forthsofar | go get your ribbon box, go get your wounded heart

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caleb

go get your ribbon box, go get your wounded heart

In the end, Rosie doesn't ask Anne about particularly slow and vengeful ways of killing someone, or go to Sabrina for a hex involving boils or scrofula or something equally vile, or any of the other gruesomely creative things she'd thought about in the space between finding out about Neil and Caleb's breakup--and the reasons therein--and now. She hadn't replied to any of his messages beyond that first one, and even that was a starkly ominous we will talk about this later; in the last day or so, he'd moved on to leaving voicemails, and she hadn't listened to any of them either. There was a kind of glee in letting him stew, in ignoring him in favor of making sure Neil got back on his feet and recovered as much as possible from the blow he'd been dealt.

Eventually, she decides to take him off of whatever agonizing hook he'd placed himself on--not that he hadn't deserved it--and sends him another message, just as short as the last. If you're not home, get there. I'm coming over.

She doesn't wait for a reply, just heads out the door and towards Caleb's building.

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He starts to walk away, and it takes effort not to chase after him, follow him the short distance to the table. She always would have, before, without even thinking about it; they existed peacefully in each other's orbits because they were friends, closer friends than they ever expected to be, and that had meant something to them both. But Caleb walks away, and Rosie doesn't follow, and the distance stretches out between them.

It doesn't get any better when Caleb actually starts talking. Rosie bites her lip against a flood of words, forces herself--again, always again--to listen even as her stomach clenches. "Caleb," she starts to say, and then he looks up at her with tear-filled eyes and she's closing the space between them after all, leaning down to seize him in a tight, fierce hug.

"I wouldn't be this mad at you if you weren't my friend, you stupid boy," she says, her voice a rough and shaky whisper in his ear. "Shame on you for thinking otherwise."

He breaks down, this time. She hugs him tightly, and he reaches his arms up, clinging to her. The angle for him is a little awkward, and he sort of clutches to the back of her shirt, but he can't care right now. He starts to sob; the sick swirl of everything from the last half hour — the last week — finally pours out of him. This time, when she calls him stupid boy, it doesn't hurt, it doesn't ping that self-deprecating part of him that'd drank up 'coward' and 'idiot' so readily. This time, they're almost fond. The words make a crack in Rosie's feelings, and now, there it is. Her love for him, that gentle, silver warmth bleeds into him and slowly begins to wash against the aches that everything else had left behind.

He's babbling, he realizes too late to stop, telling her he'd never meant for this to happen, it'd all just gotten away from him, and he's so sorry. The words just spill out of him until they don't anymore, his regret and his sorrow and his confusion tripping over each other to be heard until they finally peter out, and he just clings to her instead. Maybe he's expecting too much — maybe she's still too angry with him to accept any of this, but she's hugging him, and right now, that's all he can let himself focus on.

It doesn't matter what he says, or how much of it she's even able to understand amid the sobs and sniffles. Rosie holds onto him, and listens, and lets him cry--just like she'd done for Neil far too many times before, and for Sabrina, and allowed other people to do for her when she needed it most. It isn't forgiveness, and it isn't agreement, and it doesn't wipe away all the reasons she has to be upset with him or with herself. But holding onto him helps them both.

He doesn't let go until his breathing has settled from the hitching, post-sob panting into something a little more natural. Even then, he's reluctant, like if he does, she'll start yelling at him again. But he has to, eventually, if only to grab a napkin from the holder in the center of the table so he can wipe his face and blow his nose.

"Sorry," he mumbles once he has. He feels cored, now. Not just empty of his own feelings, but actually carved out. Bits have remained behind, like meat clinging to bone, but mostly, he just feels... numb.

It's not better.

"Don't apologize," she says, an echo of her conversation with Neil the other week, though the context had been both different and the same. When he lets go of her to blow his nose, she takes a small step back, going to the chair on the other side of the table and sitting down. Her hand rests on the table's wooden surface, an invitation he can take or reject.

"It wasn't fair to put me in the middle, and it wasn't right to keep Adam from Neil, and I know you know both of those things but I'm saying them anyway," she says. "And I forgive you."

He grips her hand, wanting, needing that anchor, and he's so fucking grateful that she's offered it. He listens to her, then takes a slow breath and lets it out shakily.

"Thank you," he whispers. There's someone else he wants to forgive him, too, but he feels like that's too soon. Eventually, he and Neil probably will be friends. Eventually, Caleb will be able to think of Adam and not feel haunted by him. But right now, he's just glad that Rosie doesn't hate him, and isn't disgusted by him.

He feels like it takes a long time before his feelings start to trickle back into his body. There's that familiar shame he's felt all week, guilt, too, and sadness — a unique mix of sorrow and depression, tinged with regret. But he still believes he made the right choice, as hard as it was at the time and as hard as it is now to deal with the consequences of that choice. He needs to work on himself, really and genuinely, before he can be with anyone the way that they deserve.

After another moment or two of sitting quietly, he sniffles and looks at her.

"Can I ask... um. Why did you feel guilty? Earlier. You don't— you don't have to say," he adds, fingers tightening almost imperceptibly on hers, like he's afraid she'll pull away. He is.

She squeezes his hand when he thanks her, giving him the space he needs to sort through everything he's feeling, to put it all in its proper place and let go of what needs to be discarded. She can see it settle in his face; not contentment or some kind of naive hope, but something like quiet resolution. When he finally speaks, Rosie looks back down at the table, a rueful smile on her face. She sighs.

"You're really too good at that," she says. "I'm not...I've been over it with more people than is really right for it to have taken already, so it's no use going into details again. Basically, I realized I was judging you for something I maybe, a little bit, ought to judge myself for too."

It's the way she says it, not the way she feels about it, that tells him she doesn't want to talk about it, so he doesn't ask if she does. He nods, though, and so she knows he's there if she changes her mind, he says, "If you ever need, like, an ear, I'm here for you, okay?" Maybe he's not the top of her list, right now, but at least he's put the offer there, and he means it, genuinely.

"I know that," she says, shifting her hand in his to graze her thumb along the side of his hand, gentle and affectionate. It's a kinder offer than she might deserve, after all the shouting she'd just done, but it's one she's more than willing to accept. "And I appreciate it. Really. I'll let you know if I need to talk after all."

She laughs, soft and mirthless. "Well, I do, but it should be to Sabrina and not you. But you know what I meant."

"Yeah," he assures, "I do." He takes a slow breath, feeling himself slowly begin to normalize. Soon, it's enough to say, "Hey, d'you want some tea? I... really need some tea." He's hesitant to let go of her hand. It feels like a lifeline, an almost literal olive branch, and he doesn't want to lose that just for the sake of making tea, so he doesn't move until he knows whether she wants some, too.

It's clear Caleb needs the tea more than she does--and that he needs the excuse to make it even more. She nods, squeezing his hand again, gently. "I'd love some tea. Whichever one you're making for yourself, I'm not picky."

He nods, and it takes him another minute or so before he moves. When he does, it's with a deep breath and some reluctance as he lets go of her hand and goes into the kitchen. He putters around a little slower than usual, but eventually gets the water boiling, two mugs of herbal tea side by side on the countertop. He sets out the things he knows, by now, that Rosie likes in her tea.

He leans against the counter while he waits, and watches her.

"I'm not trying to be pathetic for pity points," he says, sounding a little more like himself. He sounds a little wry, but his expression is still drawn and miserable. "I'm just actually this pathetic."

"I know. I've seen your apartment in this state before, remember," says Rosie, echoing his wry tone as she turns in her chair, watching as he sets out the tea things. It feels like getting back to normal, letting go of more of the righteous anger she'd been carrying on Neil's behalf and allowing her usual affection to return in its place. "At least there's not one of those microwave pastry things down the back of the sofa this time."

Caleb makes a little face — at himself, not her — and looks around what he can see of the place. "Yeah, I... tried to be a little more conscientious, I guess."

It helps that this was just a breakup — 'just,' like it isn't that big of a deal, but compared to what happened to Michael, Caleb isn't sure it is. Or maybe it's just a different kind of big deal. He doesn't really have a frame of reference for 'my best friend was kidnapped by a secret lab and then cut open' vs 'I broke up with my boyfriend because I'm hung up on a boyfriend in a different city.'

"This city is fucking weird," he mumbles, shaking his head.

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go get your ribbon box, go get your wounded heart

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