The Salute: The Boy Drama Sessions
Notes: The return. Sort of. Mention Tabloid and I won't know what you're talking about. ::innocent face:: I debated whether or not I should work on my essay, but inspiration won over the need to do schoolwork, seeing that it rarely strikes me nowadays. This piece is unedited, fresh, and hot off the press. It's written in a weird style, but I was playing with words. I finally understand why poets edit poems. This is hardly a poem, though it is an experiment. If anyone catches grammar mistakes, I'm sorry in advance. I also used stream of consciousness for this story, which is why for the first time ever, I don't want to edit this story. On grounds of artistic license, perhaps? Some ebonics also present here. Ramble done.
I know where you hide / Alone in your car / Know all of the things that make you who you are / I know that goodbye means nothing at all / Comes back and begs me to catch her everytime she falls ~ She Will Be Loved, Maroon 5
To the greatest best friend in the world, we salute you, Heero Yuy.
For putting up the perfect façade as she cried on your shoulder again, after telling you the story of how things ended with him. For exercising self-control as your hands moved over her back in a calming manner... or is supposedly a calming manner for her, when in actuality, just having your hands on her makes your blood rush and drives you mad. For being patient, knowing that her sobs will eventually cease, even though it meant letting her cry for hours.
For all these qualities, we salute you.
For being a coward, we abhor you.
You know that if you just told her, she wouldn't be in tears because of a heartbreak. You'd take care of her heart. No analogies in the world will be able to compare the way you'd take care of her. If she cries, it is because you were tickling her so much, or because you finally propose to her in the way she imagined the man of her dreams would. If she cries, it is because the wedding was wonderful and that after the reception, she would no longer be a virgin. She's sentimental like that, and you know it. And you also know that it caused you to fall even harder because she treasures every single thing that she holds close to her heart. It implies that in a way, she treasures you, too.
But friendship isn't enough, is it? You want her. You want her heart. You want to possess her mind and take over, so she'll never cease to think of you. You want to get under her skin and seep into her soul, her very essence, because there, she has a huge capacity for loving, caring, and being devoted that makes you feel safe and comfortable. She offers security; her arms around your waist made you realize that. She offers stability in the topsy-turvy world that you live in whenever she's not around. Even her hair reminds you of pure light, the light that the hopeful say is found at the end of every tunnel.
You want everything she has to offer because she has everything you need.
You cower, Yuy. You cower at the thought of losing her. You know the risks involved by revealing your secret; the clichés, and every other thing that could go wrong by confessing to her. The way she aches, the pain manifesting itself as wracking sobs. All it takes is the twist of your imagination and in your head, she's not crying over the newest ex-boyfriend; instead, she's crying because you told her you love her and she can't bring herself to say the feeling is not reciprocated.
That's why you're the best friend. The topnotch homeboy. The main "G-dawg". Because you're all too familiar with the pain she goes through boy after boy after boy. To you they're all boys, because you're the only one man enough to love her, and the pain you carry is born out of such intense love.
And if she wasn't clinging around your waist, you would flinch and curse yourself for the hypocrisy in your behavior towards her. Such a damned hypocrite, you'd say. The lowliest hypocrite out of them all...
We laugh at you now, Heero Yuy. We laugh at you for reasons you know not.
At least, not yet.
Her tears stop flowing hours later and you escort her to the door, kissing her on the cheek as you tell her you love her and that you're just a phone call away. She shows no surprise; it is, after all, what you do every single time before she leaves after the boy drama session. True to the ritual, you ask her if you can find out who this boy was. Her part in the ritual is shaking her head, patting your cheek and saying, "No, you don't need to know." Then she walks away while you watch her retreating figure, finally dropping Heero the steadfast friend in exchange for Heero the man in love; the one whose eyes expressed raw, unabashed love and desire for her. Only for her, always for her.
We laugh at you because you think that the ritual ends with her decline to reveal the newest ex's name. It doesn't end there at all. If you only take the time to peek out your window instead of grabbing a cold beer, which you do everytime after her departure, you will see her walking slowly, talking on her cellphone with another friend.
"Hi, Hilde..."
"Hey, Relena! Sorry for not answering the phone right away. What's up?"
"I'm just leaving Heero's place..."
"Another boy drama session? Oh my god, you... you're impossible, you know that? Maybe if you would just stop looking for look-a-likes and have the real thing. I mean, he's---"
"No! No! Telling him is not an option. It's never an option, and it will never be an option."
"Relena, for him to put up with your sessions for so long should tell you something. Have you at least told him about the ex?"
"No... I mean, Philip did come close to looking like him, right?"
"It doesn't matter because it's not him. You know that. You said you were going to tell him so you can get the whole thing over with--"
"I know... Maybe next time... I'll be able to tell him. I just... god, I'm so scared."
"He might be, too, Relena. You can't move on without knowing."
"It's exactly that. I don't want to move on. That's why I can't tell him."
So begins a whole new cycle of the boy drama sessions.
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"There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness." - Friedrich Nietzsche