#ashdroiidwrites

They never fought. For any couple, this was an accomplishment. For a couple involving Roman, this was a miracle. He’d found all throughout his life that there was a certain quality to him that made him difficult to get along with; even in lieu of a problem arising, he had a penchant for digging at the rawest parts of a person. The patience of a Saint, Passero. That’s what his mother had said of Bee when she’d met her. His mother liked Bee. He liked Bee. 

And yet, they were fighting. 

It’d started small: bickering. That, at least, they did often. With Bee it was a sign of affection, the exchange of a fond comment darkened with teasing, the return of an unexpectedly witty reply. “You’re so nosy,” He’d said, tilting his phone screen away from her prying eyes beside him. “You’re always so suspicious.” She’d said back, and he’d taken it as a challenge, a joke. Locked his screen. 

Usually he was good in these situations; Roman was so used to being on offence and defense at the same time, practiced at dishing out and never accepting what was given back. It takes ten thousand hours to master a skill, words from Mr Juarez back in high school that had ticked around in Roman’s head during multiple hours of multiple days spent fine tuning instruments and straining to high notes. He figured he’d spent much longer fighting than he’d ever spent trying to be good at something. 

It was different with Bee. He was taken off guard. Even now, he found himself with a finger reaching for a lock of her hair, hands confused not to be doing what they did for her so often: caress, embrace. Even when they shouldn’t have, when they should have been focused on someone else.   

That roadtrip they’d taken, he’d shown her his home, where he’d grown up. Roman Agnello, is this your little girlfriend? And they’d joked, yes, and before long he’d wanted that. Wanted that more than he’d wanted something outside of simple ambition for a long time. He’d felt comfortable with her, wanted her to know him -- he’d showed her all of the places that he never went back to, because they were all him. 

Douggie. What was then a harmless insight into Roman’s past was now an uncomfortable breach of privacy. This was where we used to meet, this was where we hid from everyone, this was where he worked, this was where they crashed. This was where I thought I loved him for the first time. He wished he could take it back, all the love he’d expressed for a ghost. But there was the issue: Douggie was always in his thoughts, and Bee was always the person he wanted to share his thoughts with. A to B, it was a simple leap. And he’d gotten so used to thinking of Douggie in the past tense, accepted that he’d never come back, never be something for Bee to think twice about. And then.

I don’t know. That was the reply that came to him. After, when that was deemed unworthy, Nothing. But he thought of a night spent on Douggie’s chest, listening to his breath, laughing at his words. He couldn’t say it, didn’t want to lie. Didn’t want her to be through with him. He tugged gently on a curl of her hair. It bounced up and away from his touch. 

“Bee,” He said, and his eyes were on her lips, debating kissing them, debating burying words and replacing them instead with touch. With physicality, surely she’d understand his affection. To her, he was warm. On her, he was coming to depend. Wasn’t that enough? But the edges of her lips -- pink, soft, plump -- were turning down. A setting of her mouth, a resistance. Against what? Saying something else? “It’s not like that.” 

Vague. It could have meant anything, or nothing. But it was all he had. He worked at it. 

“Just believe me. I’m with you. I wouldn’t do that.” That, which he’d done to Aila. That, which had seemed so doable when his feelings for her had faded, when another connection seemed stronger. 

A distant memory of Douggie’s hands in a girls hair, of his phone lighting up with someone else’s name. 

Something uncomfortable turned in his stomach. A thumb traversed Bee’s chin, offered itself to her cheek. 

“He’s really such a little shit. Poor guy has an aneurysm every time he thinks about how much he loves me. I think it’s cute, though, the way he pretends he doesn’t love everything I do. I know he does, because that’s how I feel about him. And what we have doesn’t exist in exclusivity, it’s something we share; one soul, two bodies type of bullshit. Don’t tell him I said that, though. He’d freak out, and I want to be there to see his little meltdown. I’m the only one who needs to see it, though. That’s me being fair, because -- look. I had seven years to get used to it, and in those seven years, never once was he there to antagonise me about being that in love. So I have to be a little nice, some of the time, just to give him a break. What I’m trying to say is he’s overwhelmed by me, right? Always has been. Thing is, I was saying that to him before I knew it was true, and now I do know it and I almost feel bad. Almost. I don’t, but it must be embarrassing. Either way, he can calm down. Anybody who listens to half the shit I write knows I belong to him. That’s something I don’t think most people get. When you grow up with someone like that, when you’re the only two people in the world who really know each other, when living day to day where the inside joke is that none of the hundred hicks around you could ever understand what you have -- what I’m saying is I spent just as many nights with him as I did with myself. There’s no room for filtering when you’re that close to someone. Every thought I ever had, he knew. Except, you know, a couple about what he meant to me. I’m not sure it was that well hidden, though, if he’d wanted to look. It’s still... hard. I wouldn’t have had it another way, you know, now that he’s back, I wouldn’t risk changing one thing because as long as I have him back now, that’s it for me. The apex. That’s all I need. But I still think about the amount of time I didn’t have him, and more than -- than what that felt like, you know, I processed that -- what really gets me now is the amount of thoughts I had that I didn’t get to share with him. I’ve been a part of everything he’s done since we were fucking kids. I want him to know, even if he wasn’t there, he was with me. I was still sharing it with him. But, you know, how do you say that? You can’t, really, in a way that makes sense. Nobody gets it. Nobody’s ever loved somebody like I love Doug. He could do anything, I’d never change my mind. He has a lot of power over me. Which is why I don’t care how overwhelmed he is, loving me back, because that’s what I get. He gets me, and I get him. Nothing complicated about it. But, like I said -- I’ve got seven years on him. I can give him time to catch up before I have him spinning down an aisle for me. It’s only gracious.”

“Oh, I really -- I try not to. Talk about him, I mean. There’s a lot of, people talk about -- about loving someone, and being with them, and thinking you’re going to be with them forever, people talk about that. People don’t really like to talk about being wrong about something like that. But I guess, if that was something that people talked about, maybe I might have seen it coming a little better. I don’t know. You meet him, and he seems so dependable. Responsible, so much that it seems like he can’t stand it about himself -- in reality he can’t stand anything at all, by the way -- but then he’s not that at all. He’s just a brick wall. Sometimes I’d be talking to him, completely normally, just like we always did, and yesterday it would’ve made him smile but on that day, for no apparent reason, he’s rolling his eyes. Not in a nice way, either -- is there a nice way to roll your eyes at someone? Maybe I’m just stupid, because I used to think so. He’d laugh at me all the time. At me. And I liked it when he did. I just liked making him smile at all. It made me feel -- I don’t know. Full inside, like I don’t usually. Isn’t that... kind of... screwy? I didn’t really care what he was laughing at, just that he was. It made me feel like we were a team; he could take some smiles from me, because he’d give them back, too. The more I think about it, the more I feel like I imagined us completely. Like maybe we were never what I thought we were and he was just -- lost. He is, by the way. Smith has no idea about himself, which I know drives him crazy because he thinks he knows better than everyone, but he can’t even figure out who he is on a basic level. I might be a disaster, but at least I know. I think he spends so long trying to distance himself from things and people because at least then he’s something, you know, different by definition is distinct, and he needs that. He’s fragile! Anyway, I didn’t mind it. I really loved the human about him, when I saw it. The normal stuff. Not being sure about the future, rearranging the pantry on a Sunday afternoon because suddenly that was what the rightness of the world hinged on, getting sick of the furniture, thinking cucumbers are too expensive, getting annoyed when someone on a quiz show gets something so obviously wrong, just -- wondering about the world. But he’s incapable of just being that. Accepting that things are confusing and jumbled and mundane, I mean. He tries not to because he’s obsessed with his superiority complex. I’d say don’t judge him for it, but he divorced me, so what do I know? Maybe he gets off on being judged. He definitely gets off on judging. Anyway. I don’t like talking about him. I hate knowing things about him. I want to throw every thought I’ve ever had about him away. I want him, to me, to be nothing but a plant. Plant-like feelings about Lelaund Smith are allowed. I think he needs the sun and some water, but I am neither of those things, and he’s not in my house. So who cares.” 

waiting in the doctors office, doing paperwork, drinking his morning coffee, in traffic. douggie, douggie, douggie, douggie. it was a sad song stuck on repeat. it was a record that had been broken for years but was finally looking to give out. 

“would you rather be with them?” 

roman ran his fingers across the bottle in his hands, the label pilly with condensation. them could have meant anyone. if he looked up, though, roman was willing to bet he’d see doug looking in bee’s direction. last he’d checked, she was with lita, yammering on in the kind of sunny way that only bee could yammer on without driving him up the wall. 

roman shifted his weight. the audible creaking of his chair broke the silence; he looked up. douggie was looking at him, too. 

“i’m with you, aren’t i?” 

and it should have been that simple, obvious enough to be rhetorical. instead it was double edged, a yes and a no, a lie and a truth he wasn’t ready to face. 

in the backyard of some shitty house party wasn’t the place to have this conversation -- any conversation at all, really, with douggie -- but roman’s fingers picked and pulled at his beer’s label, and it relieved nothing, and he was tired. so he spoke.

“when did you realize you were in love with me?” his eye contact with douggie felt fueled, so he looked away, finding a neutral middle-distance to rest his gaze upon. “it was pretty late. my realization.” when douggie didn’t interrupt, tell him to stop, ask him why he was doing this, roman continued on. “i always had this... feeling. pent up, you know? all around my lungs. every time i saw you. i thought i was angry. you’d walk into a room and i’d feel it in my throat, and i’d think, you know -- he did it on purpose. he’s doing it on purpose. looking like that. i don’t know. it didn’t really matter how you looked. happy, tired, pissed. it all felt... impossible. drove me crazy. for no reason. i didn’t know what you were doing to me. but i was pretty sure you were doing it to be a dick, though.” 

roman chuckled, thumbing the corner of his lips, where a bashful smile had found its way. “stupid. but i was a kid. fifteen, sixteen. i didn’t know.” he paused, thoughtful. “i knew i hated seeing you with other people. hated seeing anybody’s name pop up on your phone. girl, guy. didn’t really matter. it felt like shit. i always was that way, though. family of six and i still hated sharing my toys. i thought that was it. but it wasn’t. not just that, anyway. it fucked me off that you wanted more than me. it hurt. it was... that was it, you know? one night, when we were in your room, and i saw some name on your phone. something douchey like ethan or jaden. whatever, i left. spent the night with the guys instead. only i was... messed up about it. the whole time. 

[bryn]: when i came home from seeing you last night roman asked me how i was and i took the glass of water from his hand and tipped it into my pot plant. 

[bryn]: you’re a really bad influence

[bryn]: i like it 

[aiden ♉️]:I am drunk and feel like a purple moon fairy

[bryn]: yes! bc purple hair and the way the moonlight catches your eyes!!!????!?!?!?!

Send “✆” for a MORNING text. 

[Candace → Smite]: jesus didn’t die for u 2 wake up at 7am on a sunday  ufucking android

Send “✉” for a text that WASN’T SENT. 

[Candace→ Smite]: saw a helllllla cute sweater in the mall today and i BOUGHT IT FOR YOU and that was probably not the fucking idea of the year was it. ew nvm nvm nv mv nvm vnv mvnvmvnmvnvm i’m gonna give it to tycho instead. haha this sweater is a metaphor for rhea. too far? [unsent]

Send “☎” for a RUSHED text. 

[Candace→ Smite]: come out her e right nmow immediatley i thkn roman naad douggie are fliritng THIS IS NTO A FUCKING DRILL COME AND KILL THE MOOD 

Send “⁇” for a DRUNK text.

[Candace→ Smite]: urrrrrrrrrrr cute:))

[Candace→ Smite]: ooosp i meant ***a cunt

[Candace→ Smite]: no i didnmk’t

Send “✿” for a SUGGESTIVE text. 

[Candace→ Smite]: in what world is me playing ‘i’m too sexy’ by right said fred loudly from ur room NOT an invitation for u to come and start an impromptu strip tease….

Send “ø” for a LATE NIGHT text.

[Candace→ Smite]: 👅👀

Send “✘” for a HATEFUL text.

[Candace→ Smite]: ur uglie. pay attention to me

Send “#” for a RANDOM text.

[Candace → Smite]: having ur shit together is such a Goal. like i know you can’t relate to this since you like, pay ur bills on time and whatnot, but ho my god i just got a call from the doctor being like ‘bitch are you even still alive we don’t know’ and i’m like hey, maybe not. i haven’t had a general health check in three years. what i’m tryin to say is i really can’t guarantee you haven’t been sleeping with a leper 

Send “@” for a SCARED text.

[Candace → Smite]:

u don’t think bee’s like. mad at me. for being friends with douggie? give me your robot pov analyse this shit pls

Send “&” for a LOVING text.

[Candace → Smite]:

 listen not trying to brag but i just showed a picture of you to a girl at my work and she hates me now

[Candace → Smite]:

 to be fair she might have hated me before too i’m p mean to her but she FOR SURE hates me now

Send “%” for a CURIOUS text.

[Candace → Smite]:

 wait whats your fave movie???? i don’t know why but in my head i just instantly assumed it was some shit like magnolia or like, something where the main guy cries a lot but i need confirmation

Send “ツ” for an EXCITED text.

[Candace → Smite]: UR MAKING A ROAST??????? BOI I’M COMING OVER

Send “$” for an ACCIDENTAL text.

[Candace → Smite]:

 oml no he’s not that bad. i guess some might class him as ‘pretty cool’ or maybe just ‘pretty’ but in general. i guess one might say. i don’t mind him.

[Candace → Smite]: