A/N: Wow. Has it really been this long since I updated anything? I apologize for that. Now I just have to force myself to sit down and write this or it'll just weigh on my mind. Anyway, thank you everyone who left a review on the last chapter! I hope that everyone enjoys this one. Let me know what you think!
LLLLLLLLLL (Ed POV)
I slowly opened my eyes as my body realized it was hard to breathe. The room swam around me. I actually forgot where I was for a minute. That familiar scent of comfort and vanilla and grass wrapped its arms around me. I opened my eyes wide, making myself focus on what was in front of me.
Directly in front of me was Envy's sleeping face. Not even an inch away from me. I felt my heart start to spaz as I further realized that I was half-laying on him. My face became extremely hot. I tried to move myself off of him. His arms tightly around me stopped my movements.
Oh shit. Ok, ok. Think of a way out of this. I sat there and tried to think but my brain seemed to turn to mush. For some stupid reason, I don't want to wake Envy up. But this is really awkward and uncomfortable. I can't breathe very well and I'm kind of cuddling with my friend.
I blinked a few times, trying to get rid to the sleepiness. How did I end up here in the first place? My head started to hurt and I desperately wanted to rub it to make it feel better. We were playing Clue… and if I remember correctly I flipped a shit. God, why am I such a basket case? I looked back at Envy as my eyebrows furrowed upwards. He didn't need to hear all of that. No one ever does.
Ok, Ed. Time to think of a plan. First, get Envy's arms off of you. I tried to twist my body around so that my back was on Envy, not my stomach. It was proving to be very hard since he has the grip of death. Eventually I got too angry and forgot the part where I didn't want to wake Envy up to the most awkward situation ever. I grabbed his wrists and threw his arms off of me. I smiled as I flipped myself over and almost propelled myself off of the bed. God, I'm an idiot.
"What're you doing?"
I froze. I felt Envy kick his legs under me as he tried to sit up. It was this time I decided to jump off of him. I scrambled to the end of the bed. Envy was finally able to sit up. I made myself stop before spouting off a bunch of nonsense.
Envy's green hair flowed out about him. It must have come out of the ponytail in his sleep. He rubbed his eyes as he tried to wake up. Dark circles surrounded those eyes, his pale skin making them look darker than they probably really were. The expression on his face just made me want to laugh so damn hard. It was a mix of confusion and sleep.
"Ed?"
"Huh?"
I hate how unintelligible I am.
"I said 'What're you doing?'" Envy said a bit more firmly. I blinked a few times, my mind going almost completely blank.
"Uh… trying to avoid an awkward situation like this." Ed shot back. Envy rubbed at his eyes a bit more before the wheels started turning in his head. I almost heard a pop when I saw him remember the events of last night.
"Oh…"
Oh? Is that all he had to say? For some reason, that made me really angry. I played with the wrinkles on the blanket for a bit, trying to think of something to say. My anger was quickly replaced with guilt. I felt like I should thank him. I don't know what I would be thanking him for, but I felt like I should. And then I felt guilty for letting him see how fucked up one person really can be. I closed my eyes as I sighed and let my body relax a bit.
"You're welcome."
"Huh?"
Envy laughed at me. I scowled at him, my face burning a little. He stopped laughing, a smile remaining on his face. It made him look so content. I blushed more, which made me feel a little confused.
"You're welcome. Jeez, sometimes I can read you like a book. I'm saying 'you're welcome' for being a friend. I shouldn't have to say it because that's what friends do. But I will anyway because it looked like you wanted to say 'thank you'. How close am I?" Envy replied with another wicked smile. God he has to stop doing that so my face can calm down.
But then again, why am I blushing?
"Close enough…" I mumbled. Envy just laughed at me again as he threw his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. I raised an eyebrow at him.
"Get dressed, Shorty. There's somewhere I want to take you today." Envy said. With that, he turned around and started to undress himself. I blushed wildly again and forced myself not to hide under the blankets. God, what the hell is wrong with me?
I clambered off of the bed and quickly got dressed. Envy was dressed long before me so he just stood there and awkwardly watched me as I fumbled with my clothes. Don't watch me, Palmtree. It makes me nervous. When I finally got situated, I turned to Envy.
"So, where are we gonna go?"
Envy turned his head to the side, smiling a bit to himself. It wasn't another wild smile or an excited one. It was sad, maybe with a hint of nerves. It vanished before I could guess the other emotions.
"Somewhere infinite."
000
Envy took his sweet time getting to his car.
It took us about an hour to finally get out there. God knows what he had to do, I sat in his kitchen while he went and did stuff. When he came back, I noticed a few notebooks in his arms. It was at that point we left.
The ride there wasn't long. Actually, it only took a minute to get there. We went down to the bridge near his house that went to a little island town. From that town, you could catch a ferry to Seattle. We parked and got out. I thought that Envy wanted to walk across the bridge (which would have been suicide) but instead he veered off onto the little path.
It went down for ages. Or so it felt like it. It was a lot of climbing and trying not to fall to our deaths. Somehow Envy moved around like a freaking spider monkey, not even dropping his notebooks. While I slowly followed him like a pansy. Finally we made it to the bottom of somewhere. All I could register at first was that it was cold and windy. Not the best place to be in Washington. I brushed the hair out of my face and looked up.
We were on a rocky beach – if you wanted to call it that – under the bridge. The tide wasn't up too high, just enough to wander about. Envy turned to me and smiled. I couldn't even come up with an emotion for this moment. I don't know why, but this rocky, muddy beach looking across to the island took my breath away.
"Come." Envy suddenly said, interrupting my thoughts. He started walking a ways down the beach. I quickly followed him. The wind started to die down as we walked. After a bit, we stopped at a cluster of rocks. They were big enough for us to sit on them, which is what we did. I situated myself on the cold rock and shivered. I turned to my friend.
He was holding one notebook out to me. He wasn't looking at me, but I could still see that blush through his thick hair. I carefully took it, afraid that it might explode or that Envy would. The notebook was old and heavy. It felt like a great burden came with this. It creaked as I opened the cover but quickly closed it.
"What do you want me to do with this?" I asked. Envy looked at me like I was an idiot. I probably am.
"Read it, duh."
I raised an eyebrow at him, but I knew he wouldn't say anymore until I actually read it. So I opened the cover again and started flipping. The first few pages were blank; some had random words scribbled on them. After about ten pages, I came to this page written all over in red and black ink. The same thing was written over and over again:
"YOU ARE WORTHLESS"
I read it over and over again before I looked back at Envy. He had his headphones in his ears, looking away from me. I turned back to the notebook, flipping the page. More and more pages were just like the first one. Each one had different things on it: you're ugly, you're fat, you're nothing, stop doing this. The list goes on and on. After a while, the pages started to have dates in the corner. The more I turned, the more recent the dates became. I finally came to a page with a single sentence written in the middle of the page, dated just a few days ago. It read:
"Stop thinking"
I turned the page, but soon found that this was the last one. I looked back at Envy. He was looking at me this time. One earphone was pulled out. I tried to find the right words to say, but nothing came to mind. Envy rolled his eyes at me like he was reading my blank mind.
"You're not the only one who's messed up, Ed." Envy said with a hint of a laugh. I didn't find anything about this situation funny. It was really depressing, actually. He took the notebook out of my hands before I could look at it anymore and handed me the other one. This one didn't feel as heavy as the last. It was bigger, but it wasn't weighed down by self-hatred. The cover didn't look as worn out, either. I slowly opened it, expecting some more scary things to pop out of it.
The first page was blank. I got the feeling that Envy liked to do this sort of thing. I turned the page and was hit with a wall of words. The entire page was filled up. But instead of hurtful words, they created a story. I slowly and carefully began to read it. I wanted to remember this.
'He screamed and screamed and screamed. It was like the boy's lung never ran out of air. He grabbed the smaller boy's hair and threw his face into the wall. Over and over and over again. He couldn't help but love the sounds of bone and blood smashing against the wall. And, instead of screaming, he started laughing. It felt so good to get rid of him, to get rid of her, to get rid of all of them-'
I forced myself to stop. I couldn't read it all the way. I didn't dare look at Envy. I could tell that this story was old. The lead was all smeared across the page, the words re-written in black ink. I quickly turned the page. I can't read that one. I know that it's made up, but it still terrifies me.
After flipping through a few blank pages, I came across another one. I quickly skimmed it, making sure no one was being killed in it, and found it to be really confusing. It was almost like a bunch of random notes all stuck together. They didn't even seem to relate to one another. I flipped past the few random pages of notes.
As I continued to read this notebook, I started to see a very different Envy. And envy that can create happiness and sadness and stories that seem so real I thought, for a moment, they were memories on paper. I came to another story towards the back of the notebook that was dated only this past week. I slowly began to read it like the ones before.
'A POV
I like you. God, that shouldn't be hard to say. So why is it? Because we're friends? Why should it matter? It shouldn't. I hate that it does matter. All I want to do is scoop him up in my arms and stay like that forever. And, for some reason, thinking like that makes me feel guilty. I'm tired of this shit.
His bright hair shined in the sun as we lay in the grass and laughed. It felt like we were kids again. For the first time in my life, I felt content. It was thanks to him. Nothing compared to the feelings I have when I'm with him.
I'm starting to think that maybe it's more than just a crush. I don't know if I love him because I've never been in love. I want to say that I am, but it's just all so confusing. How would you tell your best friend you like – or love – them? I wish that I could say something, anything, to him. It sucks so much that I can't. My own fears get in the way of seeing if anything could actually ever happen.
I opened my eyes, the sun blinding me. I looked over at him. He had this content smile that made my heart melt.-'
And it just stopped there. I quickly turned the page to see if there was more, but the rest of the pages were blank. I flipped it back and re-read the thing about a dozen times. I never knew that Envy was so articulate and… romantic. It made my heart flutter.
"That's enough of that." Envy's voice suddenly rang in my ears. In a flash, the notebook was stolen away. I turned to look at my friend, seeing him folding the book back into place. Both of them were resting in his lap now. His feet were swinging back and forth a bit, the heels of his shoes bouncing against the rock.
And, it was in that moment, I realized just how stunning Envy really is. He's not picture-book handsome. He's just Envy. And I like that about him. He's just so genuine and honest. Innocent, but not in a child-like way. He's blunt with everything he says and does whatever he wants. And that's probably why we came here instead of staying at his house: because he felt like it. It made me smile.
"Envy-?"
"I just wanted to show you that you're not alone. There are a lot of people out there in pain. But, unlike most people, you have a lot of people around you who love you and are willing to do anything for you. So, instead of bottling it all up, talk to someone. And if you feel like you can't talk, take that negative energy and make something positive out of it."
The entire time Envy was talking, I couldn't help but wonder if he was talking about himself. The people who love me, that is. I got a weird vibe from him when he said that. And now I can't stop blushing. And then I couldn't help but laugh.
Envy glared at me and I laughed. He didn't look happy at all. I know he just said something profound or whatever, but I couldn't stop laughing. I forced myself to giggle just long enough to offer some sort of explanation to Envy.
"Like I said before, what else can you do but laugh?" I managed to get out before laughter erupted out of me again. I could see Envy out of the corner of my eye just sitting there before he started to laugh, too.
Before long, we were two laughing idiots, laughing at the most unfunny thing in the world. I could feel the strings of my heart pulling towards Envy. I felt content and relaxed and happier than ever before. I wonder if this is what A felt like in Envy's story. I hope it is, but it also left me confused. I pushed it aside and continued to laugh.
Envy was right: we are somewhere infinite.
LLLLLLLLLL
I changed what I was going to do halfway through the chapter. I'm sorry if it doesn't make a lot of sense. This chapter was written while I was dealing with two possibly suicidal people o top of my own personal problems. I also combined a lot of my own life into this chapter, so it probably doesn't mean a lot to you guys, but it means the world to me. Thank you everyone who read it. Let me know what you think!
