Life is like a box of chocolates, Tyler says. Cheap and universal, and anyone who doesn't want it is just a crazy motherfucker. That's all you are, you know that?
He doesn't say this, because he's not there. He's gone. You hear it anyway, and you ignore it, like the nice person you always used to be.
Run, Forrest, run, Tyler doesn't say.
Bullshit. Forrest actually got somewhere.
xxx
You try to stop Project Mayhem. Predictably, it doesn't work.
Marla takes a drag of her ever-present cigarette and says, It's not your fucking problem what they do. Let's get out of town.
You are Jack's creeping sense of dread. You are not important. You are not special. You are not a--
Somewhere in the back of your skull, Tyler is laughing at you.
xxx
You try to check yourself into a psychiatric hospital. You try to say, There's someone else in my head. I'm dangerous.
The receptionist smiles and ignores you, showing off two missing teeth. His hand has three splints in it when he waves at you, and the bruises go all the way up his arm.
Marla smokes and tells you that neither of you could have afforded it anyway.
You tell her she should care more, you say, He's still there, Marla, he's the one who fucked you over.
She says, Actually, he's the one who fucked me. You're the one who fucked me over. She doesn't sound too upset about it.
Bitterness is like a tide. Washes away with a gunshot wound and some explosions; washes back up with a visit to a mental ward. And then again, with a good dose of apathy, you wave to it as it goes.
xxx
He asks, Miss me?
You look at him. Absently, you notice that he's grown his hair back out. You wonder what that means, in the land of congealed oatmeal that is your subconscious. You decide you don't give a damn and go to look for your gun. Enough is fucking enough.
It isn't where you left it.
You think, I know what he knows.
Don't bother, he says. Maybe I told Marla I didn't trust myself with it, told her to go hide it somewhere, maybe she won't tell you where it is no matter what you say. Maybe she looked at me like she wanted to think I was a paranoid nutcase but she also, not being a total fuck-up, believed me.
As he says it, you know that it's true.
I can just go and buy another one, you say.
Just try, he says, and he grins, wide enough to show all his teeth.
You don't. You steal a car (you know what he knows) and drive, without leaving a note for Marla. And you used to be such a nice guy.
Aw, why the long face? he asks. Fuck her. Oh, wait, you idid/i--
Shut up, you say.
She couldn't even tell the difference between us, he says dismissively, flicking a bit of ash out the window.
You don't say a single damn thing.
And Tyler, he sits in the passenger's seat and laughs and laughs.