feel needs to be done.
I destroy it.
It destroys me.
But I can't stop. One by one, I kick through the paintings, tearing them from their frames and spreading wet paint on me and everywhere. Then I'm covered in green.
He's all over me.
I can't get away from it.
I can't run, I can't destroy it, I can't forget.
He destroyed me.
"Shit, Jasper," Johnathon murmurs.
I don't realize I'm on the ground until he picks me up. I don't realize what the whooshing sound is until I see the water. I don't realize I'm bleeding until I see the red swirling with green down the drain. I don't realize it hurts at all, because all I can feel is the deep fissure where my missing pieces are.
I don't realize I'm talking until I hear myself speak. "I should have picked you."
Johnathon smiles sadly down at me as he directs the water towards my leg. "You never would have loved me, Jazz."
"I should have tried."
He sighs and turns the water off. "That's not how it works. You can't pick who you love, it's nothing you can try to do. You never would have loved me and we both know that without love it's just sex. The sex probably wouldn't have even been good considering our kiss. We're just meant to be friends, Jasper. You were meant to love—"
"Don't." I can't. I can't hear his name.
"Jazz, this needs to stop." He grabs a towel from the cupboard and places it on the edge of the tub and motions for me to put my leg there. After inspecting it for a few moments, he says, "It's not too bad. Do you want me to drive you to the emergency room or will you let me fix it up?"
"You can, I trust you."
He smiles a very small smile for Johnathon-standards, and I really look at him. His nose is healing, but his eye... His left eye is purple and slightly bloody. It's recent. Really recent.
"What happened?"
The very small smile morphs into a slightly larger one. "Let's just say that here is not the first place I went looking for you."
That's all he needs to say for it to click. "Oh."
He nods. "Better me than you, I guess."
My first instinct is to immediately defend, to tell him he wouldn't ever hit me, but I realize that I don't know if that's true. He's hurt me in every other way, so what's to say he wouldn't?
"Why?" I ask.
Johnathon seems to understand that I'm not asking why it's better he took the physical damage, but why he was hit in the first place. "Does he ever need a reason? He's violent, especially now. I'm pretty sure he was just happy as hell to have someone to take his anger out on. And like I said, better me than you. You wouldn't have fought back."
"Oh, God," I groan. "Did you hurt him?" I'm afraid he did, and I hate that I care so much that my stomach is in knots with concern.
"I wanted to, I wanted to rip his little head off, but I couldn't. Well, I mean, I could, 'cause I did hit him back once, but then he started crying and I can't hit a dude who's crying."
"What?" I gasp. Crying? Ethan? Jesus, how hard did he hit him?
"Yeah, I'm not supposed to tell anyone or he'll 'feed me my own balls for breakfast'. I think you deserve to know, though, Jasper. This is tearing him apart, he's not handling this shit between the two of you well at all. He looks worse than you do, and you really look like shit, man.
"You guys need to talk. You can't keep doing this to each other. This isn't how a relationship works, Jasper, you don't just run away when shit gets scary. You have to be there for each other, and explain shit, talk. Ethan's an asshole, you know that. But he's an asshole who loves you, just as much as you love him, so stop being a little bitch and get your shit together."
"He doesn't love me," I tell Johnathon firmly. I know for damn sure he doesn't love me, he never did. You don't treat someone you love that way.
"Oh, forget that, Jasper. You know he loves you, you're just scared. Get your balls on. I'm not fixing this shit for you, you need to do it yourself. Only, wait until morning because he seriously reeked of vodka. Plus, you really do look like shit. Facial hair does not work for your adorable baby face, just so you know."
"What makes you think he loves me? He was terrible to me; you should have heard the shit he said."
"And what, you were Mr. Nice Guy through the whole ordeal? You can't point a finger at him without pointing one at yourself too. He loves you, Jazz, he doesn't know what the hell to do with himself now that you're gone. I'm sure he said some really shitty things to you, but we all say shit we don't mean when we're hurt. I'm sure you said some pretty bad shit to him too, but that doesn't mean you don't love him, Jazzy."
"I do love him," I admit. I don't want to acknowledge it because I'm angry, but stupid Johnathon, he just loves to bring shit out in the open.
"I know, babe. You're going to have to bite the bullet and go to him. If you love him, you're going to have to forgive him for some of the shit he does. No one is perfect and he is by far one of the most imperfect human beings I've ever met—despite his good looks. You're flawed too, and he's going to have to forgive you as well. That is how love works. Learn from your mistakes, learn with Ethan, you two are like peas in a pod and shit. Don't give up something so special because you're stubborn and proud and hurting.
"Do you realize that you two have already done this shit once, only the other way around? He wouldn't let you explain and he left. Now this time, you wouldn't let him explain and you left."
"Is that what he told you?" I wonder. "That I wouldn't let him explain? I would have let him explain, he's the one who was shutting me out."
"How? How did he shut you out?"
"He wouldn't talk to me. He just said mean shit and called me names. He wouldn't apologize for being an asshole and he wouldn't really talk to me."
"So, you left?"
"I had to leave, what else was I supposed to do? He said he didn't care anymore."
"You left because he was being an asshole and he wouldn't apologize?"
"Yes!" I shout, starting to get a little pissed now. How many times did I have to say it?
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure. He didn't want to be with me, he wouldn't tell me what I needed to hear. He was being a coward."
"What did you need to hear, Jazzy?"
"Not that he didn't care, not that I'm a gold digger or an idiot or—"
"So what did you want to hear, exactly?"
"It doesn't matter, he started this shit."
"I didn't ask who started it, I want to know, what did you need to hear, Jasper?"
"It doesn't matter, J. It's over now."
"It's over?" Johnathon's voice rises considerably, and I can hear it in his tone that he is serious, he means it. "I'm ashamed of you, Jasper Davies. I thought you were a better man than that. You are a hypocrite and you are the one who is being the asshole. Yes, he pissed you off, yes, you had every right to leave, but don't you call him a coward. This is confusing as hell for him, and you know it, and you're the one giving up. He wants you back, and you're just going to throw the towel in."
"He hasn't even come over, he's not trying very hard to get me back."
"Oh, you prick. Is that what this is? You want to see him come crawling back to you? Will that make you believe he wants you, Jazz? Just long enough for him to screw up again so you can throw it back at him and leave again? I have news for you, baby, the world doesn't revolve around you. You don't get to play him that way."
"I'm not playing him!" I yell.
"Right now, the way it looks to me, yes, you are! You are playing him, just like he was afraid of. You're breaking his trust again, hurting him."
"No," I deny. I... I'm not playing him.
"Yes, you are."
"No, I just want him to tell me he's sorry, that he loves me."
"That's what you need to hear?"
"Yes," I cry, clinging to my chest because it feels like it's being ripped apart.
"Then stop being a hypocrite. Stop being a coward. Tell him first, Jazz. Don't toy with him, he has no confidence in his ability to keep you around and you've given him no reason to trust you. He's scared to death of opening himself up to you for that exact reason. Ethan is the type of person who thinks the whole world is out to hurt him, add to that the confusion of having feelings for someone he never expected to have feelings for, and you've got yourself one scared, temperamental, distrustful asshole.
"I know you don't know how to be in a relationship, but you know how to be patient, you know how to be understanding. Both of your feelings are involved; it's not just your heart that is going to get hurt, you're hurting him too. You can't forget that every time you feel that pang in your chest, the loss, he does too. You can't expect him to crawl back to you when he thinks you changed your mind. He has no idea how you feel. He's just as scared, helpless, and clueless as you are. The only difference is you aren't confused, you are patient, and you aren't normally such an asshole."
His words hit me like an anvil to the chest. It's a lot to think about. A lot. I don't know what to say. He's right. He's so right and that hurts just as much as the void in me where my vital organs belong—where Ethan belongs. I pushed him away, I hurt him. I'm the one to blame. He did shit wrong too, but I screwed up royally. I was too busy wallowing in my own self-pity to even think about what I'd done.
"Thank you, Johnathon, for everything," I say finally. "Did you give him the same talk?" I ask.
Johnathon shrugs. "I was a bitch to him too, yes, but I may have gone a little harder on you than him. He really is scared, you know, about all of this. If you're not up for his random freakouts, you should just leave him alone, Jazz, cause he doesn't deserve the heartache."
I shake my head. "No, I just really lost—"
"Don't explain it to me, Jasper. Tell your boy, he needs to hear it, not me. And speaking of boys, I need to get home to mine. The sky is looking angry out there and I promised him dinner and a movie tonight."
"Your boy?" I ask inquisitively.
"Yes, my boy. Don't be so nosy, I'll tell you about it later. Call me when shit is better and we can hang out. I'll tell you all about him." He smiles and winks at me, and I grab his arm to stop him before he can leave.
"Wait. Just... thank you, Johnathon. Thank you for being the best friend ever and thank you for taking Ethan's anger when it wasn't yours to take and thank you for making me see what an idiot I was and thank you for helping me get him back and—"
"Okay, I get it. You're welcome, but I never said I helped you get him back. Don't mention it, though, okay? Like seriously, don't. I don't want to taste my own balls and he's going to be pissed when he finds out what I did."
"What?" I ask.
Johnathon just smiles. "Gotta run. Shave, you have a really bad case of the fug going on, sweetie."
"What did you do?" I yell after him, but all I get is a laugh and wave.