Uh-oh. Look out, it's another 'Steve's POV' work. I keep saying there should be more, but every time I return to him I realize how tricky writing him is... not sure how well I've succeeded.
Also, again with the Steve/Darren. Sorry. It seems to be ingrained in my psyche. I blame Kamapon.
Ever hear that old pop song, I think it's called "This Diamond Ring"? You know: This diamond ring doesn't shine for me anymore/This diamond ring used to mean something beautiful or however it goes? I heard it in a crappy old greasy-spoon diner the other day, the kind where the waitresses are dumpy and fake-platinum-blonde and called Flo, and they're old enough to be your mommy so they treat you like their only grandkid while also kind of checking out your ass. Anyway, so I was sitting there with my Heart Attack Special Deluxe, hoping Flo #3 would think I was cute enough to deserve a latte on the house, when this song comes on the sound system.
And it's lame. Seriously. It's all moldy golden old-y and pop-y and love song-y. Mop-topped American dudes trying to sound like mop-topped British dudes. The works. But then I start actually listening to the actual words, and the more I listen the more I start thinking.
It's kind of like what's going on with me. Not, that is, that I'm married or engaged or whatever. Hahahahah. Married? Me? Now that's funny. Daddy's home! How many vampires did you kill, Daddy? Did you bring us any eyeballs? No, I mean all the symbol-of-important-crap-losing-relevancy shit going on there. It's like the cross.
What do you mean, what cross? Don't give me that. You know which cross I mean. The cross I carved into my left palm on the night my life took shape; the cross I swore upon that I would track down you and Creepy Crepsley and send them to whatever hell bloodsuckers believe in. I was going to strike their death blows with that very hand. (Of course, I had some awe-inspiring torture planned before that. Dante got nothing on me.)
That was the plan, anyway.
But recently…
I don't know what's wrong. I see kids on the streets, middle-schoolers pushing each other around the way Alan and Tommy and you and I used to do; or worse, happy couples with their arms around each other, reasons for living that don't involve blood, fury, the anonymity and zippered lips of the night—and it's like a smack of cold wind in the face; I feel this emptiness, this want, this hunger inside and it's not the hunger I'm used to, it's not the hunger I want. Sometimes it's so bad I want to puke, but more often than not these days there's nothing to puke up in there. So instead I just run.
God, I'm sick of running.
And there's another thing. I used to love running. I used to be the fastest kid on the playground. I used to love beating everyone, not caring how, hearing the cheers and knowing they were for me. My whole life's turned into running. But now? It's the wrong kind! I find myself running away, not running toward, not charging the enemy and seeing them fall back!
Every time I see those kids, those couples—it's me who starts falling.
I find it hard to care for anything these days.
Even the one thing that's supposedly keeping me alive.
I can hear you now: You're probably all like, "So die then! Off yourself! Go all emo and slit your wrists in some low-rent fluorescent-bulb motel bathroom! Nobody cares about you, Steve!" Yeah, and you know what just makes me so sick? You're right. Or you would be, anyway, if you were here and if you were saying that.
But you're not.
You're not and you never will be. Not in the way you should be. Not in the way I keep thinking (when the money runs out again or when I end up sleeping in an alley without any awnings and it's pissing lions and wolves or when I sneak into the movies without checking the marquee and it turns out to be an epic musical romance) I want you to be.
And I'm finally beginning to see that that's the problem here.
I found a diamond ring on the street the other day. No, seriously. It was just lying there, all sparkly and lost-like, crying out to be fenced for smack. I stepped on it. Kinda skidded. It got stuck in the treads of my boot. I had to yank it out with a pair of tweezers.
Guess what I did with it.
Guess again.
Guess again.
Nope, nope, nope. All wrong. Bzzzt. I stood there for a while staring at it while all the crazy mixed-up feelings and all the crazy mixed-up thought swirled around in my crazy mixed-up brain and my crazy mixed-up stomach. Then I curled my fingers around it, sat down on a nearby bistro table, picked out the diamond with the tweezers and set it back in the ring so that the pointy end faced out.
That pointy end burned like white fire when it ripped through the flesh of my left palm, and for a second memories hit me harder than the pain, shrieking behind my eyes until I thought I'd pass out—not from the bodily mutilation, hell no, I've gotten worse than that in bed—but from the stuff I couldn't escape, the stuff that wouldn't heal.
Anyway, it probably took less time than it felt like. When I was done—disappearing scar laid open again, weeping waves of scarlet—I got up and went right over to this pair behind me. Clean-cut. Young. Both guys, but you could tell there was something there. Well, maybe you couldn't, you're so fricking dense, always have been, but I could.
I tossed the ring, still bloody, onto the table between them.
"Here you go, dudes. Present. Hope it makes you happier than it did me."
And without looking back, without noticing how one guy was the same height as me and how the other guy stopped biting his nails the second I showed up just like you used to, without considering the point that they'd probably consider it some kind of threat and call the cops, I walked away.
And then I started running.
A/N: Hmm. He turned out a little less rambly and smartassy than usual. That's probably a good thing, anyway. I'm still kind of working on his voice; how did I do?
As always, please review! I love reviews, especially really specific ones and ones with suggestions and constructive criticism!