No one wonders. No one asks. Is it because they already see, they already know? I hope that isn't so. But no, it can't be. If they knew, they would say, wouldn't they?
…Wouldn't they?
Double D scratched absently under his ever-present hat. It was hard, keeping his hair hidden all the time, it got hot, but what else could he do with it? He didn't see that he had much choice about what he would do with his hair.
If he were honest with himself, he'd admit that he didn't seem to have much choice in anything at all.
He heard footsteps coming towards his room, and swiftly checked to make sure that he hadn't knocked his hat askew with his scratching. He hadn't. He turned back to the open textbook in front of him just before his door burst open.
"Whatcha' doin' there, Sockhead?" Eddy asked, sauntering in like he owned the place. Ed followed on his heels, a bright grin plastered over his face. Double D looked back at them with a smile. After the horror of the night before, he felt extraordinarily uplifted by the presence of his two best friends.
"Just studying, Eddy," he replied. Eddy glowered at him.
"Studying!" Eddy shook his head, disgusted. "What're you studying for? It's summer!" Behind him, Ed had begun tapping the glass of Double D's ant farm, crooning to the ants a wordless and off-key song that carried out into the hall.
"Summertime is no excuse to slack off in one's studies, Eddy," Double D said with little of his usual conviction. He was just so tired… His eyes had been crossing while he read… If he could just sleep… Just for a while…
"Of course it is!" Eddy shot a look behind him. "Right, Ed?"
"I think the ants like me, Eddy!"
"Of course they do, Lumpy." With an exasperated sigh, Eddy walked over to where Double D was sitting and grabbed his upper arm. "Get up, Einstein. We have suckers to scam." With that, he pulled.
If things hadn't been so wrong the night before, Double D probably would've been able to hide it, as he always did. But he was so tired that he gave himself away.
He cried out.
Instantly, he regretted it. Ed had looked over from his post by the ants, and Eddy-
In Eddy's dark eyes, Double D could see that he suddenly knew.
Knowledge. It's a funny word. People can spend their entire lives dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge, and at the end, what? Does it change anything? Does it save them? On their deathbed, do they feel vindicated that they've wasted their lives looking for truth while the truth they've been looking for is actually found by those who are living lives too full to go out and look for it?
Or does it help? Does it give them a purpose beyond the shell of their empty, wasted lives? Or do they just do it so they'll have something to lord over everyone else?
One wonders.
Ed had gone home. Eddy sent him away with some flimsy excuse that the innocent Ed actually believed. Eddy couldn't for the life of him remember what it had been.
They hadn't gone scamming that day, and Eddy hadn't even thought about it much since that morning. At one point, when Double D was napping and Ed had already left, he found himself trying to remember what his scam that morning had been just as a way to pass the time, but he couldn't seem to remember that, either. He knew he'd thought it would be a good scam, but then, to him they were all good scams.
Not that that mattered anymore.
Eddy had called home after Ed left, catching his mother before she left for work so he could tell her that he'd be spending the night at Double D's. Double D had insisted on the courtesy, even though Eddy's mother reacted to the news with nonchalance. Eddy had spent the night countless times before; what did another night matter?
But this night did matter, so Eddy called. He would not be denied this night. He had to be here, with Double D, tonight.
They didn't speak much, and that suited Eddy at first. He could wait. He could be patient. Normally he couldn't be, but for Double D…? It never showed, but for Double D he could wait forever.
It wasn't until they were bedding down in Double D's room that night that Eddy's patience finally broke. Climbing out of bed, he sat beside the sleeping bag Double D had just spread out on the floor. Double D looked at him silently, a mute plea for mercy in his eyes before Eddy had even spoken. The look got to Eddy, and the probing question on his lips died before it left his mouth. Instead, he asked a simpler one.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Double D gazed at him, and Eddy simply looked back. For a long time, all was quiet. Finally, Double D's depth-filled eyes lowered to the sleeping bag.
"No."
Without another word, Double D crawled into the cozy nest he had made for himself. Eddy didn't even glance at the bed behind him, the place he customarily slept when he stayed over because Double D was polite and he himself was a habitual complainer. Instead, he gently maneuvered in beside Double D. After a few moments of both of them shifting, trying to get comfortable, Eddy opened his arms. Double D accepted the offered comfort gratefully, burrowing in close, his head buried on Eddy's shoulder. Eddy didn't complain about them touching, as he usually did. That was for appearances. This was for real.
What had happened with Double D made everything all too real.
Mercy. Another funny word. Is anyone ever truly merciful? Truly? Are there actually people out there who really know what mercy is, and how to give it? We can ask for it until our lips bleed, but does anyone ever really give it?
And would anyone even know if they had?
Their relationship altered after that. Shared intimacy can be both a blessing and a curse, but what it can never be is unaffecting. It mattered. To both of them.
Ed probably noticed first, despite his deficiencies in observational skills. Who else paid enough attention to Eddy and Double D to see any changes, particularly ones as small and seemingly inconsequential as these? There wasn't anyone.
What did he notice first? The way Eddy's usually limitless ability to blame Double D for everything had been amazingly curbed? The disheartening way of moving Double D had adopted, with him subconsciously walking as close to Eddy as possible without invading his personal space? Or the strange, new way any words spoken between the two had taken on an impossible-to-fathom shorthand?
Actually, it was none of these things. The first change Ed noticed was in Double D's hands.
Double D had a habit of waving his arms when he was excited, agitated, or simply caught up in the moment. But not only was he apparently less excitable, when he finally did get upset for some reason his arms stayed resolutely at his sides.
And his hands… often, they were trembling.
What all this meant, Ed was quite possibly the last person able to figure out. But when Eddy looked at Double D, something he seemed to do more often lately, and Eddy's eyes narrowed in that strange new way, something in the pit of Ed's stomach began twisting. Whatever this new thing was, he wasn't at all sure he liked it.
There's a give and take element to everything in life, but it's always most important to relationships. When you give you must also take, and vice versa, or the balance is thrown off, and someone is left out in the cold. But some people don't care enough about others to care about that.
Some people don't care at all.
Double D stood resolutely in front of his bedroom mirror, the yellow sticky note affixed to it an ignored smudge in the corner of his eyes. He might as well look. It was what he had come in here to do.
Slowly, hesitantly, he took off his hat.
Long dark hair spilled over his shoulders. By anyone's standards, the hair he grew on his head was beautiful. Not too thick but by no means thin, silky to the touch, remarkably clean despite his ever-present hat, and a shade of color that was utterly alluring, it joined the little bits of hair that he could never quite get to stay hidden. Double D sighed. It never changed. Not ever.
A tear traveled down his cheek, but he didn't notice it as he stared in the mirror at the hair he so inexplicably loathed.
But there are other people. Beautiful people. People for whom the world should be made of wine and roses, but it never is. People to whom little things matter, and every hurt, no matter its size, is nursed and never forgotten. People to whom this world always seems, in their heart of hearts, to be inescapably cruel.
Those people rarely live for very long.
Two months later, Eddy spent the night again.
The upcoming return to school laid heavily on both their minds, but neither mentioned it. It was one of those things that seemed easier to live through if you just didn't discuss it.
Also without speech they climbed together into bed that night. It seemed less… embarrassing and different… if they just didn't acknowledge it.
At first, though, they couldn't bear to touch. They lay on opposite sides of the bed, together and yet far apart, neither bothering with the pretense of sleep. They both knew that wasn't what they were there for.
Unsurprisingly, it was Eddy who broke the silence first. "You… you did it, didn't you?"
Double D's lower lip trembled, like his hands always did, like the tears in the corners of his eyes did when he blinked or moved his head. "How…" He closed his eyes to the sight of his ceiling, tried to shut off his senses to the feel of Eddy staring at him.
"How?" he finally managed to ask. "How did you know?"
Anger was Eddy's default emotion, the feeling that popped up when he didn't know how else to feel. He was mad now. But with only a little effort he was able to rein it in. This was Double D, after all. His staunchest supporter. His conscience, his reason, his other, better half. He could be soft for Double D. He could understand. He would try.
"I figured it out," he finally said. "No one else would do that."
Bitterly: "You don't know that."
The anger seeped out a little, despite Eddy's efforts. "Like hell I don't," he growled. He could feel Double D flinch away from him on the bed, and he cursed himself. Idiot, he thought. Idiot.
"I know who you are, Double D," Eddy added hurriedly. "Everybody likes you. You're-"
He caught himself. One did not call one's best friend beautiful. It just wasn't done.
But he couldn't leave Double D hanging, not now. He had to go on.
"No one would hurt you but you, Double D," he whispered. "No one."
Does anyone really know what they are? Can they? Is it possible for someone to look at themselves and see the truth? Or are they always blinded by what they wish to be, what they tell themselves they are, what other people tell them they are? Can anyone ever really see?
Is there such a thing as the truth when you're looking at yourself?
Or are you so blinded that everything might as well be a lie?
Eddy had pulled him out of bed and dragged him over to the mirror. He wasn't rough, but the cloth of his nightshirt rubbed his skin in all the wrong ways, and it was all he could do to remain silent. He didn't want Eddy to think he'd hurt him…
They stood, Eddy determined, Double D nervous. Eddy reached around, grabbing the offending sleeve and pulling it up, exposing Double D's upper arm. The skin there had fairly new cuts on it, beginning to reopen under the less than gentle handling. Double D's eyes fell to the floor.
"Look," Eddy growled. "Look at your arm."
Blindly, Double D turned towards Eddy's voice. He shook his head.
"Do it."
His tone would brook no argument. Double D opened his eyes.
He looked at the skin Eddy had bared. It repulsed him. But then his skin, unbroken or not, always did.
And then Eddy made his pronouncement.
"It's ugly."
Tears fell from Double D's eyes. He knew it was ugly, he knew he was ugly, and worthless, but why did Eddy have to say so…?
Kind fingers lifted his chin, serious eyes gazed into his, and the gentlest voice he'd ever heard out of anyone, let alone his usually harsh and indifferent best friend, drifted into his amazed ears.
"It's the only part of you that is."
Can someone change? Truly, on the inside? Can circumstances – and, yes, love – drive someone to be good, to be better, to be more than they've ever been?
I think someone can.
I think I have.
Not that I'm the best judge. I can't ever really know who I am, can I? But I know I'm not as angry, as self-absorbed, as selfish and callous, as I once was. I can't be. He needs me. He needs me to be strong, to be good.
And so I try to be. For him.
But can I save him? Can anyone save someone from themselves? Am I strong enough to do that?
The old me wouldn't have doubted. The new me?
I wonder.