9. Loser
I SHOW UP at Quistis' apartment unannounced. I don't know what else to do. My head is in an absolute mess after seeing that man kissing Rinoa. It's the only thing I can think about, his hands all over her, the way she smiled after him, the sight of him caught in my headlights as he ducked into his SUV. He may as well have run me over; his wheels crushing my throat probably would've been more merciful than leaving me here to process everything. But instead I'm standing outside, freezing my ass off on a concrete step, and I have to remind myself to dial Quistis' number on the intercom so she can let me in.
"Hello?" comes her voice through the speaker.
"It's me."
The sound of the buzzer goes off after a second, and I head through the stale air of the lobby, past the fake fern plants and musty communal furniture, into the elevator, up to the eighth floor. The effort is barely conscious; I feel like I'm mostly on auto-pilot. My legs move forward without me, my eyes count down the numbers until they reach her door, 823. My hand moves up to knock.
When she answers, I'm struck by the sight of her plaid pyjama pants, her oversized Balamb Garden sweatshirt, her let-down hair, no makeup. I can tell she's a bit embarrassed as she quickly ushers me inside, but I don't judge on appearances (at least not hers); that kind of scrutiny is her thing, not mine. I'm just glad to have somewhere to go. The thought of being alone is too much to bear at the moment.
She heads to the kitchen and grabs a fresh wine glass, her head tilting as if to ask if I want a drink. I nod. Of course I want a drink. Rinoa is with another man, a better man. Even now, after an eternity of separation, the very concept of it all feels razor sharp, cutting through my thoughts, cutting through everything. It's all I can do to try and blunt the edges.
Fuck my life. I hope Quistis doesn't think I'm intruding (although I think she kind of owes me at this point, anyways—I've definitely played host to her problems more often than she has to mine lately). She fills up the glass and hands it to me, and I knock half of it back in one long pull. Her mouth quirks up into that same tired grin again.
"I'm going to go ahead and say that something happened with Rinoa," she offers.
"You would be correct," I tell her.
A small sigh escapes her on the tail end of a shrug. She grabs the bottle, heads back to her living room. I follow. She's got some stupid reality TV show playing, plastic faces arguing over marriage and money. I cringe a bit. I've never really understood how someone as smart and articulate as Quistis Trepe could be interested in such utter crap, but I guess we all have various methods of escape. Hers is decidedly tame compared to mine.
As I take a seat next to her on the leather sofa, there's evidence of her own less-than-stellar night around the room. A half-eaten chocolate bar, an empty take-out container. An old comforter tossed aside, hanging part way off the back of the couch. I want to ask her what happened, but I'm still so completely wrapped up in my own shit—Rinoa and that man keep rising to the surface, popping up in my brain like the world's worst game of whack-a-mole. As soon as I manage to shove them down with the mallet, they crop up somewhere else, over and over again, unrelenting.
One more sip is enough to bring my glass down to empty. I grab the bottle, noticing how light it already is, and pour myself another. I know I can't win this game; all I can do is try to be okay with being overrun as they burrow deeper.
I honestly don't know why I react like this. The logical part of me knows it's been almost four years—and that I have no right to lay any sort of claim. This isn't even the first time that Rinoa's been with someone else. Remember that guy from work she went out with that one night? You know, that first one that sent me on a weekend bender? Well, she ended up seeing him for almost a year. And I'm sure she's been on at least a handful of dates since then. And so have I. Not to mention the fact that Zurie and I were going together for a not-so-insignificant amount of time. But like I said before, I'm a hypocrite.
Love is just such a lonely avenue when it runs only one way. And I've somehow learned to endure it, because that's just life. I can't stop her from moving on. She's supposed to. And I want her to be happy. I really do. I just wish she could've been happy with me. But like everything, I've already had my chance, and I managed to blow it. At least I have enough restraint now to not head downtown and get fucked up. Instead, I just wallow in the company of equally miserable parties. Call it personal growth, call it defeat. Whatever.
"So," Quistis says as her show moves to commercial, "care to share?"
I shake my head. "Not really—"
"'—Not really.'"
Oh. So we're doing this again. Mimicry. I used to hate it as a teenager. I still kind of hate it, actually. But I get it, I'm just as predictable as ever. It's still not enough to make me want to talk, though. I'd much rather just try to forget.
I slump down into the cushions a bit and try to be engaged in the TV. It's just that it's goddamned terrible. I can't stand it. Everything is so fake, so overly dramaticized, a ten-year-old girl's vision of a Barbie doll life made true. But people consume it. I wonder if it's because we've all been made to endure so much in the past few decades—sorceress wars and time compression and lunar cries and political unrest. Maybe watching the lives of those endowed with twenty-five word vocabularies is just society's way of letting out a collective exhale.
I look over to Quistis, who seems completely engrossed in it all as she holds tight to her wine glass. She's a bit drunk already. I see it in the flush of red on her cheeks, that slight glaze over her eyes. I decide to hit her with the same question she just asked me: "Do you have something you'd like to share?"
Her eyes dart over to me, and she smirks. "Not really."
I shrug. "Fine, then."
Sometimes it's like this. I think that's why I enjoy being around Quistis. There's no pressure, no need to pretend. If I want to talk, she'll listen, and if I don't, she's okay with that, too. And vice versa. We just get each other that way.
I sometimes wonder if I ever had even close to this kind of understanding with Rinoa. I must have had at least something if I pine after her this much. Near the end, though, it felt like we were both constantly walking on eggshells. I was certain she was always analyzing me, trying to catch me in a lie. And I know, I can't say my actions didn't warrant at least some sort of reaction, but at the same time, it felt like the harder she tried to dig, the harder I wanted to push her away. It's no wonder that now she's—
—Stop. I slam the mallet down, force the living room back into focus, ground myself to the couch. I tell myself to just watch this shitty TV show and drink my goddamned wine. This is exactly why I didn't go home. The only thing waiting for me there is an even deeper well of misery, stuck alone with only the moles to keep me company. Not to mention that fucking empty notepad still sitting on my coffee table. Every time I look at it, I feel like I'm failing, the emptiness all the more pronounced, a dark underscore.
I finish my second drink as easily as the first, but it's still not enough. I reach for the bottle only to find that it's empty, and drop it back on the table with an unsatisfying, hollow thud. Quistis has managed to polish it off somewhere in my reverie, the last bastions of riesling swirling happily around as she rolls the stem of her glass between her fingers.
It's a good thing I'm pretty comfortable at her place, maybe as comfortable as she is at mine; I head back into her kitchen to grab another from the cabinet. There's a bottle of red—last year's merlot from her favourite Winhill vineyard—sitting right at the front. I pluck it up and bring it back to the living room.
"Are you working tomorrow?" Quistis asks on my return. She's clearly noticed my pacing as I pour my third inside an hour's time.
"Maybe." Another too-large drink goes back and tells me that just the very idea of work is likely to be a write-off. "Might call in sick. Don't tell on me."
She smiles, the confident half of Picasso's Girl before a Mirror. "Of course not, Commander."
I roll my eyes. Hard. "What about you?"
"First class doesn't start until after lunch break."
"Oh." Well that's that, then. Our plans are clear. I'm about to sit back down when I notice her feet occupying my spot. It wouldn't usually be a problem, but her place is small, and there's nowhere else to go but the floor, or back to her kitchen to pull over a dining room chair. Neither option sounds appealing, so I lift her feet up, reclaim my cushion, and let her stretch her legs across my lap.
If I didn't just see Rinoa all over another guy only an hour ago, this might've been a nice evening, in spite of her choice of show. I don't really remember when I got this comfortable with Quistis. Closeness never really was my thing. I've always been about the recoil. I'm sure part of the shift has to be the loneliness, but the other part is something different, more sincere. If I had to pin it down, I'd probably attribute it to the fact that being around her is just easy. Twenty-seven years will do that.
By the time her show is finally over, my third glass is half-drained. She fumbles for the remote, turns on the basketball game. It's the amateurs, Galbadia State versus Yaulny University. There's always been a bit of a competitive streak to Quistis, whether it's performing her job or cheering on her favourite sports team. It's part of what made her a prodigal SeeD in the first place. Everything always has to be better, faster, more precise.
Even now, as she becomes engrossed in this game, I can feel her tensing up at certain moments. Her toes stretch apart when Yaulny has possession, her calves tighten when Galbadia misses a foul shot. A wide smile when Galbadia scores a three-pointer.
Another glass empty, another generous pour. The moles are still there, but the buzz makes them less bothersome. Even still though, there's a whisper of anxiety that edges along my brain, exiting out my nerves; my fingers twitch.
I move Quistis' legs and step out onto her narrow balcony to have a smoke. I can feel her eyes tracing my steps as I slide the glass door shut; it's just part of our programming, I think. A human moves, a SeeD watches. I wonder if either of us will ever escape that need, so incessant, so hardwired. I can't really fathom a world where that hyper-awareness isn't just a part of me. Maybe I've been that way for so long that it's just become my nature. It's a bit unnerving to think about.
My pack is almost empty, save for three smokes and a joint I stashed in it a few nights ago. It shouldn't be a surprise; I've already smoked a couple in the car on my way over here. Everything seems to be done in excess right now, but I don't care. My brain's in a complete frenzy; I'll take whatever help I can get. I throw back more wine before lighting up.
It is goddamned cold out. The Trabian air has fully set in, now, stealing away whatever glimmer of warmth was left behind by the dying sun. Damn me for thinking I could get away with a hoodie on what was supposed to be an easy trip to drop-off Harper. I try to make quick work of my cigarette as I stand there, shivering like a fool.
I should know by now that nothing ever comes easy, not really. There are always hidden strings attached, land mines to avoid. Rinoa plants them without knowing, every time I see her, each time I reach for our bond and feel the nothingness in its place. I feel like I'm back at that cracked, barren wasteland at the edge of time. There's nothing but dust, every direction grey. Empty. She saved me from that place, though, just like she did when I hit rock bottom. But she's not here to save me now, maybe not ever again. She can't, anyways. Especially when the person I need saving from is her.
How many more nights will it be like this? Obsessing over Rinoa should not be the constant in my life, but it somehow still is, and now I fear it's only going to get worse. I exhale a plume of smoke just so I can finish off the rest of my wine glass, and—
"—Fuck!"
A knock on the patio door startles me back down to earth. Maybe my SeeD instincts aren't quite as ingrained as I thought (or maybe I'm finally starting to get drunk). I spin around to see Quistis on the other side of the glass, holding up the wine bottle, her eyebrow cocked.
"I'm out." She waves the bottle around as if to animate its emptiness.
I finish off my smoke and flick out the ember before tossing it off the ledge. "You're out." It's more of a statement than a question.
"Well, I wasn't expecting you to come here and finish it," she says.
"I left you some," I counter.
She turns around and grabs her glass from the coffee table. It's...well. Not full. I offer her an apologetic shrug. How was I supposed to know that was the last bottle? And why did she have so little to begin with? I'd never let my liquor cabinet fall behind like that.
I come back inside to see her peering in her fridge. A moment later, she emerges with the remaining four cans from a six-pack of beer. "This is all I've got," she declares. "Sorry."
Not my favourite, but it'll do. Not that I should be one to complain; I'm the intruder invading her couch and drinking her booze, after all. "It's fine. Don't be sorry," I tell her.
She peels two cans from the plastic yokes and joins me back on the sofa; I catch the barest stumble in her gait on her way over, almost as though she's walking through a dream, stepping on clouds and wondering if she'll fall through. She hands me one of the cans as she makes a soft landing into the cushion.
The game is sitting at intermission, commentators giving their analysis over slow-motion replays. Her beer cracks overtop the voices with a hiss, and she takes an almost-too-long chug. It's bothering me now—something is certainly wrong. She doesn't drink like this when things are okay. I know it goes against that whole "no pressure" thing we've got between us, but I can't help myself. I give her a small nudge.
"Are you sure you don't want to talk?"
She stops mid-sip, lowers the can from her mouth. "Do you?"
Of course she turns it back on me. What do I even say to that? Do I want to talk? I'm not sure; the moles have already dug so many holes in my head that I'm afraid it's going to collapse. Her eyes are waiting, though, searching mine for some sort of answer, and in that moment, I can see the turmoil welling up inside of her. I think back to the last time she stayed on my couch, the sound of her voice blurting out, "What am I doing, Squall?" She's been stuck on that question the same way I've been stuck trying to figure out what I want out of life.
I wish I was better at this. I open my mouth, but the words don't come out—just a low sigh before closing it once more. I crack my beer open instead and take a long drink.
"I thought so," she says as she shakes her head.
God. It's not like I don't want to help. It's just that I don't know what I could possibly tell her. Nothing I have to offer is comforting. We're carrying the same burden, this same Garden life; it's heavy, it's taxing, it's compressing the discs between vertebrae as we bear its brand on a slow march to our graves. Add that on top of the prospect that we both might just end up being alone forever. It's not the brighter future she'd asked me to picture at eighteen, and nothing I say now will change that.
"Sometimes, Squall," she says, moreso to the can sitting in her hands than to me, "I just don't know."
"Don't know what?" I ask. I hate it when people are cryptic. Just say what you need to say. Don't make me second guess.
A dead laugh. "Everything. Anything." She takes another drink. "Things at work aren't getting better. I've been stressed twenty-four-seven. I tried to spend the last couple of days focusing on the date I was supposed to have tonight, and then I got stood up. So you know, that's always good for the old self-esteem."
"I'm sorry," I say, wincing at how empty it sounds. I try to follow up, make an attempt to relate. "If it makes you feel any better, my night's going about the same. Rinoa's started dating a new guy."
Quistis crinkles her nose at that. "How is that supposed to make me feel better?"
I shrug. "I don't know. Misery loves company, I guess?"
"I…" She pauses, reorders her thoughts. "You not doing well isn't a cause for me to celebrate. I'm sorry about Rinoa."
My turn to slam back half a can in one shot. "It's not unexpected." I wish I could feel as collected as I sound. I try to remain stoic. "I just have to learn how to move on."
"...Yeah." Quistis knows I'm full of shit. She can see exactly what I'm fighting inside (but I've always been an easy read for her).
A silence drapes over us once more, and the moles burrow deeper still. I start to fret about how long they've been dating, and where did they meet, and will he ever know her secret—will they one day share the bond? I'm sure the old texts about sorceress lore said nothing about a knight driving a Range Rover and working some upper management corporate gig.
The game starts the third quarter; thank you oh-so-benevolent GSPN. I turn my attention to the TV. Galbadia is down, 49 to 57. I've got no investment in this match whatsoever, but I hope they manage to come from behind and win, just to give Quistis the smallest glimmer of something good to end the night with. I hate that Garden's made her miserable, but part of me hates even more that she's been stood up. People can be such assholes.
She gets up halfway through the quarter and retrieves the final two beers from the fridge. "Last one," she says. The words come out thick, her annunciation coated in booze.
Whatever. I'm sure I'm in equally amazing shape. I grab the can, notice how cool it feels against my palm. "You realize I'm crashing on this couch, right?"
She nods. "It's fine."
Back to sitting in silence, watching the game pass by, too many drinks deep to even count at this point. Galbadia misses two foul shots, a sharp "fuck" is whispered into the air. Galbadia still trails into the fourth. I can see her tense, her jaw firmly shut, her body leaning slightly forward, as if the intensity of her stare could make them pull out a win.
It doesn't happen. Galbadia ends up losing 97 to 102. Quistis' shoulders slump down, and she shakes her head, frustrated. "Figures," she tells the TV.
I try to ease her disappointment. "It's a long way until March. They've got time to redeem themselves."
She rolls her eyes. "Like us?"
I don't think I've ever been equated to a losing basketball team before, but I get her implication nonetheless. "You're saying we're losers, too?"
"Well, I definitely am, and you're hanging out with me, so you do the math."
"Geez, thanks."
Quistis shrugs and starts picking up our empty cans, her takeout box. I help her, grabbing the wine bottles and walking them over to her recycling container. Standing up, it hits me just how drunk I am. The world starts spinning, almost as if I was walking on a spindle, and I have to focus down hard to keep myself from staggering.
It takes every bit of brainpower I have left to make it back to the sofa—my bed for the night—and collapse onto it. Quistis disappears out of my sightline only to reappear moments later with a pillow, which she promptly throws at my face.
"Ugh!" I manage, muffled underneath a plush layer of down. I reverse the order so that my head is resting on it. "So aggressive."
"It's been an aggravating couple of weeks," she says with a half-smile. "Don't take it personally. Sleep tight."
"Yeah, yeah. Night," I say. She turns off the lights and goes to her room.
I toss my glasses onto the coffee table before wrestling off my hoodie, socks, and jeans with drunken hands. The leather of the sofa creaks under my weight as I grab the comforter and try to shift into a position that doesn't feel awkward. No matter what I do, though, it seems like an impossible task. My face gets smushed into the back, my feet hang over the armrest. Not to mention all this moving is tossing up waves of nausea, beer and wine sloshing around in my bloodstream like waves in an angry storm.
I eventually give up and lie on my back. I tell myself to just be still, I've managed to moor myself, everything is fine. It's quiet, it's dark, nothing is moving, I'm okay, and is—is that someone crying?
I sit up—damn the momentum for throwing everything into a tailspin. Quistis is crying; I can hear her weep quietly from behind her bedroom door. Goddamn it. I want to just let her ride it out. A younger me would have. But then what kind of friend am I? Fuck. I walk over, knock. "You alright?"
"Y-yeah." Her voice cracks; I can hear it easily from behind the door.
Bullshit. "Doesn't sound like it."
Again with the silence. I pinch the bridge of my nose, take two sobering breaths, and step into her room. I find her lying in her bed, tangled in a mess of a duvet, eyes red, nose running, dressed in a plain white tee. The Balamb Garden sweatshirt is discarded, strewn across the floor. I wonder if she needed to cast it aside simply because of where it came from. I step over it, sit on the edge of the bed, pull her into a hug.
"Hey… It's okay, Quisty," I say softly. I can feel her sobs shudder into my shoulder.
"It's always gonna be like this, Squall." Her tears quickly stain the front of my shirt. She's the other half of the Girl before a Mirror, now, the side that's dark, the side that's locked in glass. "Always."
"No it's not," I say. I don't know if I believe that, but I don't have it in me right now to say otherwise. All I can do is sit here, hold her, and tell her things that I probably need to hear myself. That this isn't the end of the world, that this might not be forever, even though it feels like it right now.
"I just can't do this," she hisses out, and then again, "I can't do this, I can't fucking do this."
"Yes, you can." I rub her back, make a low shushing sound. It almost feels like when Harper is upset. So many nights I've spent up, holding on to her just like this, convincing her that the nightmares aren't real.
I feel the worst of her crying ease off, then it's just ragged breaths and sniffles. She looks up at me the way I'm sure I've looked at her over decades of shared hurt, and she wipes the remaining tears from her eyes. "I'm sorry, Squall, I just…," she trails off, takes another moment to compose herself. "That was embarrassing."
"I don't judge," I tell her.
"Out loud," she retorts.
I laugh.
I wonder how long Quistis has been putting herself through this. She still doesn't know what she's doing, doesn't know why things aren't working out, but I have an idea. The problem is that her perfectionism is at odds with her humanity. She just doesn't want to fail. But she doesn't know what true failure looks like—it's not reprimands from Garden or enduring overwhelming stress or getting stood up. It's the surrender. It's letting all these things continue to defeat her until she can do nothing more than submit.
And she'll say that there's just something inherently wrong with her. But there's nothing wrong with her at all; she's just always been so quick to punish herself at the first sign of things not playing out exactly as she'd planned. She's made herself blind to the fact that what she perceives as fatal flaws are just traits.
"I love you," she murmurs into my shoulder. She's still drunk. And so am I, but those three words always manage to land hard. Hearing it twice in one weekend from someone other than Harper is…something.
"...I love you, too," I tell her.
"Good," she says. "At least someone does."
We sit like that for a moment, my arms still holding her, her head in the crook of my neck. A couple of sniffles, another shudder. I kiss her temple—I'm not sure what compels me to do that. I guess I just don't want her to think that I didn't mean what I just said.
"Do you want the TV on?" I ask, gesturing to the set on top of her dresser. "Something to fall asleep to?"
She nods. I grab the remote from her nightstand, flip to some old sitcom. The filler noise is a welcome sound, an invitation to occupy the space where darker thoughts may lie. I think she'll be okay. I get up to head back to the sofa. Her hand stops me.
"Stay," she says, "...please. Just for a bit."
I freeze. I have been to Quistis' place several times in the months since she's moved to Deling, slept at least a half dozen times on her couch. Never this, though. I look down to her hand, pale fingers wrapped around my wrist.
"Is that a good idea?" I finally say.
She moves over and pulls back the duvet. I don't know what else to do, so I, with my fantastic decision-making track record, slip into the bed. Her bed. She moves back into my grasp; I wrap my arms around her. What the fuck am I doing? The laugh track roars to life, ridiculing me as I lie here, drunk, stumbling over lines that were well-defined just moments before this.
She moves closer; I can feel her nose on my collarbone, her slowed breathing, now steady. I should have just goddamned well stayed on the couch while she cried herself to sleep. I knew I wasn't good at comforting people. And now look where I am. Fuck.
She's Quistis. My best friend of twenty-seven years. Harper's de facto aunt. Someone I love—hell, I literally just told her so not even a few minutes ago. I don't dare let her be anything more than that. I can't. The loneliness is a temporary fixture, but this relationship is supposed to be permanent, not something to break on a split decision, not like this.
Her breath makes the hair stand on the back of my neck. I swallow. I'm sure she can feel me, hard and desperate, pressing into her thigh. It's been months upon months since my last hook-up; I can't fucking control it.
"Are you okay, Squall?" she asks.
"I'm okay," I lie.
And then her lips are on mine, and she's kissing me, and she tastes like wine and beer and sadness all mixed into one. My hands are running through her hair, up the curve of her spine, underneath her old t-shirt, across her bare breasts, and hers roam over me, down the front of my body, over my hips, her fingers tucking neatly underneath the waistband of my boxers.
She pulls away from my lips and starts trailing kisses down my jawline, then further down along my neck, and I feel her hand move lower to graze over me, enough so that I let out a gasp and buck my hips up. It feels good. Too fucking good. She starts to stroke, and catches my subsequent moan with her mouth, her tongue dancing with mine, and I can't I can't I can't I can't do this.
"Stop," I manage, my breath heavy. "Please, just. Stop."
She does. She looks dumbfounded for a moment, as if she were possessed and then suddenly herself again.
"I'm sorry, Quisty." I slowly exhale. "I can't let this happen."
The tears return. I push them aside with my thumb. Then she starts crying all over again as she lets out a slew of apologies, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," coming in rapid succession until they get hitched up in her sobs, each one louder than the last.
What do I do? Fuck. Fuck. I can't just pretend that it didn't happen, that I didn't just have my hands all over her body, or that she didn't just have me in hers. All I want to do is turn back into her friend and hold her, let her know it's okay, it was a mistake, things happen, we'll be alright. Instead I start to panic. What if she can't bear to see me after this? What if she can't speak to me after this? Then what? Did I just throw everything away on the last five minutes, cast aside like an old sweatshirt that no one wants? The laugh track erupts once more, mocking me—you fool, you goddamned fool.
I don't even know where the fuck to go. Do I move back to the couch? Do I stay? Do I call a taxi and go home? She's still lying in my arms. It feels like she's drowning, and I can't tell if I'm a life preserver or a rock tied to her ankle.
Finally, she gives me my answer, "I think you should leave, Squall."
I whisper into her hair. "Okay."
In that moment, I can feel the rope in my hands again. I lose my grip for just a second and surrender a couple of inches. It's the first time it's happened in years. It takes almost me by surprise; all this time, I've been worried about not making it any further up. But the downward slide comes quick, my fingers burning under the friction, the skin catching and tearing. It's terrifying.
I'm numb as I get up, get dressed. Gather my things. And she's still crying quietly behind that door as I head back down the elevator and into the cold company of a waiting cab.