Benning rolls his eyes. “Accidentally handing somebody the wrong coffee does not make you an asshole, Roly.” The rest of the group seems to agree.
Yeah… I may have left off some context when I told that story.
“Look, I haven’t said this before, but he and I have history. Y’all remember how I said that I hadn’t always been nice to people?”
Round of attentive head nods.
“Well, he was one of the people I wasn’t very nice to,” I admit, and wait for their judgment.
An understanding hum makes its way around the circle.
“So, yeah, I was really terrible to him, and recently spent several weeks trying to make it up to him. And, you know, it’s not even like he’s holding agrudge, but he definitely doesn’t think I’m worth his time as a friend. Never gonna be in the Roly Fan Club.”
Eye patch guy asks, “Why does his opinion matter that much? So, what, one person thinks you’re an asshole and all of a sudden that’s the truth? I mean… you’re not still being an asshole to him now, right?”
“I don’t know, honestly.”
Benning sees my frustration and redirects. “Let’s put a pin in the Heath issue for a minute. I’d like to know why you feel that your reaction to what happened with Jake makes you an asshole.”
“It still involves Heath.”
Benning’s unimpressed face means that I’m not getting out of this anytime soon.
All right, let’s get ugly.
“I’m an asshole because I saw how concerned Heath was with the whole Jake situation, and I can’t even get him to properly acknowledge me in public. Like, I wasjealousof the guy who was barely able to breathe, because a) I don’t have triggering episodes, I just can’t ever stop thinking about it, and no one comforts an overthinker, and b) a guy I really like is helping him.”
Benning is looking more thoughtful than I’m comfortable with. “So, I have a different question, but I just want to verify: Was he ignoring you when you went to help Jake, or…”
I roll my eyes. “I mean, no. He was perfectly cordial.”
“So… he did acknowledge you in public.”
Shrug. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Just checking.”
Thanks, Benning.
He looks around the group, and I brace for whatever his real question was. “Okay, so we’re all in the trust tree, right?”
Benning and his stupidOld Schooltrust tree. But everyone in the circle agrees, and… fine. We’re in the goddamned trust tree. Benning looks over at me likewe good?I nod, not sure where he’s going to go with this.
“Roly, we’ve known each other for a while now, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that you like someone. You’re all about the takedown, but after that you can see them again or not and it doesn’t seem to bother you very much.”
I shrug, but it’s not entirely true.
Oh, right, the trust tree.
“It actually does bother me,” I say quietly. “But then I think okay, wipe the dust off my feet and move on to the next. Just keep going, keep going, keep going. But now my cousins have conspired against me, and they’re not letting me use my shitty coping mechanisms anymore, and I’m feeling a little bit raw and vulnerable, and it does not help that I fucked that big ol’ beautiful bear and then he kicked me out of his house.”
“Wow. You fucked him?” I recognized the person who asked the question but couldn’t remember her details or which branch she served in. I think she’s a pilot.
“Well, technically, he fucked me, or rather, he hate-fucked me. And then told me that he still really hates me and kicked me out of his house.”
Benning tilts his head. “Heath did that? Really? You just said that he’s not holding a grudge.”
I shrug. “No, not in those exact terms, but that’s what he meant.”
