4
Prophecy
"I want you to know that I'm happy for you
I want nothing but the best for you both"
-Alanis Morissette

I was back to betrayal, feeling hostility, depression, and homicidal urges. Basically, I was back to not being able to handle Ryan and Jenn. When they were casually dating, it was fine, painful but bearable. However, two hours in the backseat of his car was too much.

It was so gorgeous out, sunny and cloudless, and the snow was so white. How red would my blood be if I spilled it on the snow?

I maybe should have told her something, but I couldn't find any words. I had to leave, to escape, her house, this life. Even out in the open, I still felt that desperation, that urge to escape, but would could serve as that out? Tears or death seemed to be the only answers, and I had no tears left.

Words emerged. Out loud. Too late. "I cannot deal with Ryan and Jenn going out and I don't even want to live."

I got to work and the crowds came, and I sold them their popcorn and candy, and then the show started, and I was left alone.

I didn't know what I was feeling. It was new and so scary. I knew nothing, except that I knew I couldn't deal with life. The night before, I had dreamed every possible scenario, so why was my world shaking? There was no point in going on.

It was funny how Jenn, who so often stopped me from wanting to kill myself, could now make me want to embrace death. She didn't need me anymore. She had Ryan. Ryan never needed me. No one needed me. No one would miss me if I was gone. Gone into the bliss of oblivion.

There was nothing to do or say that hadn't been done or said before. I had given all, and finally gave my last for the happiness of the two people I loved most in the world. She was supposed to not do it! Why did it seem that Ryan was more of a traitor? Jenn wasn't a traitor, merely a slut. All I wanted was to be loved. Ryan was everything I could want...

Except for the minute fact that he wasn't gay goddammitt! I was lost, sinking, drowning. Yes, I was drowning, so I let myself fall beneath the waves. The cold, the cold that froze and bit. And radiating warmth, the warmth of decision.

I decided. Where in my despondency lay the key? A beautiful winter's day or an ugly winter's night, but in which lay the perfect course, the final course: death.

I had some rum at work, in case I ever got too stressed. I made myself a drink. God, rum was foul. I hated the taste. It'd make me sick before taking me away. I could see a thin red line stretching across abdominal muscles, or down and across an arm.

Jenn wanted me to make a decision. What would she say now that I had?

What did I have to do before I died? Not much. Tell a few people thank you for always being friends. Tell Jenn I loved her. Make sure Ryan knew how much I loved/wanted/needed him. I wrote them down so I wouldn't forget, and the writing made it real.

The manager came out of her office and said I could go home. I left the list on a shelf; Jenn would find it, and she would know I loved her, and she would know what love had done to me.

I went home, and soft music soon sang to me of blackness. She was living my life, and I hated her for it. I loved her, but I hated her all the same. If she had my life, there was no life left for me. Jealousy may have been the reason, but an overwhelming sense of uselessness was the strength in the hand that held the knife.

But I couldn't press that knife to my skin, much less feel the blessed fiery slicing that could drain me of my pain. I called Ryan, and in the darkness of my room, I could see no reason to hide the truth from him.

"What's wrong?" He could hear it in the warble of my voice. He knew me so well.

"Nothing."

"You've talked to Jenn?"

"Yes."

"And?"

"It hurts."

"Why?"

"I wanted to be the one to be with you like that."

"Kevin..."

"I know. You're just not gay."

"Right. Anyway, why does it matter?"

"Don't worry Ryan. I won't tell her how I'm feeling. I made my decision."

"Do you regret it?"

"If I knew how much it would hurt, I couldn't have said anything but no."

"I would have hated you."

"I know. That's why I didn't do it. I wanted you to be happy. That's how much I love you."

"Don't say that."

"Say what?"

"That you love me."

"Why not? It's true."

"Kevin, I'm straight."

"Don't you see Ryan? That doesn't matter. It's not a physical thing. I love you more than something so worldly."

"Kay. I'm changing the topic."

"Fine." It was probably better he did. As much as I needed him to know what he meant to me, I couldn't scare him off.

"I think Jenn and I moved too fast."

"Oh?" YES YES YES YES YES YES.

"Yeah. I want to slow things down."

"Why?"

"I dunno. Maybe I just like her as a friend. I felt guilty after."

"Really."

"Yeah. Weird. Or maybe I just respect her too much. Maybe even love her."

"Don't say that." Ouch.

Then he piled pain upon pain. "Or maybe I'm gay."

It hurt because I knew he was just joking, and the fact that he would say something in jest when it meant so much to me showed me how little he cared. He'd never say anything like that to Jenn.

"Look Ryan, I have to go. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yeah kay. Bye."

I hung up. It hurt, him saying he might love her. He was supposed to love me. And it hurt saying he might be gay, when I knew he wasn't. Still, it planted hope, and how could I consider ending my life when Ryan and I could still end up together?

Jenn called. "Kevin, what's this?"

"What?"

"This list at work."

"Nothing." I tried to sound cold and detached. I couldn't tell her I anted her and Ryan to break up, but if I could hint or insinuate, then maybe she'd figure it out.

"Are you okay?"

"Of course." I resented the fact that she thought I couldn't handle it. Okay, I couldn't, but why should she think I was so weak?

"Are you sure? If you want me to break up with him, tell me."

Yes! Please! Do it! "I thought you were getting fairly serious."

"Kevin, don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't do your stubborn not-answering thing."

"Aren't you two getting close?"

"We have this honesty thing going."

"Has he told you he might be gay?"

"Whatever, Kev. Get over it. I know he's not."

"Yeah, I guess you would." I hung up, and even though the phone rang, I would not answer. I cried myself to sleep.

I dreamed that Ryan raped Jenn. He just got carried away and ignored her protests. He felt terrible. He came to my place after to talk about it. Jenn called, while he was there, because she needed me. I had to decide who to stay with.

The answer? Ryan. I was not proud of it, but already Ryan was more important to me than Jenn. She was a bitch; she didn't deserve my love. Ryan, well, Ryan I loved. But how much, and of what sort? Where was the dividing love between platonic and erotic love? With Ryan, I was sort of hovering on the border, and if love was a two-way street...

How did I know it was love? It could have gotten better (much better). It wasn't sexual. Mental, and emotional, and spiritual, but not really physical. All I wanted was us to be bound forever, by ties of fraternity, best friends, partners in all. That's how I knew it was real. It came with forever attached.

I didn't want to lose him. That's what the problem was. I loved him and didn't want to lose him. I didn't want to drive him away, or scare him off, or have him seduced away. All I wanted was for him to stay with me forever, friends always, united eternally by a bond of blood on blood. Either by a small scar in my palm, like blood brothers, or by the gaping wound in my heart.

Those were the thoughts that carried me through that night. When I woke, I realised that the contemplating suicide meant I was taking the whole Ryan-Jenn-dating thing too seriously. My love for Ryan was mostly the blackness talking. The intensity of pure love served as a buoy in a sea of madness and despair; even if it was imaginary or exaggerated, my love for Ryan was what I needed to get me through that dark night.

Monday morning, sane and rational, I saw that love as weaker, more dilute. I couldn't realistically expect more than we already had. Yes, I wanted the fairy tale, but it was much more important to keep the friendship alive, and I couldn't do that if I drove him away with my obsessive possessiveness.

By the time I ran into Ryan, I had resolved to let myself be as good a friend as I could. "Hey, how's it going?"

"Good."

"How was your weekend?"

"You know as well as I do."

Painful reminder that that was, I ignored it, and kept going. "How was Vampire?"

"I don't know. I missed the end of it."

"Oh? Why?" Please say you were in the bathroom.

"Because I was busy."

Ouch. I walked away. There I was, making the effort, and he was going out of his way to hurt me. He was an asshole. Obviously, I just had no luck with relationships. Jenn was a treacherous Judas, and Ryan was just an asshole.

By lunch, I had forgiven him. How could I do otherwise? Even when he said he had changed his mind about slowing things down, I couldn't hold a grudge. When I told Ryan I couldn't deal with him and Jenn, he tried to persuade me that it didn't matter. He said that by dating Jenn, his relationship with me would only improve.

Yes, I realised he was only telling me exactly what I wanted to hear, but it didn't matter. Anyway, it was true. Ryan and I were closer. We talked about emotions now, and secrets. We were closer, even though Jenn and I were getting farther apart all the time.

Thoughts of Ryan were unhealthy. It was safer to think about how my friendship with Jenn was changing. It was so funny how I could feel so angry and hostile toward her when I felt nothing of the sort toward Ryan. Every time I talked to Jenn, I told her I loved her. Was I reassuring her, or trying to convince myself?

I could see no way for our friendship to survive. If her and Ryan kept dating, I would continue to hate her. I couldn't tell her how I was feeling; I couldn't be held responsible for her and Ryan breaking up. There was no way, though, that Jenn wouldn't perceive the tension hostility. Then she'd break up with Ryan (or not) and they'd both hate me. Either way, I'd lose her.

The night Jenn and Ryan had their second date, I again called Christy to go see a movie. We went to see (what else?) Vampire. All the passion killed. As I sat there, I kept thinking that during this scene, they were kissing, and during that scene, Ryan was undoing her blouse.

It was so very erotic. So vivid. So passionate. Every kiss, every kill, was Ryan. I didn't catch the common bond of blood until later, as caught up in the mind-body games of power, dominance, and unrestricted love as I was. I could see myself raising my wrist, my veins, to his mouth. Could see him impaling me, letting my blood like fire burn him. United by that fire as by death. Eternity could know no bounds. If only he would "drink from me and live forever" as the movie posters read.

There was no point in my denying my feelings. They weren't dying. I should have told them both the truth right then. What did I have to lose except them, and they were lost to me anyway. What difference did it make - to love or to lose? A knife could cut as well as teeth. Both could cut the pain of love refused.

Earlier that day, at school, my misery and my hostility toward Jenn succeeded in making Ryan feel guilty. He told me he would tell Jenn how I was feeling. He said he cared about Jenn too much to hurt her by having her and my friendship end. That was both cutting and healing, but if he told her how I felt, she had to end it.

Didn't she?

That's how badly her dating Ryan had destroyed our friendship. I couldn't trust her anymore. I had no faith in her. Would she do it, even after learning my feelings? I couldn't honestly say so.

All I could do was hope she would. And the next morning, I went to pay Jenn a visit. I had to know. Was it over? It had to be. If it wasn't...