triumph;

Well, you haven’t let me try to make you not hate it. Why don’t we go to the beach and talk? 

Don’t you have to go suck face with your boyfriend while you’re still in town?

No, no, no. I’m not doing this again. I’m not going to almost lose someone else I care about. What’s going on, Joey? 

Y’can’t lose someone you never had Avalon. 

I won’t try to do anything about it. I just want to know what’s going on. Nora says you haven’t come out of your room in two days ‘n…it smells like it too. 

My fucking knee hurts, Aleks. I got stuck going to community fucking college instead of the university I had a full ride soccer scholarship at. I can’t run. I can barely walk, still, and I’ve watched every single human I love either die or move on and leave me behind. So pardon me if I don’t feel like making it to the shower for a coupl’a days, asshole.

Huh? Nuh-uh. You’re not pulling that bullshit with me. C’mon, get in the car. Let’s go for a drive.

It’s l-lo-l-locked, dickhead. 

After Kylie spewed her thoughts and feelings, she watched Joey’s eyes. It was as if the wires in his mind were figuring out the ways they wanted to connect. Would Sadness continue to take control? Perhaps Anger would step in? Kylie was sure the little red guy probably wasn’t far away. Both she and Joey had hot tempers when they were younger, but luckily they were beginning to cool down a little. Joey sobbed, hard and heavily, and Kylie saw that one again that rotten Sadness had one. Kylie held him like she had so many times before - the tall, sweet boy she’d loved since she was practically thirteen years old, and wondered how they’d gotten there. One moment, they were laying in the bottom bunk of Joey’s bed and in the next - they were adults who barely saw each other and were simply trying to heal. 

Joey took a few minutes to sob, and once he was through and began to talk, Kylie almost wished he’d just kept crying. Deep down, she knew if she’d told him how she really felt about him before UCLA, she would’ve never left, and she couldn’t do that to her parents. She couldn’t do that to herself. She had to see the world and live her life to the fullest. Kylie could still hear her mom in her ear at her first audition, instructing her to stand in the very front with her chin held high and to put all of the other seven year olds to shame.  She remembered that day so vividly, her youthful confidence and the way she nailed the audition and landed the role, and she hadn’t stop chasing that feeling since. She still searched for her mom’s proud face in the audience even after all these years.

“I know it’s been…geez…eight years since my parents passed away and I shouldn’t worry so much about making them proud still, but I do. And if I’m being honest, I still like you, Joey. I always have…” Kylie’s words tasted sweet even though they were quiet and filled with some nerves. If she was being true to herself, she shouldn’t be that nervous. She’d just plead with Joey to be his real, true, vulnerable self and if she held back, well, then that’d be hypocritical and she hated hypocrites. “And, I always will,” She said, squeezing his hands in hers, “I always will like you until hopefully – hopefully we end up together someday or something. But…I can’t leave UCLA. I can’t disappoint them. If I don’t do everything I’m supposed to in my life it’s like…I feel like they died in vain then, and I don’t want to feel that way.” Kylie hadn’t felt them before, but the few tears that had pooled in her eyes finally fell down her tanned cheeks. She wiped them away with her hands and then grabbed Joey’s once more.

“And for the record, I do have our pictures. They’re on my desk, and I get distracted staring at them instead of studying way more than I’d like to admit,” She smiled, attempting to lighten the mood before she sunk her teeth into her bottom lip and sighed, “…Rex just isn’t some guy though. I mean, we’re not together or anything, but we’re not just acquaintances either. He’s–alright. He’s artsy and funny and I guess he makes me feel good when I’m out there. It’s just so lonely. I just needed someone and he’s from Massachusetts so he reallllly has no one over on the West Coast and we just ended up becoming friends. You don’t have to be worried,” Kylie took one of her hands and held Joey’s face, “I’d choose you any day, over anyone. I’m serious.” 

Rex. Ugh. That was his name. Rex. What kind of name was Rex, anyhow? Joey didn’t care to hear all about him, but there Kylie went, droning on and on for what felt like an hour about how good he is and what he makes her feel. Joey didn’t care to hear any of it. He didn’t want to know that someone else was making her happy when it should’ve been him. It should’ve been him all along. Joey couldn’t help but feel like he screwed everything up. He never should’ve dated Brooke or Winnie or even tried to kiss Avalon... Ugh. Avalon. That was a lost cause in and of itself. 

Joey would always wonder what they could’ve been, but Avalon was at home with Grey, and he was on the beach with Kylie. And he was having to see her twin sister and her boyfriend lovey dovey and all over each other. And honestly, Joey didn’t even really know if he wanted to be in a relationship. He did know he wanted Kylie to be closer to him. He wanted to be around her all the time. He wanted to make her smile and laugh and be there for when she cried and needed someone to hold her. He wanted to hold her. When he saw a couple of tears fall from her eyes, he reached to wipe them away, but she had instinctually done so already. 

Honestly, Joey understood where she was coming from. He understood wanting to make someone proud. He didn’t know who he was trying to make proud. He didn’t have parents who loved him, and every day, the memories of his grandparents were slipping further and further away. The group home he lived in was the topic of all of the trauma work he’d been doing, so there was no way to forget all of that. But still, he understood. He wanted to make Nora proud, sorta. He wanted to make Ryder proud. He wanted to make Kylie proud too. He wanted to go to UNC. Play soccer. Get a degree. Make it into the big leagues... None of that was possible, and he had a daily reminder of waking up in what now felt like his childhood bedroom on the bottom bunk only to have to hobble down the stairs for breakfast. 

“I know you were seeing someone at UCLA,” Joey admitted. “Kelsie told me.” As Joey spoke, Kylie bit her tongue. Then, she wanted to punch Kelsie’s ribcage a few hundred times, but she wouldn’t. Ultimately, Kylie wasn’t Joey’s and Joey wasn’t Kylie’s. He wouldn’t stop his girl friends from kissing him, she was sure. If he was at a party and a random, pretty girl approached him, he’d take her home. So why did she feel so guilty about Rex? Why did she wish it was Joey instead? “I…” Kylie wanted to say something, but she wasn’t sure if there was anything she could say to defend her case, and plus, Joey spoke up again soon after his first statement anyways, his voice full of a mixture of anger and sadness this time around.

“Don’t do that!” Kylie retorted, frustrated, “That…I’ll be okay I always am…thing,” She mimicked his voice then stood up, her arms folded across her chest. “It’s okay to not be okay and to think it’s not fair. It’s not fair, Joey. And you’re allowed to feel that around me. You’re allowed to feel things! We’re best friends.” She was on the verge of tears and she wasn’t really even all that sure why. It could’ve been the chlorine from the pool or the fact that Kinley had snapped at her earlier, or maybe because seeing Joey hurt made Kylie hurt too. It made her hurt really bad. “You don’t always have to be alright. That’s a really bad thing that happened to you. You had everything planned out and now it’s…now it’s…maybe it’s not possible. Sorry, but it’s the truth and you know that and I know that and maybe the others aren’t admitting that to you, but I will. And it blows, Joey. It really blows. And I feel sorry for you. And I’m so sad for you because you deserve all the good things in this world,” She stepped down off of the porch and took his hands out of his pockets, placing them around her waist instead, “But, I got you. So…stop faking it. We’re in this beautiful, real place together. You can be real with me. I’ll still be here.” 

College had done Kylie good. She seemed older and wiser. She seemed more level headed. He was jealous of her. He wished he could’ve gone to UNC. He wished he could’ve met new people out there and lived a whole life that no one in Brooksville knew about. Instead,  he was at Greenville U and he was in class with almost everyone he went to high school with and everyone he beat the crap out of in soccer. He watched the soccer games and cheered for his friends and he drove around Brooksville by himself, wishing Kylie or Winnie could be there. Mostly Kylie though. He was lonely. He was really lonely, and he didn’t know why he was dealt the hand of cards he was. It didn’t seem fair. But he started volunteering at the shelter where Tucker worked and he was thinking about working at the YMCA to coach a little league soccer team. So he was trying, but at the end of the day, he was lonely. 

Kylie lectured him, their feet in dusty white sand. There she went on and on about how he was allowed to feel things. He was allowed to be upset. He was allowed to be angry and that she was sorry for him. And he was angry. He was upset. He had a thousand emotions in his body that he couldn’t explain and couldn’t even decide where to start or where to go or what to do with any of them. He just wanted to disappear. He had his next four years planned out, and in one swift kick, Joey slipped on the wet turf and fell, twisting and cracking and bending in all the wrong ways. And he knew he’d never be the same. He knew his plan was wrecked. Senior year of high school destroyed. College obliterated. And then he watched all his friends move away, go off to college, and start the rest of their lives when Joey was stuck in a tunnel of self hatred and purposelessness. And he cracked. He caved. He cried harder, picking his arms up and draping them over Kylie’s shoulders. He wanted her to hold him like she always did and he could help the tears falling from his eyes to his cheeks to her shoulders. 

Kylie adjusted the pink bikini on her hips, huffing as she walked through the sand. She was in good shape, but the sand still made her weirdly out of breath sometimes. Morgan and Kinley walked ahead of her, hand in hand, and for a moment, Kylie missed Rex. Rex was this super indie, long-haired, gap-toothed boy she’d met at UCLA and been seeing on and off her entire freshman semester. He was soft-spoken and didn’t try to sleep with her right away (which was very different from most UCLA guys), so they hit it off and hung out a lot. She did end up sleeping with him eventually when the stresses of midterms crept in and she wanted to have a little fun, but that was a story for another time. Still, seeing her sister be so in love with Morgan made her yearn for that kind of love too - and that’s when Kylie noticed Joey on the porch of the beach house. He was visibly upset, and the closer they got, the more she could see Joey shrinking into himself. Kinley turned around, shooting Kylie a confused look, and Kylie gave her a nod - signifying she’d talk to him and tell her all about it later, so Kinley and Morgan disappeared inside. Silently, Kylie sat down and rested her head on Joey’s shoulder. She could tell by his eyes that he didn’t want to say much or hear much. She could just tell. So she sat, listening to the waves as they beat against the shore, watching as the tide rolled in closer and closer, and waiting for Joey to say something. Finally, he spoke, and Kylie met his beautiful, brown eyes with her blues. “And the best part is there’s no getting rid of me,” Kylie said, her lips forming into a small smile as she laid a quick, gentle peck on his cheek then asked, “…Do you wanna talk about it?” 

If someone had taken a picture of Joey and Kylie in the moments they were sitting there, not speaking, it could’ve been a poster. It could’ve been a book cover. It could’ve been a scene in a coming-of-age movie. And it felt like a movie moment, too. It didn’t feel like real life. Then again, nothing since Joey tore is ACL felt like real life. It all felt like a movie. A TikTok video said to think of the inconveniences in your life as “being good for the plot” because you’re the main character. Joey knew it was just a joke, but part of that comforted him. “It’s good for the plot,” he would tell himself, but what even was the plot anymore? 

It’s okay. You’re not her keeper. People just say she’s jealous, b-b-but I can-can’t bee-believe that. 

She’s easily threatened, so she probably is. 

Damn! Not with that attitude! 

Dude, if I could lose my wife and daughter and believe life is still going to be alright, you can too. It might not be the same, but is anything in life ever the way you want it to be?

Well maybe I’m just not as strong as you. 

It’s good to meet you, man. 

You a dancer? I noticed there’s a whole gang of ‘em around here. 

Me? Oh, no. Definitely not. I play socc--err, well I guess I used to play soccer. I got hurt. Can’t do much of anything these days with a bum knee. 

Take the pain away. Take the pain away. Winnie was beginning to feel like her existence was a lot less of a little sister, a friend, an ex-girlfriend, and a crush and more of a healer. Take the pain away. Perhaps it was the empath in her that drew everyone in that needed fixing, and here she was again with not much of a choice. “It’s going to be okay,” Winnie brushed Joey’s hair off of his forehead. It was sweaty and sticky but she didn’t care. “It’s okay,” She repeated, “It’s okay.” Then, she planted a long, tender kiss on his lips, hoping that in those few moments at least he’d stop hurting just a little bit.