Disclaimer: no one mentioned belongs to me, I guarantee it.
I had the idea for this sitting around for a long time, and only just now decided to post it. When I originally started this fic, a long year ago, my original intent was for Gordo to die. But at the end, I decided to play Good God (as opposed to Bad God), and let him live. But I saved this for you folks--enough time has passed that I feel okay about posting it. Here's the alternate ending.
The Worst That Could Happen
The Alternate Ending
What can happen in two weeks?
A lot can happen in two weeks, let me tell you.
You could find yourself facing a lazy Saturday afternoon, wearing your most casual sweats and flopped on the couch, watching Emeril, then out of nowhere, you get a phone call that crumbles your entire universe.
Think about it. A minute or two. The punching in of seven digits, the delivering of the news, it only takes about a minute or two.
A minute or two is a lot.
Two weeks is a lot, too. You can completely lose your mind in two weeks, as your best friend in the universe, since you were a day old, is knocking at death's door, pardon the tired cliché. I've known him my entire life, and I've spent almost every day with him, and the idea of never getting to spend another hour without him was terrifying and humbling. You'd be surprised at the things you take for granted.
Gordo's sarcastic comments. His comforting hugs. Ironic, really, that he was the person that always made me feel better about myself, about the future, and now he wasn't here to tell me that everything was okay. Because everything wasn't okay, everything was every kind of wrong.
Miranda could pull off the color black really well. With her build, her dark hair, her exotic features, wearing a black dress made her look sort of mysterious, sort of foreign. She would have been incredibly beautiful if she hadn't been crying.
"Please don't leave me, Gordo. Not ever. Please. I love you. I need you."
Black wasn't the best color on me. It's supposed to be slimming, but I hadn't been eating much lately, and the black only accentuated the gaunt look to me, only highlighted my pale, worn features. My hair was limp, and my mom had attempted to style it, but the best she could do was pull it back into a reserved ponytail. Not that it mattered. Gordo had always told me that how I looked didn't matter.
He had promised me. He had promised that he would stay.
The whole class was there. Black and tears were our new school colors. I saw familiar faces: Kate, Tudgeman, Ethan, Mr. Dig. I saw faces of people I'd always known, and people I'd never known, all coming together to celebrate my curly-haired best friend.
Gordo had been so perilously close to death, and I'd felt at the time as though a part of me had died with him. I felt empty, lost, scared and confused. I didn't seek God, I shied away from my friends, I wanted comfort only in from the one person I couldn't receive it from. Now that he was actually...
My parents stood behind me, my mother crying, my father grasping her hand tightly with his, his other hand on Matt's shoulder. Matt looked like a ghost, minus the pallor. My parents looked the same. Miranda, Mr. and Mrs. Gordon. All of them, the walking dead. The sudden relapse had taken us all by surprise.
I swallowed back the lump in my throat, blinked rapidly to clear my eyes of the prickling sensation of unshed tears. My vision was clear, but my head was still hazy. Nothing was as it should be. My world was upside down. I was feeling kinship with my brother. I was wearing depressing black instead of my usual bright, gaudy colors. Gordo was not here. I had entered an alternate reality, one that I didn't like in the slightest. I had no way of getting out.
He loved me. I knew that. We could have had so much, the two of us. Everyone thought it, but also thought it best that we find this out for ourselves. A fat lot of good it had done us, because it was too late. I wanted to rewind time, I wanted to realize the truth sooner, I wanted Gordo in my life the way that I so desperately needed him to be, even if only for a day. I wasn't even asking that he be back from the other side permanently. I wasn't being selfish. I just wanted one day, one day where I could hug him and kiss him and tell him how much I loved him and how much he meant to me.
That day would never come.
I was a shell. I felt nothing. I didn't eat, I didn't sleep. I was a bag of skin, a puzzle of a skeletal system, a jumble of organs. I had no head or heart, no soul. I had nothing that made you a person. I was only an organism, just barely alive. My parents were worried, my friends, my teachers, my classmates, doctors, nurses, psychologists and psychiatrists. Everyone was worried. Everyone was poking, prodding, fighting. How to make her feel better. 'Give her time to herself.' 'She needs an activity to keep her mind off things.' 'She'll find someone else to love, with time.'
Time. It was always about time. With time, I would heal, they said. With time, things would become okay again.
Gordo hadn't had time. The concept of myself and Gordo, as friends, as a couple, as anything--that hadn't had time. Time was up. The last grain of sand had dropped, the last second had ticked by, there was nothing left.
I had debated suicide. The army of therapists would go ballistic if they knew the true depths of my thoughts, rather than the 'struggling through it pluckily' façade I put up for them. For professionals, they were dense. I wanted an end. I wanted finality. There was no life without Gordo, didn't they understand? He was my soul.
I wanted to be with him.
But I knew better. I knew that it wasn't what he would want. He loved me. He always had, he wanted only my happiness, even at the cost of his. He wanted my life, even at the cost of his. For him...
Kate touched my shoulder on one side, Miranda on the other. Tudgeman and Ethan were behind them, my parents, Matt, Gordo's parents. All were looking at me encouragingly. I took my rose, blood red, and dropped on top of the lowered coffin. There were no words to be said, nothing that hadn't already been said. I returned to my place, immediately swamped in a cloud of friends and family, supporting me. Trying, the whole lot of them, to fill the void. It almost worked. I felt loved, that was to be sure. But it wasn't the same, it could never be the same.
I had to hope, though. Maybe things would get better with time. Time changed everything, after all. In two weeks, I had lost everything. But I had, for one brief, shining moment, gotten everything I'd ever wanted.
I had the idea for this sitting around for a long time, and only just now decided to post it. When I originally started this fic, a long year ago, my original intent was for Gordo to die. But at the end, I decided to play Good God (as opposed to Bad God), and let him live. But I saved this for you folks--enough time has passed that I feel okay about posting it. Here's the alternate ending.
The Worst That Could Happen
The Alternate Ending
What can happen in two weeks?
A lot can happen in two weeks, let me tell you.
You could find yourself facing a lazy Saturday afternoon, wearing your most casual sweats and flopped on the couch, watching Emeril, then out of nowhere, you get a phone call that crumbles your entire universe.
Think about it. A minute or two. The punching in of seven digits, the delivering of the news, it only takes about a minute or two.
A minute or two is a lot.
Two weeks is a lot, too. You can completely lose your mind in two weeks, as your best friend in the universe, since you were a day old, is knocking at death's door, pardon the tired cliché. I've known him my entire life, and I've spent almost every day with him, and the idea of never getting to spend another hour without him was terrifying and humbling. You'd be surprised at the things you take for granted.
Gordo's sarcastic comments. His comforting hugs. Ironic, really, that he was the person that always made me feel better about myself, about the future, and now he wasn't here to tell me that everything was okay. Because everything wasn't okay, everything was every kind of wrong.
Miranda could pull off the color black really well. With her build, her dark hair, her exotic features, wearing a black dress made her look sort of mysterious, sort of foreign. She would have been incredibly beautiful if she hadn't been crying.
"Please don't leave me, Gordo. Not ever. Please. I love you. I need you."
Black wasn't the best color on me. It's supposed to be slimming, but I hadn't been eating much lately, and the black only accentuated the gaunt look to me, only highlighted my pale, worn features. My hair was limp, and my mom had attempted to style it, but the best she could do was pull it back into a reserved ponytail. Not that it mattered. Gordo had always told me that how I looked didn't matter.
He had promised me. He had promised that he would stay.
The whole class was there. Black and tears were our new school colors. I saw familiar faces: Kate, Tudgeman, Ethan, Mr. Dig. I saw faces of people I'd always known, and people I'd never known, all coming together to celebrate my curly-haired best friend.
Gordo had been so perilously close to death, and I'd felt at the time as though a part of me had died with him. I felt empty, lost, scared and confused. I didn't seek God, I shied away from my friends, I wanted comfort only in from the one person I couldn't receive it from. Now that he was actually...
My parents stood behind me, my mother crying, my father grasping her hand tightly with his, his other hand on Matt's shoulder. Matt looked like a ghost, minus the pallor. My parents looked the same. Miranda, Mr. and Mrs. Gordon. All of them, the walking dead. The sudden relapse had taken us all by surprise.
I swallowed back the lump in my throat, blinked rapidly to clear my eyes of the prickling sensation of unshed tears. My vision was clear, but my head was still hazy. Nothing was as it should be. My world was upside down. I was feeling kinship with my brother. I was wearing depressing black instead of my usual bright, gaudy colors. Gordo was not here. I had entered an alternate reality, one that I didn't like in the slightest. I had no way of getting out.
He loved me. I knew that. We could have had so much, the two of us. Everyone thought it, but also thought it best that we find this out for ourselves. A fat lot of good it had done us, because it was too late. I wanted to rewind time, I wanted to realize the truth sooner, I wanted Gordo in my life the way that I so desperately needed him to be, even if only for a day. I wasn't even asking that he be back from the other side permanently. I wasn't being selfish. I just wanted one day, one day where I could hug him and kiss him and tell him how much I loved him and how much he meant to me.
That day would never come.
I was a shell. I felt nothing. I didn't eat, I didn't sleep. I was a bag of skin, a puzzle of a skeletal system, a jumble of organs. I had no head or heart, no soul. I had nothing that made you a person. I was only an organism, just barely alive. My parents were worried, my friends, my teachers, my classmates, doctors, nurses, psychologists and psychiatrists. Everyone was worried. Everyone was poking, prodding, fighting. How to make her feel better. 'Give her time to herself.' 'She needs an activity to keep her mind off things.' 'She'll find someone else to love, with time.'
Time. It was always about time. With time, I would heal, they said. With time, things would become okay again.
Gordo hadn't had time. The concept of myself and Gordo, as friends, as a couple, as anything--that hadn't had time. Time was up. The last grain of sand had dropped, the last second had ticked by, there was nothing left.
I had debated suicide. The army of therapists would go ballistic if they knew the true depths of my thoughts, rather than the 'struggling through it pluckily' façade I put up for them. For professionals, they were dense. I wanted an end. I wanted finality. There was no life without Gordo, didn't they understand? He was my soul.
I wanted to be with him.
But I knew better. I knew that it wasn't what he would want. He loved me. He always had, he wanted only my happiness, even at the cost of his. He wanted my life, even at the cost of his. For him...
Kate touched my shoulder on one side, Miranda on the other. Tudgeman and Ethan were behind them, my parents, Matt, Gordo's parents. All were looking at me encouragingly. I took my rose, blood red, and dropped on top of the lowered coffin. There were no words to be said, nothing that hadn't already been said. I returned to my place, immediately swamped in a cloud of friends and family, supporting me. Trying, the whole lot of them, to fill the void. It almost worked. I felt loved, that was to be sure. But it wasn't the same, it could never be the same.
I had to hope, though. Maybe things would get better with time. Time changed everything, after all. In two weeks, I had lost everything. But I had, for one brief, shining moment, gotten everything I'd ever wanted.