#girlsofargone

Do the questions and then tag ten people :) 

DO YOU SNORE? Apparently I "snuzzle"? As Luke phrases it. But I don't snore. 

LOVER OR A FIGHTER? Lover!

WHAT’S YOUR WORST FEAR? That I won't succeed. 

AS A KID, WERE YOU A LEGO BUILDER? I tried, but creativity isn't my forte. 

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF “REALITY TV”? I don't really have any time for it to be honest, but sometimes I find the observation aspect quite interesting. 

DO YOU CHEW ON YOUR STRAWS? No.

WERE YOU A CUTE BABY? Yes! Far cuter than I am now. Even my mum admits I was cuter than my siblings. 

HOW IS THE SINGLE LIFE FOR YOU? I'm not in the single life. But when I was I really struggled with a craving for attention. 

WHAT COLOUR IS YOUR KEYBOARD? Black

DO YOU SING IN THE SHOWER? On the odd occasion.

HAVE YOU EVER BUNGEE JUMPED?  Noo.

ANY SECRET TALENTS? They wouldn't be secret if I told you now, would they?

WHAT’S YOUR IDEAL VACATION SPOT?  Somewhere scenic and calm.

HAVE YOU EATEN SUSHI? No.

HAVE YOU SEEN THE MOVIE “DONNIE DARKO”? Nope.

DO YOU GIVE A DARN ABOUT THE OZONE? Yeah! I certainly try and do my bit.

HOW MANY LICKS DOES IT TAKE TO GET TO THE CENTER OF A TOOTSIE POP? I don't even know what a "tootsie pop" is.

CAN YOU SING THE ALPHABET BACKWARDS? I can barely sing it right-wards.

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN ON AN AIRPLANE? Yes.

ARE SPEEDO’S HOT? No.

WHAT’S YOUR STAND ON HUNTING? I honestly don't have a stand. It's really hard having grown up in the countryside to be completely adverse to it , I am more agreeable to it when it is with purpose. 

IS MARRIAGE IN YOUR FUTURE? I hope so!

DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? God no, it's horrid. 

WHAT ARE YOU ALLERGIC TO? Nothing. Though I used to be lactose intollerant and I still suffer a little now. 

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU SAID, “I LOVE YOU”? Last night.

IS TUPAC STILL ALIVE? Nah.

DO YOU CRY AT WEDDINGS? I've never actually been to a wedding ceremony and party and all that so who knows.

HOW DO YOU LIKE YOUR EGGS? Scrambled.

ARE BLONDES DUMB? They aren't any more likely to be dumb than any other person.

WHERE DOES THE OTHER SOCK END UP? Under my bed. 

WHAT TIME IS IT? 10:13am

DO YOU HAVE A NICKNAME? Well my actual name is Rebecca so does that make Becky a nickname? Also shortened to Beck.

IS MCDONALD’S DISGUSTING? It isn't really my first choice. 

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU WERE IN A CAR? Last night. 

DO YOU PREFER BATHS OR SHOWERS? Baths but I have them less regularly because they're a might lot of effort.

IS SANTA CLAUSE REAL? Of course!

ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE DARK? Little bit, yeah.

WHAT ARE YOU ADDICTED TO? I used to have a huge thing for mango's, but in reality, nothing. 

CRUNCHY OR CREAMY PEANUT BUTTER? Creamy.

HAVE YOU EVER RIDDEN IN AN AMBULANCE? Yeah, when I was hit by a car. But the ambulance had a flat tire so they had to switch me over. 

HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU BRUSHED YOUR TEETH TODAY? I haven't actually done them yet sooo

IS DRUG FREE THE WAY TO BE? For me? Yeah. Everyone else can do whatever they like as long as they look after themselves. 

ARE YOU WEARING SOCKS? No.

HAVE YOU EVER HITCH HIKED? No.

WHAT COLOUR ARE YOUR EYES? Blue.

WHEN’S THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? Yesterday, because of how ill I felt. 

DO YOU LIKE YOUR LIFE? Yeah, I have it pretty good. 

WHOSE LIFE IS BETTER?  Life's aren't better or worse, everyone has ups and downs.

ARE YOU PSYCHIC? No.

HAVE YOU READ “CATCHER IN THE RYE”? No.

DO YOU PLAY ANY INSTRUMENTS? I used to play keyboard pretty okay but not really any more.

CAN YOU SKATEBOARD? Hohoooo no. 

DO YOU LIKE CAMPING? Yes! I just got back from a week of it. 

DO U SNORT WHEN U LAUGH? On the very very odd occasion.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC? We can dream right?

IS A DOG A MAN’S BEST FRIEND? Oh so very much so!

YOU BELIEVE IN DIVORCE? It happens. Circumstances change. Life isn't perfect and no one can predict what will come their way. 

CAN YOU DO THE MOONWALK? I don't this so?

DOES YOUR MUM KNOW YOU HAVE A TUMBLR? Yeah but she has no idea what that means. 

WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE? Some mini shredded wheat, dry. (It's all I can stomach right now). 

DO YOU WEAR NAILPOLISH? No! I can't because I work in open food handling. I wear it on my toes and I finish my job next week, so I might start wearing it for the first time in four years! 

DO YOU LIKE SOMEONE RIGHT NOW? I am completely in love with someone right now. 

WHAT’S THE MOST ANNOYING TV COMMERCIAL? God even knows. I barely watch tv to be honest. 

DO YOU SHOP AT AMERICAN EAGLE? I live in England, what do American Eagle sell? 

FAVORITE BAND AT THE MOMENT? God even knows.

I’d never really thought Archie would end up with a guy named Todd. The guy part not so shocking but seriously? Todd? It’s a douchebag name. Any way, it’s not like I just knew running away was the best decision, it just felt like the only one I could make with the least amount of damage to everyone around me. Guys have too much responsibility, I had to be the one to confess all my feelings to her and I just didn’t think she would want to hear it. It’s not like I could have stayed in that town and watched her amazing life unfold in front of me and play along. I can't be strong when I have to see it all but I can hide away here and try and make something for myself, even if it can't include her. If I’d stayed I know exactly what would have happened. We would have ended up alone together at some point and she’d be married to some guy in love and I’d kiss her because I just couldn’t stand it anymore and then I’d ruin everything. At least this way I was far enough not to ruin anything, I could deal with disappointing people from far away. Dad would come to NY eventually, I’m wearing him down slowly. 

At least I can still hold my liquor better than Archie, I drank him under the table, yet managed to stay sober enough to make it to work and had just put him to bed on the sofa. He’d managed to get me on the phone with Todd earlier and they’d made me promise to agree to be Archie’s best man. I had no other option, running away from it at this point would be impossible and I’m pretty sure Todd was loaded enough to hire a private investigator and find me no matter how far I went. There’s no way that she’d come all the way here for this wedding any way, I was probably safe. At the very least I’ll probably have to endure the annoying details of their perfect life from Chloe, she wouldn’t miss a wedding for anything. So I’m giving up for tonight, I’m going to work and I’ll face the gory details of what I’m going to have to do tomorrow, when I’m not just making them up myself.

As it turns out I didn’t really have to wait that long to find out exactly how far into this rabbit hole I was going to fall. Archie was up and apparently ready for the day when I managed to get myself back into the apartment.

“How are you not still drunk?”

“How did you go to work drunk?”

“I didn’t drink that much, is answering a question with a question your new thing?”

“It was tequila, I don’t get hangovers from tequila” he paced across the floor, clearly he had something big to drop now and had run out of time waiting for the right moment. Moments are funny like that, never really scheduling themselves perfectly.

“Can you just spit out whatever it is that you’re clearly avoiding telling me?”

“I don’t want you to get worked up”

“I’m already worked up, I’ve been awake for almost 24 hours, so whatever it is that you’re gonna tell me just say it because at least now my reaction time will be so delayed that it’ll give me time to think of a response to get out of it.”

“I don’t want you to try to find a way to get out of it” he huffed and then actually, in 5 year old fashion, stopped his foot. I probably shouldn’t have laughed when he did.

“Damnit Finn, I gave you your space, I didn’t pressure you about why you did all this, I never asked you any questions. I haven’t asked you for anything in the last 5 years and I just need you to do this one little thing for me without jumping in front of or on a bus.”

“Well it would be nice to know what this one little thing is” I maybe yelled a little at this point.

“I want you to be my best man”

“Archie I already said yes to that”

“The wedding is next Saturday”

“What the fuck Archie?”

“And she’ll be there” The look on my face was probably the exact thing he was trying to avoid, I’m sure it was a mixture of sheer terror and constipation. I could actually feel myself sweating, my cheeks burning and my heart was beating so fast I was sure it was going to explode.

“I don’t know if I can do this”

“It’ll be fine, you won’t even have to speak to her, you won’t even have to look at her, you’ll just be there for the ceremony and then give your speech at the reception and then you can resume your fucked up version of monkhood.”

“I do not live like a monk” I swore and then rolled my eyes harder than any teenage girl could ever hope to aspire to.

“But you do Finn, you’ve excluded yourself away from every single person you’ve ever known half a world away. You don’t have anything to do with any of us, when’s the last time you even saw your dad? Furthermore when’s the last time you went on a date? Did anything without brooding?”

“I’m really starting to regret those monthly emails.”

“Yeah that’s right, I can physically see you brood via email”

“You don’t understand-“

“I do, I understand perfectly. You’re in love with her, you’ve always been in love with her and then when she found someone she loved you couldn’t stand watching it happen. And then instead of telling her how you feel you thought all of this” he said waving his arms around the apartment “was a better decision than the possibility of ruining that one single friendship. It’s not like you had anyone else in your life that would have missed you.”

“That was almost heartfelt until the sarcasm at the end.”

“It’s either the sarcasm or I hit you and I thought that would go over better for what I’m asking you to do.”

“Good call”

“I know it won’t be easy for you but I know that I’ll regret it and I hope so will you if you aren’t there for me on this day. This is it for me, Todd is it for me, I love him and he loves me and I want you to be a part of our lives together and I hope that once I’m here with him we can work on that but right now I just need to be honest with you about what’s going to take place, I’m not going to surprise you with the details. This should make it easier for you if you know exactly what’s going to happen.”

“None of this is going to be easy”

“I said easier Nelson” it was an awkward silence for about 45 seconds longer than it should have been.

“I am happy for you” I said looking up, giving him a tight lipped smile

“I know I can tell by your level of excitement” In all honesty I had just gotten off work and was in no way ready for this conversation.

“I’m sorry okay, you just show up and spring all this on me, what did you expect? Did you think I was gonna excited about having to see her. I did, as you so nicely put, ‘all of this’ for a reason, it was miserable Archie, I can't see her” I sat down on the sofa and covered my face with my hands.

“I don’t want to cause you more pain, I honestly don’t, but I really want my best friend with me on this one day. I want you to know Todd, he thinks you’re my imaginary friend at this point.” I laughed and sat back leaning my head on the back of the couch.

“I’ll try Archie” I said shaking my head “I can't promise that I’ll be able to keep it together but I’ll try”

“Thank you” he sat down beside me and bumped me with his shoulder “that’s all I need, it’s enough to say you’ll try.”

“Now, since you look like shit and I’m pretty sure it’s hours past time for you to be in bed, I’m going to breakfast with Todd, his plane lands in an hour and I’ll call you tomorrow. You will answer the phone tomorrow, yes?”

“Yes I will answer the phone, I have to work tomorrow night, I can't do this all night shit anymore, I’m too old”

“You’ve always been an old man, since the day you were born”

“Thanks for that, thanks I can see now why I’ve wasted so much of my time these last few years actually missing you”

“You’ve missed me, I don’t need you to admit it out loud”

“So…how is she?”

“Do you want to know? Because I’ll tell you everything, I’ll give you every single detail of her life, if you honestly want to hear it?”  

“No, I don’t deserve to know, don’t tell me” I stood up and walked him to the door, “I’m glad that you still want me there for you after all the shit I put everyone through”

“Sorry Nelson, you’re stuck with me for the rest of your life, no matter what”

“Thank you” I half smiled “I’m glad that you still want to be stuck with me”

When you run away from something one of two things will happen: 1 – you’ll completely avoid that problem and never be forced to deal with it (this literally never happens) or 2- that problem will bite you in the ass when you least expect it. Running away from something always seems like the easiest solution when you’re up against the wall and can’t see more than a few inches in front of your own face.  So when I had to make the decision to either tell the girl I'd become best friends with over the last year that I was in love with her or watch her run off into the sunset with some other guy, naturally, I decided that the first part of our previous equation was my best option. Sure, I had seen the wedding invitation. I had a pretty great ritual with it that involved a small kitchen fire and an entire case of beer. Not one of my more proud moments but it’s a decision I’m still sticking behind. I had heard she was pregnant a year or so after they had gotten married, I had also heard that she lost the baby shortly after. I didn’t know how to be there for her anymore and after the way I had left, I wasn’t exactly sure she’d want to see my face again either way. Most people always want an explanation and I wasn’t in any sort of mood to give anyone that.

There were always ways of avoiding going home, always a test to study for, paper to finish or the most reliable, sorry, can’t get out of work and they’re real slave drivers here. Then once you’ve said no a certain amount of times, they stop asking, they stop expecting you to show up and they give you want you wanted when you left. To just be left the fuck alone. But who really wants to be alone in a strange country with nothing to do, when the girl you love is in love with someone else. If that’s a hard question for you, then the answer is no one. No one wants this, it’s not something little boys stay awake at night dreaming about the girl they’ll always love and how she’ll never love them back. It’s shit okay and I know but I’ve gotten myself so far down this road that I’m not really even sure which direction might take me back home.

There were people I missed sure, my dad, he never really understood why I thought leaving was my only real option but he’s still in love with a women who left him so long ago I can’t even remember her face, so his vote doesn’t count. Archie, of everyone, Archie is probably the one I miss the most. Been the best of friends for years, since we were kids, and in the end I even left him without an explication. Then there will always be her, the girl that he’d compare every other girl to and the girl they’d always lose standing next to. Do you know how strange it is to go 5 years without seeing people you’ve spent your entire life with?  Do you understand how much willpower that takes? Also a bit of stupidity but that’s the part you’ll hear about later.

The accent worked well with the ladies in New York, even if it had only been used to land him a job hosting a midnight radio show, they let him play his own stuff and ramble on about his pathetic life. Even managed to build up enough listeners to have a few of them call in ask a few questions now and then. WKPX 98.6 all the 90’s punk you could stand but hey any excuse to play Oasis and he’d take it. Working 5 nights a week and having your weekends free is nothing to complain about.  Even if his first caller had only been to request that he stop playing wonderwall every single night it was still a caller and he considered that a step in the positive direction, he’d just open with it a few times a week instead.

Instead of living his dull existence out peacefully like he had actually kind of, started to come to terms with it was all blown up in one single rap on the door, it should have sounded familiar in all honesty but you know the thing is, when you move to a different country you never really expect to run into someone from your past and you never expect to have them knock on your door at 11 am on a random Tuesday in September. So when exactly that happens, it’s hard to put the right kind of words together and have them make sense.

“Hey asshole” Archie smiles walking right past him, dropping his bag and throwing his arms around his neck. This is that moment when you’ve thought that you made it through your two possible outcomes of running and you’ve kind of felt a little proud of yourself for thinking you’re finally the one person who’s managed to run away from their problems and successfully leave them behind. This is when you realize that it will always come back to bite you in the ass.

“What are you doing here?”

“What? No hello Archie, how are you? How was your flight? I’ve missed you, it’s so nice to see you. I can’t believe you came all this way just to see your dear old friend Finn”

“I…I am happy to see you, I’m just surprised”

“Well good because I’m pretty sure not knowing I was standing on the other side of it was the only way you’d have ever opened that door for me.”

“That’s not true” I say raking my palm down my face “I would have opened the door either way”

“Sure you would have” he laughs and pulls off his glasses. He leans against the arm of the sofa and looks down at the hem of his t-shirt he’s now using to clean the lenses. “Why don’t we go grab a drink?”

“Is that when you’re going to tell me what’s going on?”

“Why can’t a friend just show up at your door without you expecting something to be going on?”

“I may not have seen you in the last few years but I know for sure that you wouldn’t come all this way without something to tell me”

“Maybe you’re right” He states walking over to me slinging his arm around my neck, pulling me out the front door “but I do remember that it’s easier to have a conversation with you once you’ve got a few tequila shots in you”

“Oh fuck, this is something that requires tequila?”

“So much tequila”