Re: The Disaffected/The Entertainer
Nicky still sipped his first drink; about halfway gone, and Miles was ordering, what, a third? Not judging. Maybe a little impressed. Mused that responsibility was a dangerous beast that would sink its claws and teeth into you and drag you down into - not slavery, but - a heavy deprivation of freedom. Nicky didn't want any of that. Some people went cheerfully to their doom. Will was the kind who went cheerfully everywhere. Even when the heat was on, he had time for a joke. Beautiful, sweet, happy idiot and Nicky had a powerful urge to call up their pictures on his phone. The ones he'd never had the courage to delete. Probably would never. Coward.
"We're about as different as two people can be." Sip. Very nearly a gulp, but he kept it under control. "But that doesn't stop some people." His parents had been as different as two people - beings, even - could objectively be. And yet they'd persisted for a long enough for Nicky to be born, and after. He didn't correct Miles. It hadn't been that way: a constant stream of you're-okays and I-still-love-yous. Will rarely said things like that unless it had been provoked. It was the small, subtle things that Nicky should have been able to appreciate. Instead, he'd needed to hear the affirmations. But when he did, then he'd start the arguments. Responsibilities had been the cover, the impetus, but they weren't the reason. But all he heard now from Miles is "why didn't you fix your broken self, and then you could deserve to be happy?" And that stung, surprisingly. Already knew he bore the responsibility, had already said the words, but he didn't need it splashed in his face like acid. Nobody wanted that. Probably why he'd never sought therapy. Facing yourself. Shiver.
So he just said: "Nobody has a perfect childhood." Childhood hadn't been great, but he wasn't going to start talking about the death of his mother, his seventy-year vacation from reality, falling in love with his cousin and a war. Not with Miles and not really with most people who weren't peripherally familiar with his general situation. "Probably - definitely - still working through things. One day, though. I can be who he deserves." Finished his drink and ordered another. Two would be it, though. Dropped a twenty on the counter that hadn't been in his hand a moment earlier. The car got colder for a brief moment, like an arctic wind shivering through the trees, but not a hair on anyone's head stirred.