“I guess.”
“And I know we’re only starting, but for what it’s worth, the Clay I’ve been slowly coming to know is someone I want to keep getting to know.”
“And what if you don’t?”
“What?”
“Want to keep getting to know me? What if you get to know more about me and eventually you realize you want nothing to do with me?”
I cast a sidelong glance at him. “Did you rape or murder someone?”
“What?” he asked, taking a step back, arms wrapping around his middle.
That was...a reaction. “I was obviously kidding. My point was that unless you’re an outright terrible person, a vile sort, I don’t think you have to worry about me. And even if there is something about you that doesn’t fit with me, that doesn’t change what I said. And for the record, you could just as easily find out something about me that makes you want nothing to do with me.”
“I doubt that,” he snorted. “I know you’re here, but you seem to be doing alright. I can’t picture you doing something or being some way that’s going to make me avoid you.”
“What if I was stealing from my clients for years?”
“I mean, they’re rich enough to afford it from the sounds of it.”
“Murdered a couple of them?”
“You don't seem the type to do it for no reason.”
“Murdered someone for being annoying?”
“There’s a few people who probably deserve it.”
I laughed. “Fine, then I’m actually the head of a violent crime family, and the crimes I’ve committed are beyond measure.”
“Can I be your kept boy?” he asked, and he finally cracked a smile when I snorted. “Sorry, couldn’t resist. You were trying so hard to make your point, I couldn’t help but ruin it.”
I shook my head. “At least I finally got some of your humor out in the open. I thought you were going to glare at mountains for the rest of the night.”
Clay sighed, crossing his arms and rocking back onto his heels with a troubled expression. “I...sometimes I get these moods. It doesn’t matter if I want to, they just...happen.”
“I’m not trying to push more than you want to be pushed,” I began carefully. “But you make it sound like you might want it to happen sometimes.”
“Sometimes, yeah.”
“Would it bother you if I asked why?”
His features scrunched up, and he looked at the floor. “I just...it’s funny, you want to connect with yourself again, you want to know who you are because you’ve been living in your skin but not under that skin. But me? Sometimes all I want is to be anyone other than me, and other times I know I can’t, but because of...well, sometimes I think all I should be is miserable.”
Ahh, so it was guilt that motivated him. It was, as he had said, funny, because I had never considered guilt or shame as a motivating emotion for him, and yet it made sense. Whatever it was that made him feel so guilty was big enough that he refused to let it go. And yet at the same time?—
“And yet you try not to be miserable all the time, and you try to be someone you’re not,” I said, looking at him and watchinghis features. They didn’t change, save for a tightening in his jaw as he took a deep breath.
“Kinda,” he admitted after a minute, the syllables sounding like they were being painfully pulled from his lips rather than falling naturally. “I mean, it’s not like I’ve had to work hard at it. If you want something bad enough, you’ll find a way, right? I mean, except for not being me. I can’t not be me, at least when I’m alone, I mean, other than one option.”
“And yet you haven’t taken that option,” I noted.
“Not recently,” he said and closed his eyes as if shocked, but accepting it was too late, bracing for what was to come.
“That’s always an option, I suppose,” I said, pretending not to notice his surprise, or the way his tension relaxed a few notches. “I mean, it would certainly take care of your problems, or at least, it would stop them...maybe. Who knows, maybe people are right, and something is waiting for us after death. Maybe it’s just peace, or we get thrown into the cycle all over again as another person.”
“That’s scarier than Hell…or nothing,” he muttered.
