I had turned to find Ava standing to my right, staring back and forth between Mack and I. She carried a small smirk, as though she had been waiting for some sort of introduction from me. Obliviously, I turned to Mack and found a similar expression on his face. I had taken a hit of the joint and passed it over to Ava, only to find the same expression that she had on before.
"Cyrus." Mack snickered. "Introduce the lady."
"Oh. Was that it?" I asked them, turning my head to and fro as Ava finally took the joint. "Ava, this is Mack. Mack, this is Ava.
As Ava had finished exhaling a huge cloud of smoke, she spoke up. "I think you're forgetting something, Aiden..."
I swiped the joint back from Ava and hit it myself. I had known exactly what Ava had been referring to, yet I had remained silent in front of them both. Had I been comfortable saying that I had a new girlfriend in front of someone who knew Kylie quite well? I hadn't been. It had been the fear of judgment, the thought of being viewed as a traitorous asshole that held me back from saying it.
"I can do the math...It's nice to meet you." Mack gave a nod to Ava. "I never thought I'd see Cyrus with another girl, though. It's surprising."
"It shouldn't be." I responded.
"Yeah, it kind of is." Mack looked at Ava. "You were a fuckin' mess, man."
I had glared at Mack, hoping that he would have had caught on. However, he hadn't even looked my way. His eyes had only been stuck on Ava, which had continued the downward spiral that was my mood. It, by that point, had quickly dropped along with my patience.
"It's done." I replied, nearly growling. "I'm over it."
Seeming to just barely catch my drift, Mack rubbed his chin. "New Girl, where you from? You don't see too many girls like you around here."
"Nowhere, California." Ava nearly smiled as she popped her jaw, forcing a ring of smoke out of her mouth.
"Out in bumfuck, huh?"
I took in the little, new piece of information Ava had given about herself. This, however, had only served to remind me just how little I knew about her, and just how mysterious she had been. I had been the same way myself. Spitting out lie after lie, Ava had only known and believed what I had told her, even when she had so truthfully told me everything about herself - or so I had hoped.
I had been no more real than a cardboard cutout.
"Ava." I watch the joint burn in between my fingers, feeling my aggravation slightly rise. "You remember that girl from the park?"
I took a peek, watching as the look of thought glistened over her eyes. She stood in silence, carefully thinking her answer over. Through several seconds, Ava hadn't responded, looking as though she hadn't wanted to answer the question at all. She looked at me, with all of her hesitation receding. It had been easy enough to say that even I, myself, hadn't known what I was doing.
Had it been because I felt like a liar, a cheat? Had I gone this far only to push myself further away from everything, to protect my nonexistent image of loneliness? Why had I felt the need to tell her, period? What did I have to gain from exposing the pile of lies that I had created? Had it been guilt? What had been pushing me so hard to tell the truth?
The answer was simple.
I had been so stuck in my will to be alone that my mind, my consciousness wanted it all to stay the same. It hadn't wanted to let any warmth inside, it hadn't wanted to feel any closeness to anything. In fear of the inevitable losses that would surely come, I ran away; my mind ran away from life, love, and everything in between. My mind had so truly believed that it would have been better to destroy itself rather than having another do it for me.
"You were right. Heavy shit did happen, with both her and her sister. I lied to you." I told the truth with a blunt tongue, readying myself for what was to come.
"Yo--" Mack began to speak, only to be further interrupted by me.
---
Over an hour had passed as I told Ava, and Mack, absolutely everything. My memories with Kylie, how much I had loved her, and the day of the accident. I had tried my best to explain all of Kylie in just words, hopelessly rambling to an aimless, unknown ending. I hadn't stopped, continuing to speak through some of the darkest points of my life, up to Maggie.
"I...I fucked her every day. I had seriously thought that I would have been able to replace Kylie with the next best thing. Her sister, the girl you saw at the park." I paused and pulled out another joint. "It was fun for a while, it was sex and drugs all day, every day. I fooled myself into thinking that I was into Maggie, but the only thing I had been into were the sex and drugs...and the feeling of being able to escape it all. I mean, I did have strong feelings for Maggie, but like everything else in my life - those feelings just left me."
"Cyrus...you're going too far, man. You don't--"
"I gave up on my feelings, and life. It was pointless living to please others in a world that wouldn't return it. This world is just one person using another for their own selfish reasons. I wasn't any different, and I'm still not."
A Year Ago:
It had been months since Kylie died. I was over it all, and thought I had been moving on to better things, and better days. With a pipe in my left hand, and some crime-drama show on the TV, I hit the bowl. The smoke had launched from my mouth like a rocket heading for space. It had been quiet, but it was a peaceful quiet. The kind of quiet that I found solace in.
"These shows are so predictable..."
"So?" I set my pipe on the nightstand. "It's just TV. Anyone who takes this shit seriously should just kill themselves."
Throwing herself up and looking at me, she exposed the top half of her bare, nude form. She had been thin, yet well-endowed, carrying blue eyes that tore through souls with a sharp glare. She had a cold aura around her, giving off a scary, persevering calmness. Black and white is what she had been, easily readable through anger and joy - her heart on her sleeves.
"I know, I know. It's a good way to waste some time, though." she replied. "I mean, the only time we watch it is in between sex or smoking."
"Right." I grinned, teasingly. "I accidentally caught a peek of your internet history. Making a Pie, huh?"
"You go to school and shit...It's not like we can just do it whenever we want, Cyrus." she replied, almost looking away. "Speaking of which, don't you have to get going?"
I looked at the neon-blue numbers on the face of the electronic clock only to see that I was already fifteen minutes late for school. Lying back down onto the pillow, I stared at the smoothly painted roof and the trimming that followed it's edges. School hadn't been close to my first priority, nor had it been my second or even fourth - I couldn't have cared any less about the place.
"It doesn't matter." I murmured, running my hand over my face. "I was thinking about getting my sleeve finished up today, regardless. After that, I was thinking we should go out and do something."
"It does matter. How do you think you'll get a good job without at least graduating high school?" she asked. "You think you can get by on selling pot your whole life?"
"Maggie. It's fine." I turned to look at her. "If anything, I'll just sell some harder shit."
Maggie rolled her eyes and got out of the bed, prancing to the master bathroom in the nude. "You said you wanted to go out? Where is there to go in this dump?"
"I was thinking something simple, like dinner or a movie." I answered. "Unless there's something you want to do."
The toilet flushed after a moment of silence and out came Maggie, still in the buff. She came back to the bed and sat down, wrapping her arms around her knees. It was then that a crooked smile spread across her pretty face, looking as though she knew what she wanted to do. As her smile remained, her hand fell on top of mine, holding it softly.
"Dinner sounds nice." Maggie looked up from our hands. "But if that's the case, you're going to have to come with me to find something to wear."
"The tattoo can wait. We can do whatever you want today." I brushed my hair back over my head.
"Didn't I just cut your hair?" Maggie asked. "I swear, it's like you have magic beans up there."
"It's fine." I faintly laughed. "I was thinking about letting it grow out a bit, anyways."
I gripped her hand and pulled her onto me before wrapping my arms around her flat stomach. I held her tightly, letting her squirm as she playfully giggled. It felt as though I had been met with normalcy, and a pleasant tranquility. It had felt good, yet it ached, often. An ache from remnants of the past.
Maggie calmed, finally lying still within my grip.
"Again?"
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