Pitbabe S2, Chapter 13 pg2

 Pitbabe S2, Chapter 13 pg2

   “Back then, you couldn’t stand seeing others get bullied. you wanted to help them, tried to help because you didn’t want anyone to go through what you did. So what’s happening now? Why is you talking like this?”

   I don’t know.

   Right now, I don’t even know who I am. I just know I don’t want to think about anything anymore—morality, goodness, justice, ideals, or even other people. I want to erase all of it, wipe it clean, because the more I think about it, the more I feel vile and despicable.

   The more I think… the further Charlie drifts away.

   So far that I can’t reach him.

   “Have you forgotten what you’ve been through?” Charlie asked. “Being stalked, slandered, cursed out every day, hurt how many times, nearly dying how many times? Don’t you think those things matter?”

   “I don’t care…”

   “But I do!” Charlie’s voice hardened. “I can’t keep putting up with this. I don’t know if what I’m planning will work. I just know I can’t sit still. I have to do something.”

   I told you, that’s Charlie.

   He cares. He’s too good… so good it’s unbearable for me.

   “I’m suffering, Babe. It’s not just for others. Everything I have now makes me unhappy. I don’t want to be like this. I want to be normal.”

   Charlie’s voice softened, like he was trying to persuade me. He pretended to be selfish, saying he was doing it for himself too. A good person like Charlie was trying to speak the language of a selfish person like me to make me empathize.

   “No.” But I couldn’t blindly believe him. Charlie’s always been good at lying, except this time he couldn’t fool me like before. “You just want to help others. You don’t care what happens to you. I know you too well.”

   He went quiet for a moment, his expression heavy, as if he was struggling to figure out what to do with someone like me.

   “Is it wrong?” he asked, his voice weary. “Is it so wrong that I want to do what I believe in?”

   “It’s not wrong. I just don’t know where I fit in.”

   “You’re right where you’ve always been, Babe. You’re important to me, always number one…”

   “No, Charlie, I haven’t been your number one for a long time.” I didn’t want to say those words, because it wasn’t just Charlie who hurt. Saying them nearly killed me too. But at the same time, I couldn’t deny that this was the truth. It was right in front of us, and it was only a matter of whether we could accept it. “Your number one is your ideals. You have your own world, and there’s no place for me in it. Every time I try to step in, I feel like garbage. Everything in there matters except me.”

   “I thought you’d understand why I have to do this,” Charlie said, his voice growing wearier, like he’d run out of ways to refine the conscience of someone as shameless as me.

   “I don’t understand, Charlie. I just pretend to because I love you.”

   My eyes burned, like they always do when we fight. I keep crying, and in the end, Charlie gives in because he can’t stand seeing my tears.

   “I told you, I don’t care. Let a hundred more people die, that’s their problem. I only care about my own shit.”

   But this time, I won’t let it go like that.

   If I’m going to win this time, I’ll win with dignity. Not because Charlie surrenders like he always does.

   “I used to respect you more than this.”

   Of course, someone like Charlie can’t accept this kind of heartless thinking. He wasn’t built to understand this kind of lowlife crap. He’s been standing on the opposite side of me for so long. All this time, we’ve just been closing our eyes and ears to indulge in sweet desires, pretending until we slowly forgot how tiny the overlap between our worlds is—so small you can’t even step into it.

   “I don’t understand what’s wrong with you right now.”

   “This is who I’ve always been.”

   “No. It’s not,” Charlie denied, refusing to believe what was standing in front of him, the version of me he didn’t want to know. “The you I know isn’t like this.”

   “Then there are two possibilities.”

   Two assumptions were running through my head right now.

   “One, I’ve always been like this, but I just pretended to be someone you’d like.”

   Neither option would sit well with Charlie.

   But I’ll say it. I’ll say it loud and clear until it echoes in his sharp mind and kind heart.

   “Or two… you’re the one who made me like this.”

   

   CHARLIE:

   I know Babe well.

   I don’t think this statement is a belief—it’s a fact.

   Even if I don’t want to admit it, it’s hard to deny that when Babe called me “nerd” back then, I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t think it fit me either. To be called a nerd, I thought you had to be obsessed with something, studying it intensely, able to answer almost every question about it, or maybe all of them. I didn’t see myself as that diligent or driven. But over time, the echoes from the people around me made me reluctantly accept it.

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