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dramatique

Thursday, 31 March, 1988

When Juniper and I return from our calming chat at the park, the chaos from before seems to have settled down, with Charlie passed out on the coach from a tiring ordeal of tending to Mac, and Elijah fixing something in the kitchen. I don't know where Mac is, although I had assumed he would be in his bedroom asleep, until Elijah tells us since the door of the apartment opens directly into the kitchen, where he stood, still visibly worried about Mac's physical state.

"He's out on the balcony," is the first thing Elijah says to us immediately upon our arrival. His eyes reflect the wet misery from the time after we left for the park, and his hands still tremble a little as he rests his fingers on his cup of tea. He is probably the most emotionally open member of the group, the most emotionally honest, so if this is how he portrays his sentiments, the situation must be one to fear. He pretends to be fine, however, as a tearful discussion is not what his topic is about, nor is it useful to the matter at hand. "He somehow got well enough to lug himself out of bed and over towards the balcony, where he has been sitting for a while, not saying anything, barely moving."

I wonder what he's thinking about out there. Obviously the plain view of the apartment across from his is nothing like the complex and magical Manhattan skyline available to taller buildings, and therefore no inner monologue lasting more than five minutes can be drawn from the mind about his surroundings, so he must be thinking about something. Something evident comes to me -- his imminent death. If I contracted a pneumonia like no other, I would not brush it off and happily accept my passing. It would be the only thing on my mind for as long as it took to kill me. I doubt Mac is showing any seeable emotion, as his speculation exists solely within his head, but there must be so much going on inside, and I need to help him through it. I am completely aware that he will only turn me down and tell me to go away like he did earlier, but that is not going to solve anything. I will persist until he sucks it up and realizes that I won't leave, that I'm in it for the long run, until his very last second.

My vision stretches outward in an attempt to glimpse Mac's figure on the balcony, but I see nothing but the wall behind the dining table, curving sharply towards the corridor that leads to the desired destination. "Should I talk to him?"

Juniper has strayed from my side at this point, and she now floats towards her bedroom, taking a heavy and extended glance at her brother on the balcony, accompanied with a frown of utter despair, before slipping inside the chamber she shares with Elijah. It must be hitting Juniper the hardest, but, since it is Elijah and not her who possesses the title of the most emotionally open, she does not show it. This is her brother, a person with whom she has spent her entire life, a person she thought would stay there for the rest of her life, a person that has backed out of his inherent promise. And the worst part is he won't even talk to her. I would say I feel empathy for her, but I am in similar circumstances, only with a romantic connection to Mac.

Elijah, his focus back on his tea, twirls his spoon around the cup aimlessly as he speaks, producing a symphony of metal clinks. "Well you have to get him out of his funk of not liking you somehow, so I would suggest doing it, although I doubt it will seem like you're fixing things very much. Trust me, though -- it will help if you just hammer away at him until he cracks and starts liking you again. Someone has to do it, and no one but you, the person he loves the most, can get through to that stubborn menace. If it were any of the rest of us, he will have died before we could receive the slightest sign that our plan is working."

Elijah voices this as a small slice of humor in these trying times, but the fact that it is our reality hits me hard, and I do not find anything amusing about it. Using humor is a skilled way to cover up a tragedy, but I still see through it. I see the verity in his joke.

"There's nothing else I can do besides that. It's too painful to let that stubborn menace survive as is."

Elijah shoos me off with his hand. "Then off you go. Make us proud."

I draw in a deep breath to reassure me and psych me up for the confrontation, and I nod to signal my readiness, then making my way to the balcony. My hand drags across the walls of the corridor as I walk languidly through it, until I stop at the door to the balcony and slide the door open. Mac does not turn around -- I guess he thinks it's Elijah or Charlie, as I have been at the park for a while -- so I prompt him.

"Mac, how are things going?" My fingers loop circles absently on the back of the plastic chair that Mac is not currently sitting in.

Recognizing my voice, Mac feels no need to investigate who it is. His tone is harsh, but his face reveals nothing. If I could not hear him, I would think he were a robot. "I told Elijah to keep you away."

"Elijah was the one who told me to come out here."

Now Mac lapses into irritation, slamming his hands on the arms of his chair. "I thought I could trust him." Mac rises from his plastic lawn chair to go and confront Elijah, but he sits himself back down, knowing it's hopeless. "Please just go away."

"I'm not going away." Mac says nothing, so I take it as an opportunity to tell him off. "And I'll never go away, because my top priority at this time is to make sure you're alright."

This does nothing to convince him, which is made evident when he counters, "I'd be more okay if you just left me alone."

Disbelieving of how stubborn he is, my brows string together, mouth open in a gape to show how pissed I am. "Why is it so hard for you to accept that there are people in this world who care about you?"

Mac once again refuses to accept this notion and instead rises from his chair for the second time, not to show his anger but rather to walk away from the scene like he always has. "I have a headache."

He shoves past me, and I call him out as he passes through the threshold into the apartment. "Mac, you can't run away from this. You can't run away from me."

He turns sharply, something that would not be very beneficial for his supposed headache. "What, so you want me to suffer out here when I have a goddamn headache? I thought that was the thing you fear the most."

"You and I both know you don't have a headache." I stare him straight in the eye, and he shifts uncomfortable, knowing that what I said is completely true. "You're not going to spend your last days on earth happily if you push away the people who make you happy."

Mac laughs dismissively with the silent belief in his head that I am just a foolish young boy who knows nothing about him. "You heard what Elijah said about me; it doesn't matter what I want. My goal is to make sure that you don't get blown up from the collateral damage."

This is the first time that Mac has admitted his true motives. Most of the time he just blows up in my face for seemingly no reason. Now, however, he has confessed to why he does this, although I was already informed of it by Elijah. I never anticipated this, not from Mac, the stony enigma. In a way he has given up a portion of the plan's effectiveness. In addition to the fact that he knows that I know, there is the part where I will care about him even more now that he knows I am aware that he is scared of hurting me.

"That will happen either way," I contradict him. "You will die, and I will mourn, and the collateral damage will hit me hard. But I don't have to start experiencing the collateral damage right now as you break my heart by forcing me to stay away from someone I love." My eyes hit the floor as I suck in a deep breath before continuing. "Because I do, Mac. I love you."

Mac breaks away from our shared gaze harshly, and sets his position towards one of walking back into the apartment, but he is still for the moment, because his intention is not actually to go inside, rather to not face me out of shame. "Don't think that, don't say that, don't feel that."

I set my jaw into a locked stance. I stand up for myself like I was never good at doing before. "Well you're not going to stop me."

Mac looks back only to connect with my eyes for a brief period of time, then leaving me alone on the balcony.

"Why are you such a fucking coward?" I call after him.

Mac halts, and I suspect that he will do something in retaliation, but he only resumes walking to his bedroom a few seconds later, and closes the door tight.

~~~~~

A/N: sorry I was a lazy piece of shit and didn't write for a while lmao

~Datoeta 

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