You go.

Specifically, you go to the cafe. You sit in your usual booth of cracked leather and oak, coffee burning between your hands in a copper cup, staring straight ahead. This is where you do your thinking, now. Your home is... too wound up, too bound up, too full of memories of things that never were, of dreams that were never woken from. In that loneliness and in that silence, thoughts don't make any sense. Sense doesn't make any sense.

So you come here, instead. Feel the hum in the air of voices, of indie music you've never heard of and will never hear again (and that's fine), smell the coffee and tea and the slightest bite of bourbon in the air.

"Something's wrong."

You open your eyes, look up. Sarah is gazing down at you. You were debating even telling her-but she reads you so easily, now. You could REGRESS, but-

"Damien has a sister," you say.

Her eyes widen slightly. "Oh." She smooths down the front of her work apron. "Is she looking for him?"

"She called m-she will call me, tonight. I... well, I, you know." You make a corkscrew motion with your fingers. "I'm... sorry. I meant to tell you, but... I was surprised, okay? And I didn't know what to do or say, so I just-"

"Hey." She puts a hand on your shoulder, grounds you to the present. "It's... well, it's not okay. But I understand." She looks back to the counter. "Talk after my shift?"

You sip at your coffee. Scalding and bitter. Perfect. "Yeah. Yeah."

0-0-0-0-0-0

You hold the letter in your hands.

In science class, once, your teacher had you hold a container of mercury. You remember marveling at how that liquid mirror could be heavier than lead.

This letter? Heavier than that.

"So... could you give it to him?"

Your eyes flick back up to... Clarissa. She's still standing there, expectantly, wringing her impeccably manicured hands. Girls like her never had reason to talk to people like you. But she found a workaround, clearly.

"It'd... make a better, uh..." You struggle. As with all things, you struggle. "Maybe you should... give it to him yourself."

Impatience flashes in her eyes. "Seriously? No. That's not how this all works. At all."

How what works? You wanted to blurt out. Dating? Who the fuck does love letters anymore? Especially like this?

"I mean-knowing Kurt-"

The impatience disappears. Her eyes are alight with interest, now. Something flickers and twists in your intestines-but it's gone before you can grasp it.

"If you just... told him, he'd be cool with that. You know? That's how he is."

At a distance, if someone were to see this-two people standing outside the school, after hours-they'd think that was the romance happening. What a joke.

She sighs, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Or, at least, you think she did, but you didn't see the hair itself. Odd. "It's just... hard. You have these strong feelings for someone, and you want to tell them the right way."

"Yeah."

"And if you say it in person, right there-well, it could get all screwed up. Someone interrupts, or-"

"Yeah."

"-You forget what to say, or you get nervous."

You're still holding the letter in both hands like a ritual offering. If you let go, you'd drift into the atmosphere, to be pummeled by angry gods.

She takes the letter back. Feeling returns to your numbed fingers. Even in her hands, you can see the impressions of your fingerprints from clutching the envelope so hard.

"Thanks," she says. For what? The therapy? You almost snap, but you keep your mouth shut. She tucks the envelope into her absurdly overpriced purse, but then she pauses and looks at you. "Why aren't you with anyone?"

"Uh," you say.

She gestures at you in a vague way. "You're... well, you're you." She twists her mouth in thought. "Okay, that sounded mean. It's that... you're..." She watches your face carefully as she speaks. "... People like you."

"Oh."

"You didn't know?"

"I mean, I had my suspicions."

"And you can be funny," she adds hastily.

"Right. Uh, thanks, Clarissa." Her name still feels alien on your tongue. "I've... got to get home. But I'll... see you later."

"Oh, yeah, you're right," she says, checking the time on her absurdly overpriced wristwatch. "I'll see you Monday."

You didn't see her Monday. Well, you did, but at a distance-she was too busy being tearfully inconsolable, as much as her friends tried. So perhaps she did see you, albeit through a kaleidoscope of tears and eyeliner.

"Shit, man."

Kurt looked up from his book. "Hm? What?"

"You. Clarissa. Damn."

His expression melted into blankness. "Oh." He shrugged. "Girls get emotional sometimes. Especially at our age."

"I wouldn't really know."

He chuckles slightly. "Sorry."

"Nah." You sit down on the grass behind him, rest your back against his. Feel the ridge of his spine. Balance. "But for real: why not Clarissa?"

"She's... well, c'mon, y'know."

"Do I?"

"You're gonna make me say it? Out loud? You already know."

You stay silent, but rock backward a bit.

"... Okay, okay. Promise not to tell her."

"I don't tell anyone anything." That was a lie. Kurt knew, of course. But he was always a trusting soul.

"She's... kind of..." He tugs on a few blades of grass. The hesitation drags like thorns against skin. "... shallow."

You rock back and forth with earnest, now. "Wow. Wowwww."

"Please don't tell her."

"Cold blooded."

"Would you want her to be your girlfriend?"

You stop rocking. Your stomach hurts, suddenly. You look down at your lap.

"... I dunno."

Kurt shrugs. You feel his shoulders move against yours. "See what I mean?"

"... I guess. You know how people don't-"

"Hey." He peers at you over his shoulder. "They do, you know. It's just... it's high school. People are weird."

"People don't become un-weird after high school."

He turns back to his book. "True enough."

0-0-0-0-0-0

"Helen."

"Yeah."

Fuck, Sarah is a good listener.

0-0-0-0-0-0

It was a sibling thing, you think.

Helen was always chasing Damien's approval. Which was... odd, as she hated that he smoked, hated that he stayed out so late, hated that he drank and drove, hated the girls he 'dated,' hated the crude and cruel stories he'd tell.

And Damien hated her.

When you were all young, she always wanted to play with you-and Damien would say no, and you'd all run away and leave her to cry and go home-and you felt bad about it, sure. But Damien left her in the dust with such conviction that you almost felt like it was the right thing to do.

As you get older, she starts wanting to be around you all less and less. She has her opinions known, of course-how she let them be known-but she wasn't just 'Damien's sister' anymore. She was a person in her own right. But you never became a person in her eyes; you were still just 'Damien's friend' and little else.

Or maybe you were. One night when the window opened and someone slipped into your bed, and you felt their back against yours-you leapt up and snapped on the lights, blinking in confusion.

"What are you-"

"I wanted to try it."

"What?"

"Damien does it." She was still facing away from you, looking out the window. "So I wanted to try it."

"... He told you?"

"No, he doesn't tell me anything. Where else would he go?"

Your best friend's younger sister was in your bed, and your brain was still pulling in at the station. "Kurt's, obviously-Is something wrong?"

"Damien doesn't talk." The sulleness in her voice makes your joints hurt. "He just lies here and you let him."

"And how could you know that?"

The sarcastic bite clamps short. "He's my brother. I know."

"If your parents-"

"I'll be gone in the morning, okay? Just... let me stay." She turned-almost enough to look at you-but she stopped. "Please?"

She hadn't said please to you since she was... you don't know how old.

"I'll be in the living room if you need me," you said dully. Anger hissed under your skin. Fuck, you were tired. The light was hurting your eyes. You turned it off and stepped into the hall, closing the door behind you.

And, as she said, she was gone in the morning. Nothing to remember her by except for a stiff back and a wet pillow.

0-0-0-0-0-0

At Kurt's and Damien's and your graduation, Helen was there, looking so happy for Damien.

At her graduation, it was just and Kurt and you.

"I don't think she'll want to talk to us," Kurt said quietly. You could hear his voice, somehow, soft as it was, even with all of the clamor of celebration.

"I don't think so either," you admitted.

So when she finally came over and saw only you two-

"Hey," you said. "Congratulations."

-And she brushed right past.

0-0-0-0-0-0

"Any other war stories you'd like to regale me with?" Sarah's resting her chin in her palm, looking at you intently.

You almost laugh. "That's... that's basically it. The rest of it is... petty shit. Kids being kids."

"Kids being assholes."

"Well, yeah, that's a given."