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Post by rosco on May 6, 2012 18:35:04 GMT -5
if anyone were to ask rosco dallivere how he was feeling that day, his immediate answer would probably be that he was surviving. that was his usual answer. "i'm surviving," he'd tell people with a wide grin, chuckling good-naturedly as though he was making a joke against society and usually that would earn him a smile in return from whoever was talking to him and the conversation would carry on. but the fact of the matter was, that was the truth. if anyone, anyone, his mom, his best friend, his ex-wife, were to ask how he was doing, he would reply with the same honest answer. he was surviving. and really there were only a handful of people who would be able to see through the smile to the haunted man beneath it, only a handful of people who would touch his wrist and express with sincerity that it would be okay some day soon. and even then, that was just something ross liked to imagine since it hadn't happened yet.
not that he was depressed. he wasn't. he was upset sometimes when his house got too quiet, when all the people he housed on his couch were out or sleeping or too drunk for him to want to pay attention to. when he got to thinking too much, he tended to get a little down, a little spacey, and then only tana could really pull him out of it. because she understood. but other than those few moments, he wasn't sad. he just wasn't necessarily thrilled to be alive either. he was floating, drifting. he woke up, he did his job, he took care of whoever was currently residing on his couch, and then he visited friends, drank a little, and passed out. and then he slept for his typical nine hours, dreamed of nothing, and woke up in the morning to repeat the whole damned business again. he wasn't doing well; he wasn't doing poorly. he was just surviving, living day by day and seeing what life would hand him.
he wasn't lonely, either. no, he had his fair share of boyfriends - and god that sounded wrong but it wasn't like they were actual boyfriends. they were just people tana insisted he take out on dates, people friends at work had set him up with and they liked to text him, attempt to charm him, take him out to lunch when they had the free time. but they weren't dating him and he wasn't dating any of them nor did he really want to date any of them. they were nice people, nice guys. sweet. but he knew what they wanted from him in the end, knew that they wanted something that would say forever, that would say exclusive, and he couldn't...he couldn't give them that. he couldn't be their boyfriend, couldn't be anyone's boyfriend because he was ruined by the one great love of his life that he'd had who left him lying in the dust. he couldn't expose himself like that again. he'd tried love twice - once with a boy who refused to love him and again with a woman he couldn't love. not romantically. not sexually. and he always heard that third time's the charm but honestly? he hadn't found anyone worth risking it for. so he played it safe. he kept it casual. he marked all their names in his phone with a little asterisk and swore to call them back and then never did.
it was all part of that drifting, that floating. taking people on dates. going through the motions. honestly? he was fine with his life the way it was. maybe he wasn't jumping for joy; maybe he wasn't consumed with sadness. maybe he didn't see a light at the end of the tunnel. but he was content sitting in the dark, always had been, and really so long as he wasn't breaking down into sobs in the middle of the store because he happened to pass his ex's favorite brand of deodorant, he figured he was doing pretty well for himself. so he just went through the motions - for everyone around him, he just moved on. he was still alive enough to remember things like, say, his ex-wife and now best friend's birthday, and it was in the store looking for some really nice sweets and chocolate that he found himself that day, just looking for a brand he knew the shop sometimes carried that tana particularly adored.
and it was in that store that he ran into the man who was in the aisle with him, and it was in that store that he noticed the man was carrying a baby, and it was in that store that he felt horrible for running into a father and son when they were probably just looking for something to satisfy a sweet tooth. so he immediately turned with an apologetic look on his face, and said earnestly and sincerely, "i am so so sor--" before he really stopped to study who he was talking to. then the apologetic look fell so that his features were a blank canvas and his voice shook ever so slightly as he deadpanned, "joey," and blinked back the hurt he was sure was evident in his eyes.
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