# Catching Up Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Living in the Present
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I bury my face in my hands, it's all I can do to stop the memories from overwhelming me, digging my nails into my head to let the slight pain draw just a fraction of my focus to anything but the growing abyss forming in my gut. Clenching my teeth, pushing my eyelids together, forcing down air into my lungs so that the panic attack doesn't choke me out cold right where I sit. I feel a hand slowly stroke my back, trying to comfort me. It feels just like it did back then, transporting me to that damned beach where I sit mellowing in my own stupidity as I sit balled up from the pain and realization of what I'd gone and done. The mantra doesn't help this time, it doesn't bring me back; I'm too far away to be recovered at this point. My facade, my carefully built brick house is collapsing in on itself; all the therapy and medications in the world couldn't have prepared me for this... This horrid feeling of reality folding in on itself, crushing me inbetween the eldritch revelations. I should have pulled the trigger when I put that gun in my mouth back in the navy, instead of pussying out.
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"Hey dweeb, take a deep breath.", then her hand squeezes my shoulder. "No need to implode just because I confess a ten-year-old mistake to you. It's been a long time since then."
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So I try, release the steelfisted grip I've clasped my head in, let my hands slowly sink down. Relax my shoulders, breathing out as I do. Take a deep breath, inhaling a fair bit of Lucy's secondhand nicotine. My lugns immediately react to the sudden influx of cancermist and the heavy coughing that follows is the last step for breaking me out of my own head.
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"Eeeasy there, long time since you last had one of these?", I look up at her, meeting her eyes. She looks concerned, but in a loving way this time. No trace of the vitriol they held last time I was here.
"I haven't smoked for years, I cut it out when Rosa threatened to unleash la chancla on me. Said smoking was too detrimental for my physique, that she was busting her ass off to improve."
"Hahahaha, you actually got your act together? And under the steel fist of Rosa too? You sure have changed."
"Lots have changed, lots have stayed the same. Actually, hand me one of those. And don't tell Rosa."
"Deal and deal."
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She shakes out one more cigarette, and I grab it. Put it between my lips, the movement ingrained so hard into me I don't realise I did it until I feel the taste of the cheap filter. Lucy leans forward, lighting mine with the lightly smoldering end of her own. Faces just inches apart, illuminated by the far-away streetlights and the gentle glow of our cigarettes. I haven't been this close to her since then, but it feels so natural still; even after ten years I longed to be close to this woman. Even if she had changed, let her self down, her strong spirit and indominable dreams falling apart into this mess of a life. What the fuck was wrong with me.
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So I take a drag, let the nicotine restart the synapses that had just overloaded and then shut themselves off. Let the smoke linger in my lungs, feel the fading warmth of the filter from resting in Lucy's pocket comfort me. This was as close as I could let myself come to her, lest I lose myself in her again; I couldn't afford that mistake after all I had built up. With my friends, and Stella, waiting for me to recover from all this. Could I tell her about everything? What positive force could it create in the world, after all, to have Lucy know that we both wasted our lives waiting for the world to make a change we could have easily done by ourselves. I had waited ten years for another chance with Lucy, to let things go back to where they were, and here I was standing at the precipice while unable to decide which way to go. There was safety, a comfortable life where I would have love, a future and people that cared about me. But on the other side, down into the abyss, was the seductive path filled with long-lost passion and joys that I had been craving for so long that I'd half turned myself insane trying to emulate them with onenight stands, alcohol and other less pleasant selfdestructive behaviors. I wonder what Stella would say if she knew half the things I'd been doing for the last decade. I wonder what Lucy would think, if she would be more understanding than Stella in this case, considering all the things she had gone through.
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Should I say it then, just let it out? To break the silence, show my emotions? Did I even want Lucy back at this point, since we had both changed so much there wasn't anything certain in us going back to the way we were back then. Why was I even so conflicted on this, I knew what I wanted, right? I wanted to keep going for Stella, to keep living our lives together, happily ever after. So why did I lust for Fa-, Lucy, once more? I'm standing here, my hands stained with cum over Asuka's unconscious body, unable to fathom how I could even begin to try and solve this. Fuck it, we were both mature enough to take the truth at face value.
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"Lucy..."
"Yeah?"
"Back then, when you left me at the beach?"
"Mhmm?"
"I had the same thought process. That I'd leave you alone to not cause any further harm, since I loved you too much to put you through the painful mess I had become."
"You mean?"
"Yeah. All these years, I could never truly let it go. I loved you too much."
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Her face freezes, mouth slighty agape, the cigarette falling out, bouncing once on her pants before rolling off the pier and fall into a small puddle right underneath it with a tiny hiss signaling the end of it's life as the ember fades.
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"We blew our chance at a happy-ever-after, Lucy."
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Teardrops well up in the corners of her eyes as reality starts to sink in.
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"I used to think you'd come back to me one day, if you had forgiven me. If you truly wanted to be together. I believed it all the way until I drafted into the navy, but even after moving on I yet had a small hope that you'd be waiting for me when I came back home. Or that you would at least have a tearfilled goodbye to my coffin when they shipped it home if I didn't make it."
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She reaches for her cigarette with a trembling hand, but finds nothing perched between her lips.
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"Here.", I pull out mine and hand it over to her. She takes it without a word, putting it back between her lips.
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"I- I- I... I never knew that you'd even gone to the navy. I deleted your number and all our texts to ease the pain, then I couldn't find any info about you online. I tried... But you were a ghost. Not even our friends knew where you had gone."
"Wait, you talked to-"
"Yeah, I asked Stella, Rosa, Reed, hell, even Trish if they knew anything.", she takes the cigarette out, staring daggers at me. She seems to brace herself, and there's anger in her eyes. No, not anger... It's pain.
"I FUCKING TRIED, ALRIGHT! I KNOW I MESSED UP, BUT I TRIED TO FIX IT!"
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She slams her fist into my chest, as if accusing me for all the hurt she had lived with.
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"I NEEDED YOU, BACK THEN, ANON! YOU KNEW I WAS ALL ALONE, YOU KNEW MY LIFE WAS FALLING APART! YOU WERE THE LAST FUCKING THING I HAD! AND YOU LEFT!"
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I can't retaliate, I can't talk back. She was right, of course. I had known it all along, I was a coward for running away. I had scrubbed my identity from all social medias, no number in the phone catalog, no pictures or possibility to be doxxed through the forums I visited. All to avoid being reminded of the sins of my past, from both before and during my time at Volcadera.
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"You left me all alone, again..."
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She has no anger left, no energy remaining to take out her aggression on me, so she just slumps up against my chest, letting her arms slide around me and her face nudge up against me.
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"You left me, Anon. You broke my heart and then you left me."
"It was a decade ago, Lucy. We were just stupid kids."
"You were MY stupid kid, dweeb."
"You were out of my league, but you still saw something in me."
"I saw everything in you. And you saw me just as the person I was."
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I embrace her, holding me tight against me. The years melting away, and once more we're just stupid kids sitting on a beach, us against the world. Running from our responsibilities, sipping on booze, living in a moment beyond time.
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"Kiss me, Anon, please. Make me feel something again, for the last time."
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Could I do this, and could I ever let go if I took Lucy back into my life? Then something hit me, and it hit me hard. I had asked Stella and Rosa how everyone was, and how they were doing, when I came back. They told me that they hadn't met Fang, Trish or Reed since back then. But if Fang had gone to them, to help seek me out... Both Stella and Rosa had my number at that time, I'd given it to them back when we were in the gardening club together. They had fucking lied to me, they had kept up the facade that things were as bad as I had believed, that Fang had completely abandoned me. Why? Why would they do it? Now I understood Fang's reaction at the pizzeria.
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Wait. Wait wait wait wait. Hold on. Stella had told me she had waited for me, how she wanted us to be together since way back when. She told me that I needed to get rid of Fang, to come back to reality so that we could be together. All along; she knew that Fang hadn't abandoned me. She had lied to me to keep me for herself, she had intentionally torn me asunder by telling me that Fang never tried to reach out for me. Rosa was covering for her in some way too, keeping together that horrid lie for the sake of her cowardly and egotistic friend.
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There was nothing worth saving in neither Stella nor Rosa. I would never be able to trust them again. So I lean in towards Lucy, holding her in my arms, she's still quivering from the emotional whiplash and only then do I realize I'm also trembling. We look at eachother through teardrenched eyes, with our rosy cheeks and tired smiles. I reach a hand up, brushing away a strand of hair that has fallen across her face, before cradling it in my hand as I softly stroke her cheek. There's a long silence, words left unspoken for all too long expressed only through our tender touch.
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I need her, more than ever. The only thing that's real in this crumbling reality is the gentle smile breaking through, the longing in her eyes, her soft lips, and aching heart. I would do anything to soothe her pain, to show her the love she deserves, even if it's just for a moment.
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We lean in towards each other. She's fat, covered in scars, tattoed over almost her entire body, and her hair is rougher than I'd ever seen it. But she was still my Lucy. The anxious, insecure pterodactyl I had fallen for and never truly got past. The rest of the world didn't matter.
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So we kiss, let the years of angst and bad memories wash away. Feel a short rekindling of our old passion pass through us, as we hold each other tight and let our tongues intertwine like they did all too long ago. We explore each other, her hands travelling over my body, feeling the changes that have happened to me. The remnants of my time in the hospital, and the legacy of my hard work in the gym. I feel her tattered body, the grim remarks of how she has been dealing with her insecurities during all these long years. Not much different than me and how I've been tearing myself apart, but my sins haven't left any marks on the outside. So we let our bodies and actions speak for us, I feel the passion in her ignite, as we push up against each other, barely pulling away from eachother to breathe before once again going back at it. I feel alive, truly alive, my heart beating hard and fast while my mind is racing. I feel her, I remember her, and as we remind each other how our bodies feel like, I can once more see us lying in my small bed in my shitty apartment, cuddling up to each other after she patched me up. It's a heavenly sensation.
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After time once more resumes, we pull apart just enough to hold eachother in our arms, breathing heavily. She's still the same woman, the same girl I fell in love with; we were just older and wiser, with the tales and the scars to show for it.
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"I have to tell you something. About when I said 'for the last time'?"
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There's that sinking feeling again. It's familiar, the tone you use before you break the bad news that your best friend died in a car crash, or your dad passed away in a stroke. Was she terminally ill? Would I lose her, again?
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"I can't have you in my life. I'm sorry. This is it. I just wanted to feel loved by you once more."
"Wh-what do you mean?"
"I've lived my own life for six years now, I gave up on finding you. I have a job, an apartment... I have..."
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Oh no. Now I know what's coming. I have jumped off the railing, there's nothing left to grab on to; just the cold uncaring waters all the way down below. The waters that would without mercy crush my body, and wash me away, a ragged corpse stranded on distant shores. I had felt the call of the void many times when life was at it's lowest, but this... This was a whole new dimension of pure black.
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"I have a daughter, and a husband. That I care for a lot."
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The cycle continues. The endless grief just comes to a new start, just as things had started to sort themselves out. What did I have left, at this point? What parts of my life hadn't been desecrated?
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"Her name is Amber... Just like you and I... Just like we..."
"I understand.", but I can't get the words out. They stick in my throat, splinters of emotions tearing apart my vocal chords. I had lied to myself, fooled into believing things could be fixed after all this time. The worst part of being stuck in the past, is that everyone else will have already left a long time ago.
"You get it, don't you?", she hugs me tighter, nuzzling my neck with that beautiful snoot of hers. Giving it a small peck, before continuing:
"We've grown so much on our own, we have to keep living our own lives."
"Everything I knew was you, until it wasn't, and now everything I've come to know..."
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Stella manipulated me. Every time we met, every time we hugged, she had already put this plan into motion. First Naomi, now Stella. Life was not daijoubu, not even close.
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"She... Stella..."
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It's as if I'm looking at myself from third person at this point, I can look at myself, holding Lucy, and pinpoint the exact moment my heart breaks. When my mind sunders. When I finally have the truth laid bare, when the grim reality had once more sunk in. It's a pathetic man sitting there, I almost pity him. All this pain and suffering, and for what? 'You're gonna carry that weight', sure, but at what point do you give up and let the worms feast on your corpse by the wayside? There was no award for suffering long enough, just more suffering. This man had nothing left, I could see it in his eyes. There was no light inside, no hope and no life left.
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"Congratulations, shit-for-brains!"
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Lucy... No, Fang? I can't take this. Not again. I feel her presence next to me, watching Anon and Lucy holding each other tight.
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"Sure you can take this. You've been taking it for soooo long at this point, haven't you? You can keep sucking down the grime that this reality is feeding you, or you can revolt."
"I'm not ready to give up."
"Give up on what? You have nothing left to give up on?", her head rolls around, her eyes burning holes into mine. The hatred was back, the malice, the will to take a stand. Her grin was the worst part, she knew that she had won already.
"I have..."
"If you find me ONE thing you want to hold on to, I'll leave you alone. On my honor as your personal demon."
"I Want to..."
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I want to hold on to the illusion that Stella loved me, that she just wanted the best for me, even if her efforts were horribly misguided. But... She had been doing all this just to keep me apart from Fang, taking away my choice of making my own decisions and shaping my own life? Stella was just as horrid as her, if not worse. At least Naomi only gave me a nudge towards Fang, even if she had her own agenda with it. Ten years of hating myself, for this? All because Stella was a manipulative sociopath, that desired me at all costs? Fang's words made sense. There was nothing to hold on to, I'm going to let this thing tear itself apart.
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"There's nothing left here worth saving. You're right."
"Good boy, isn't it a nice feeling? The despair? The loneliness? You're never going to truly leave it behind."
"I know that."
"Lucy is going to disappear. You're going to leave Stella and Rosa, bringing more suffering into their lives. There truly is no salvation for you."
"One last request, then?"
"Anything."
"Let me have just one more moment, with Lucy."
"Better make it count, dweeb, because after this there's really no coming back."
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Then I'm back to sitting with Lucy. I need to take this in, feel her body, remember the taste of her lips, take in the warmth of being held up close. This was the second time I had to leave her behind for good. There will never come a chance to do it a third time, this is all there is. The end of the line, no 'seeing each her on the other side'. Just sorrow. She leans in towards me, holding me tighter. Neither of us really want to let go, and maybe if we didn't then this would be all there was to the rest of our lives? The simplicity of sharing time with the one you love. If I died now, I would have been happy. There was only one path from here, and it wasn't going to be nice. For now, I'll just hold on a bit longer. Then I remember, that one thing I did when I was about to ship off for the navy.
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"I had a poem I wrote for you, before I deployed. I was too scared to send it back then, but... I remember it by heart."
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I feel her smile, her face up close against my neck, her soft breath against my skin makes my heart beat just a tiny bit faster.
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"How about you whisper it to me, as you would whisper it if you loved me?", so I lean in close, kissing her on her neck, before moving up to whisper it:
"No matter how far apart we might go, remember that I'll always love you and cherish the time we had together. Love, yours forever, Anon."
"I feel the same. I will miss you, but I'm glad we got this one chance."
"So am I. So... So am I."
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There's no need to say anything else. We sit there, holding each other, letting our tears fall and our emotions swirl together for one last time. I reminisce about all the good times we had, about all the things we had promised to do that we never got to. The words we never had time to tell each other.
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I finally lay it to rest, there was no more road ahead for us to walk, just a cliff at the end of a broken-down bridge. The skies were weeping, the waters below were crashing against the cliffs. When I let go, there's nothing holding me back any longer. We kiss again, not with passion, but as a final wave goodbye to the times when our lives had coalesced.
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We stand up again, there's no need to say goodbye. We both know better than to try and put it into words, so we just share one final hug.
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Then my aching body and torn heart start walking off, to meet with Stella. To set things straight. I had to find a way to live again.