home ,

[Deleted]

Reentering the room, he can't help but laugh a little at her reorganising of his chaos. She was such a busybody, always had been, too restless to simply sit back and wait for him. It was very much the opposite to his tendencies, as so many traits were - Julian had an uncanny ability to sit as still as a statue for as long as he wanted, barely moving an inch over long stretches of time. It was something he had picked up at school, when he'd simply be waiting for the day to be over, and it had become habit once again now that he was in a dreary, predominately office based job. "No, they're not," he confirms, letting her off the hook. "No, I just don't want my room reeking of cheese," he said. Another Julian trait: deciding things without informing others that he had changed the plan. "You can order food though. Here," he passes her the glass, using his now free hand to retrieve his phone out of the depths of his sweatpants. He ignores all notifications, as usual, instead swiping it open and bringing up Uber Eats, before handing it to her. Again, there was no one else on earth he'd allow such open access to his phone, not when the risk of messages pinging up was so ever-present. "You too," he echoes, something about being stood there with her bringing him back to reality and making him retreat into his usual quietness. He smiles a little at the memory, remembering it vividly, despite the fact he had worked hard to suppress as many good memories of her as he could. "How could I forget," he says finally, knocking back the champagne in one and refilling his glass. Much to his chagrin, the much more expensive vintage did taste crisper and more delicious than the usual. "Remember the New Year we first told our parents we were dating? I think that was the first step on my redemption arc."

[athena mccarthy]

She breathes a small sigh of relief. The idea that his parents were talking about how rude she was killed her. Because if that idea was real, then their scoffing at her and Julian confide in his childhood bedroom was real. Athena received negative publicity daily and she didn't care. Mostly those opinions came from short minded people. People who heard the word, 'sex podcast' and assumed it was purely talk of filth. But somehow when it was this close to home it hurt. She had shared stories with Julian's mother. She'd gotten her nails done with her and had deep conversations with the woman. It hurt because it was someone Athena admired. "Hmm," she plugs the words 'fondue' into the Uber Eats app and shakes her head. "Nothing comes up under fondue," she passes his phone back and lays back into the bedsheet fort with her champagne glass. "This just tastes like bubbles, you know," she remarks. She often thought she was missing out on luxury. Like on the outside she was a McCarthy but on the inside she was trailer trash. She smiles at his recounting of events. His parents were delighted on what had come so naturally. His mother had hugged her and whispered, 'I always knew it.' "They loved us." She sips, her eyes look from the colourful screen to him. "Do you ever miss us?" she starts, her fingers pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. "Sometimes I think I was so dumb to let us go."

[Deleted]

In so many ways they were complimentary opposites. Where Athena was really a humble girl in a refined setting, Julian was a man of refined tastes who wished otherwise. He could taste the difference between an expensive whiskey and an average-to-premium one like it was the difference between water and wine, but doing so made him hate himself. He purposefully under furnished his apartment, forever longing to be the protagonist of Ham on Rye in his seedy rented room... he wanted to risk being stabbed by the landlord, to live with just cheap wine and a typewriter and to long for nothing else. But he had long since stopped trying to force it, since the only thing worse than being an over-pampered mommy's boy was being a fake. He was jealous and proud of her reaction to the champagne, since it was so authentic. "What's not to love?" he said, superficially referring to them as a unit but really referring to her specifically. His salvation. He falls onto the bed beside her, propping a pillow up behind his neck and looking at the screen without really seeing it. What she says next completely steals the air out of his lungs. Not much of a talker at the best of times, opening up about something that still felt raw to him was about as tempting as defenestrating himself. Less so. He stares at the screen for a few beats longer, wondering if he could just ignore it. Eventually he realizes no one asks a question like that and welcomes silence in response. "Used to," he says eventually, not looking her in the eye. "But relationships aren't my thing, I get that now. I feel bad about you not eating, are you sure you don't want anything? Let's watch something else, this is shit."

[athena mccarthy]

Athena doesn't fight the conversation. She feels him as he freezes. Her blue-jade eyes watching him as he focuses on the screen. She'd be thinking about him a lot since the McCarthy Christmas Party. Since that night he'd entered her head at least once an hour. He lurched at her stomach like a feeling of dread. She had trouble understanding what it meant. She was so high and drunk that night, she was sure to be reading into things. What she thought was an affectionate gaze was likely just the way his eyes settled. Him throwing his blazer on her shoulders was certainly out of politeness. She bites her lip, "I'm not hungry. How about you put on Forensic Files?" She pulls at the edges of his duvet and sinks her body under the covers. She hands her glass over. "I have a confession. I might have two but you can have one. Which do you want?" She rests on her side and looks at him with pouting lips, "you can have the one from 2008 or the one from 2018."

[Deleted]

Julian felt skinned alive by the question. He would relive this twenty second exchange for years to come, he knew, remembering how he'd fumbled the response, how clumsily he had tried to deflect from having to say anything meaningful. He would pour over her vague statement of regret, going through the stages of grief; he'd deny that she'd even said it, thinking he must have misheard. Then he'd be angry with her, and anger always came easily when it came to Athena's openness. He'd be too stubborn for bargaining but would instead skip to depression, which would last a good long time -- so long he couldn't imagine ever reaching acceptance again. She drops it and somehow that makes him feel worse. He now wants to have it out, but can't find the words, can't make himself say anything. He refills her glass without responding, flicking the channel over to Forensic Files though he knows he won't watch it. His whole body is stiff with frustration and when she offers him a choice of confessions, he finds his frustration with himself bubbles over into anger at her, something it had done many, many times when they were a couple. "I don't fucking want to hear another confession Athena," he snaps. He hears himself and immediately feels cruel. Sighing, he finally forces himself to look at her. "Sorry. I didn't mean that. I pick..." he hesitates, finding it genuinely difficult to force himself to speak. "2018."

[athena mccarthy]

His voice turns mean and his face fights emotion. She reads him with a frown and reminds herself to be patient. She sits up to take a sip of champagne. It feels sour on her tongue now and she places it aside, not wanting any more. She thinks about her confessions. The first being that of the abortion in 2008, the ultimate demise of their relationship. The second confession was too vague to put into words, but it bordered on her attention seeking for him. But any chance of openness now feels gone and she's shied away from the idea completely. Like a child afraid of being scolded, she moves away from him. "Nothing really happened in 2018. It was a nothing year. I tried houseplants, failed houseplants. I stepped on glass and had to have surgery on my foot," she makes a half effort to pull her foot from the covers, "seven stitches and it's still tender." She awkwardly smiles and shrugs. "Nothing major."

[Deleted]

The night had become familiar for all the wrong reasons. Years of solitude had hardened him and made his bad habits worse. But he hadn't wanted to sour the moment, for all his stubbornness, he didn't like to offer forgiveness and then take it away. So he couldn't hold her openness against her, not when it was such a fundamental part of what made her the woman she was. The overdramatic voiceover from Forensic Files hangs between them, telling details of a wife murdered by a husband in a jealous rage. She recoils from him and he hates himself more, for causing it and for not knowing how to go back on what he's done. He's quiet as she speaks. After a few moments of silence, he gently picks up her foot. "Can I see?" he asks, still not looking at her and not waiting for permission either, easily slipping the sock off and bending over to peer at the sole of her foot. When he sees the faint scar he winces, imagining the pain of sharp glass through tender flesh. "Fuck," he muttered, more gently still placing her foot back down on the bed. As he busies himself pulling her sock back on, he continues to avoid her eye, which makes it easier for him to ask the next question. "What was your real confession?"

[athena mccarthy]

She nods, pulling her foot up and letting her sock be taken off. "I was drinking and went to bed early. I got up to get a glass of water and I guess someone had broken a glass and not picked it up. There was so. Much. Blood," her finger traces the scar. It's not a painful sensation, but still an odd one - like her nerves where inside out. She plucks her leg back beneath the cover. When he asks what her real confession was, she hesitates. Feeling scolded, she's shy to put her 2018 confession into words. She's not even sure if there are words for her actions, or if they were worth saying. So, she goes with an older confession. "Just, I lied to you," she shrugs, "I had an abortion. I couldn't tell you." It's easy to remember being seventeen and scared in this room. "That's why it ended, because I was scared to tell you." She sighs nervously, her fingers finding a lose thread in the duvet and pulling at it. "I should have said earlier. Like ten years earlier. You were just so into it."

[Deleted]

He considers asking her where she was and who else was there, but the risk of her saying she was with an ex puts him off the idea. Faltering for anything to say, he looks back at the screen, where a woman in a laboratory coat is pouring over a microscope. He feels all out of joint, and weirdly all he wants to do is pull her close and kiss her. He'd felt an intimacy with her at the McCarthy party, but as soon as she'd gotten here there was a static in the air, and now that it had wavered it felt unbelievably obvious that it had been there all along. Finally he turns to face her, moving closer to her again. But what she says stops him dead. What she says sends a chill through his body, an icy sense of disbelief that will soon convert into that lifeblood of his: anger. It's too much. He feels for her, carrying this secret around. He hates himself all the more for making her feel like she had to. But he also mourns for himself, for the futility of it all. He sits up, his back to her, trying to process this information. After the longest silence yet, he stiffly turns to look at her, his tone intentionally neutral. "Why would you tell me that?" He has to look away. After another moment an edge creeps into his voice, "why do you always have to fuck everything up?"

[athena mccarthy]

He's moving closer and she's pulling away. She knows him too well and this won't last. When she's done saying what she's held on to for years, there will be bitterness in the air. She can feel it hanging around her already. Athena is reminded of the reason she called their relationship poisoness and of what led her to be so negative about it. She watches as he rises and turns his back to her. In the past she'd force her arms around his broad shoulders and smother him with kisses, hoping that she could heal the anger he felt for her. There was nothing she could do now. She crawls out of the duvet, stands to balance out the pillows and tug the blankets back in place. "A bad habit," her voice is even and quiet. She pulls her hair from the elastic and ruffles it back into a bun. "I've never liked the way you talk to me," she frowns at him, "it's why I never brought it up in the moment." The blonde feels suddenly naked, like she has nothing to hide her scars. "Do you mind if I go home?"

[Deleted]

Julian is sitting very still, even for him. He turns the TV off, hating the noise of the show as it plays on unwatched, wanting the stillness and the silence so he can process all of this more efficiently. If they had still been a couple he would have been kicking her out, not even wanting to talk about this, not making any attempt to reconcile. But she busies herself getting up and fixing her hair, and he can't help but sigh as she speaks. "You're really selfish. I don't see how you can't see how selfish keeping something secret because you can't be bothered with the reaction is." He looks at her for a long moment. Did she think of herself as the victim here? The threat of being called toxic hung over the last couple years of their relationship, and it had made him retreat into ever longer silences, scared to say anything lest he have the accusation levied at him again. Hearing it on her podcast even all these years later had been a knife to the gut. "It doesn't make me toxic that I'm upset because you've done something upsetting, Athena," he says, keeping his tone even, trying to keep the hurt and anger out of his voice. It had taken him years to come to that conclusion and stop thinking of himself as some sort of monster. "But you're an adult, you can do whatever you want. As you well know."

[athena mccarthy]

It occurs to her that she's acting slightly childish and she wishes she had inherited more patience from her mother. Piper was always calm, even in the face of great debate. While Athena could be more patient than your average person, she was constantly critical of herself for not acting more so. She breathes slowly, oxygenating poise to her form and reasoning with the fight in her mind. The silence is painful and the hurt in his voice nearly kills her. The mothering urge to hold him is stronger than ever. But she knows that won't fix it. She's too afraid of rejection to attempt to touch him. "I'm not going to leave," she sits a little closer to him and looks down at her hands. "I should have told you. If it were happening now, I would have. I didn't think you'd understand, but I should have told you regardless. I'm sorry." She hates the tense air in the room, it makes her lungs work to breathe. "I only started talking about you because I wanted your attention. I'm sorry about that too. I knew you'd hate it and that was idiotic."

[Deleted]

As a teenager, Julian had point blank refused to engage in smalltalk with others. If he was sat next to someone he wasn't friends with in class - and he kept an extremely small circle of friends - he might nod at best, even pointedly ignoring them if they tried to engage him in any type of conversation. Which is why he felt strange now, being in a situation and actually feeling awkward about it... usually, awkwardness was something others felt around him, and he didn't much like that Athena had been able to turn it back onto him. Subconsciously he leans away from her as she moves closer. "Okay," he says when she apologises, unable to accept it gracefully, but not willing to put up more of a fight. She keeps talking and he shoots her a skeptical look. "Do you really expect me to believe that?" he says, his tone deadpan. Where he chose his words with the utmost care, he knew she was the opposite, and he had listened to enough of her podcast to believe she was just saying whatever came to mind in the spur of the moment. It was probably a big part of the reason other people enjoyed listening to it so much, that authenticity shining through every episode. "You could have just called me, if you'd wanted to. And I'm not sure why you would want to."

[athena mccarthy]

Anxiety is beginning to build in Athena. She's forgotten how different Julian can be to take with and how opposite they are. The men since him were a million times easier. She would ask they to jump and they honest to god would reply, 'how high?' But never Julian. Julian was always a fight. It didn't matter if it was a topic of a simpler nature than this, his fur would rise and there would be an argument. Athena buries her face into her hands and groans. There was no pleasing him. She groans in pain and tips to the side, burying her face in a pillow. "You're the worst," she sighs. Her usual company was well-humored and more charming than her. Julian was impossible, "impossible." The blonde is in shutdown mode, and her brain is dead from trying to please him. "Why would I want to call you? There's no talking to you." she conquers, still dying on top of the pillow. "I swear. This is a time warp... are you going to tell me off for that too?"

[Deleted]

He can feel her frustration with him coming off her in waves, and that was familiar. Familiar with her and every other woman he had ever been intimate with, even some of the escorts. He didn't mean to be difficult but he was well aware of the fact that he was. Law had actually been the perfect career choice for him in the end, as his steely resolve and cold, detached logic served well in building and delivering cases, though he lacked some of the dramatic flair of his peers. He wants to appease her but hasn't got the faintest idea how. "Why would you want to call me? I have no idea. You said you wanted my attention, I don't know why you'd want that, but calling me has got to be easier than airing my personal life on the internet," he says, turning to look at her mass of golden hair on the pillow. He envied people who knew what to say and do in these situations, and almost wished one would coach him in how to be human. He had inherited all of his parents' disdain but none of their self importance, leaving him running on empty. "What have I told you off for, besides being selfish? Which you have been. I'm not taking it back."