. burnout

[lily mccarthy]

Before and after is a prism, shattered in planes across the diner Lily found herself at. Reflected one direction there's late nights and warm conversations, usual orders and the gentle glow of what they both knew stirred underneath. Shifted another and it's cold, she's cold, the pattern on her quilted jacket the only thing she feels like focusing on as the coffee cup idles in her hands. Unsure why she was here, why she always listened. Why she'd shown up to the meeting in the first place, second guessing the decision the second she'd looked over her shoulder and caught his eye walking in. As if she knew before she even saw, folding tighter into her chair as everyone settled. She never talked directly to him, in that meeting. She didn't particularly want to do it now, either, but here she found herself. In a place that used to bring her comfort, now just bringing her dread. "Don't start this out saying it's good to see me," Lily clips, the words all but playing in her mind. "You want to talk? I'm listening."

[isaac mcavoy]

Stale, bitter coffee was something he had come to associate with these meetings. Sat on an uncomfortable wooden chair, Zac fidgeted, in the wrong sort of mood for one of these meetings. Some days he would go and feel ready to bare his soul, would crave it even, whilst others, like today, he could think of nothing but what he'd do afterwards, bringing the enthusiasm a naughty schoolchild might bring to a weekend detention. But all that apathy turns to dust as soon as she walks in, sun pouring over her and making her practically glow-- so much so that he doubts what he's seeing for a moment, the reality only sinking in when she sits down. He's antsy the whole meeting. Thoughts of what he might say to her roll through his mind, the stiff response they were bound to get tormenting him. What could he say? He had said it all before, as so many had. When he gets the opportunity to speak in the meeting this is what he says, addressing the fact that he felt his words meant nothing to those closest to him, not after they had heard them all so often. It was a difficult thing, to be primarily a lyricist, and to feel so lacking in that department. When they finally step out into the milky evening sunshine, he resolves to say whatever first comes to mind, unfiltered. "Why did you come?"

[lily mccarthy]

"Because I care about you," Lily replied honestly, no longer eager to dance around the truth. They'd existed in that in-between for a long time; confessions laden with tension, steps forward only to stumble back. And then, when she thought they'd finally both jumped across the chasm, her feet had been the only ones to land on the other side. Staring across at him in the meeting tonight had stirred up that strange, fleeting anger she'd felt after listening to the episode, betrayal the only thing she could think to name it. He'd gone back on his word, ones that she had trusted, unable to meet his eye when he spoke about them meaning so little to the people that mattered. If anything she was living proof that they had to mean something, sip cool against his lips as the cloudy haze faded into dusk. Dark eyes flicking around suddenly, confirming they were being left alone as her voice dipped lower. "Why did you do that?"

[isaac mcavoy]

It's an unexpected answer, though it shouldn't be. Lily had proven time and time again that her patience was elastic; it could be stretched thin, but it would bounce back, regardless of how much he tested it. Isaac was sure there was a breaking point somewhere and he had assumed he had hit it, laying in bed, staring at her blank profile picture from his blocked purgatory. "You probably shouldn't." It's a reply as honest as the one that preceded it, though it makes his stomach churn to hear himself say it. Self-pitying all the way, he felt a hot shame that made his cheeks tinge pink. It's a red hot knife in his chest that twists as she asks a follow up question. He'd asked himself that same question every day since. He had been drinking that day, Athena was a bad influence... a million excuses are on the cusp of being spoken, but he's able to stop himself in time. Step five rang in his mind: admit to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. "I was scared." Step ten comes to mind next: continue to take personal inventory and when we are wrong promptly admit it. He looks at her directly, his eyes meeting hers. "It was the biggest mistake of my life. I'm really sorry, Lily, you didn't deserve that at all. I've kicked myself every day since."

[lily mccarthy]

Lily wondered sometimes, when the well would run dry. When her senses would give out and she'd start viewing walking away from people as the best option instead of a last resort. But she'd yet to find the bottom, evidence clear as day across from her. Voice so familiar yet so painful when she remembers it in the latest context she'd heard it, eyes rolling at his self-martyred answer. "Not for you to decide," she mutters, mouth open to deflect what she assumed would be more excuses. Closing, softly, when it's not what comes. Not used to him staring directly at her, the rawness of the truth falling into the air. After so long of not being told No, accountability often felt like a long shot with Isaac. Blaming others, or inflicting guilt in a quiet, violent victim complex when things went sideways. So it shakes her when its honest, hands dropping away from her mug, palms open on the table. "You could have told me you were scared. I was scared, too," she admits, the secret kept so close to her chest it felt buried, sometimes. "But you chose to hurt me instead. Publicly." The words are pained, biting nervously at her bottom lip as the betrayal lashed again. Palms closing steadily into fists as the silence stretched, saying the next thing that popped in her mind. "Kendra told me you went back to rehab again."

[isaac mcavoy]

Part of Zac, the brotherly part of him, wanted to shake her. In some moments he had been able to convince himself that the damage hadn't been that severe, that the betrayal had been skin deep at most. But looking at her now, those big doe eyes so expressively sad, it's clear he won't be able to convince himself of that again. He lifts his mug and takes a long sip to swallow down any retorts, finding it difficult to stop himself from pointing out the obvious: he did not deserve this. That didn't feel like a controversial conclusion and yet, here she was. She reveals the extend of her hurt and his chest feels as though it's collapsing. He tears his eyes away from hers, focusing on the spoon in his mug, stirring it slowly though the sugar was long dissolved. "I know." What more was there to say? Zac himself did not identify with that version of himself, though it had reared its head so often that he couldn't tell when one version of himself ended and the other began. Every attempt to justify himself falls flat before it's even aired, leaving him with a paltry few words. "I'm sorry." The next thing she says makes him look up, his brow tilted in genuine surprise. "You talked to Kendra? How did she even know that?"

[lily mccarthy]

Lily knew. She knew. From the moment he'd tipped his head, looked at her in that unrelenting way, that she was in trouble. An adolescent crush from days in the garage to saucer eyes in her own spotlight, Lily's heart had only grown, too. Doubled in naivety, in hope, in compassion. In excitement and in caution and in love. Now in foolish doubt, in the heaviness of having been led astray by someone who'd been a close friend before something more. Had she been snared in a spiderweb, or walked in blindly? Had she been the one still ascending the stairs, or the fool who turned back a second too early, damned to hell? "It's so hard to watch you destroy everything around you," she starts, head dipping lower to appear back in his vision. This wasn't something they'd be doing in halves, features set with determination to get through this. "You put your relationship with my brother and the band in jeopardy for me. And then let that go, too. I don't know if I'll ever understand it." She doesn't know if she can try either, mouth drifting up in a wan smile at his surprise. "She asked me to lunch, yes. And I can think of one way." Lily's shoulders shrug, mug poised at her lips again as she sifted for more questions. "Are you going to stop drinking?"

[isaac mcavoy]

Tearing open another sugar packet for distraction, he pours the contents into his terrible coffee and keeps on stirring, his eyes fixed on the vortex in the mug. This is a conversation he had played out in his head almost every night since he'd received that text, picking different words each time and trying to imagine how they might land. Now that it's real he feels paralysed by fear, scared that he'll say the wrong thing in the wrong way and end up with a result he can't just hit reset on. As if that hadn't already happened. "I don't know why I'm like this," he admits, the excuse of heroin even being one he'd had to retire. "I'm so scared that this is just who I am, that I'm always going to do this." She forces her way into his line of vision and he sits back in the booth, giving her his full attention. She's got a sense of determination about her that's new, and he's amazed that he can feel his affection for her grow even now. "I know. I know," all he can do is repeat it, his own behavior a mystery even to himself. "It's been like this since the band took off, or maybe since I dropped out of college... something inside me just keeps telling me to bail, that there's something else out there, that I don't deserve the things that I have. I don't know, I don't know how to stop." He lets this information process for a moment, filing the inference away for inspection another time. Taylor. He'd have words with him, eventually... or maybe he should just keep his mouth shut. "How is Kendra?" The next question is finally one that's easy to answer. "I'm trying to. Haven't had a drink this week."

[lily mccarthy]

It bursts out before Lily can think about it. "I feel like people haven't told you No in years. Or it's gone ignored, for a very long time." She has no right to sit here and analyze him but she thinks it's true. The meteoric fame, the drugs, pushing at every edge until they all broke. He was a lynchpin of their success; something Kendra said flitting through her mind. "Taylor'd probably kill him if he was replaceable." But he wasn't, now a puzzle that had broken Lily into his own pieces. "You can have what you want, so you always want more. Maybe." The trepidations added as an afterthought but she cared enough to try, worried too that she'd tip their balance again. End up hurting worse than she came. A waitress hovers in her peripheral, Lily shifting her cup to the edge of the table for a refill and motioning for him to do the same. Calming the adrenaline spike that coursed through her veins, fingers tapping a slow rhythm on the table top as her breath slowed down. Wanting to listen, to absorb, curious where this vulnerability had been hiding and saddened when she wondered if it was another layer of a game he'd play. Trust so tenuous between them, the tiniest thread keeping her tethered here. "I'm scared you won't have a choice, when to stop. That everyone else will choose for you." And you'll be alone lingers unspoken, dragging her cup back when its refilled. Catching their server's nervous eyes, not used to seeing the pair so at odds. The observation recalibrates her, shifting back into the booth. "Exactly as she's always been," Lily promises, tipping cream into her cup before reaching into her pocket, letting the familiar chips she always seemed to carry fall between them. "Great. I want more of these."

[isaac mcavoy]

For once, Isaac is taken aback. It shows on his face as he sits back in disbelief, trying to think through what she's said, pushing past the instinctive defensiveness that's creeping up the back of his neck. "Maybe," he concedes, the observation being somewhere in the right ballpark even if he didn't agree with it wholeheartedly. Maybe he had let megalomania set in, he would be far from the first frontman of a band to let it go to his head. Chloe had certainly thought so. "To me it's just always felt like... why not? I love being high, so why not go harder, do it more? I guess you're right that people didn't do much to stop me, or I just didn't let them." Blindly he mimics her action, pushing his mug to the side though he doesn't actually want any coffee. It was a habit, mirroring her, one that had kicked into overdrive when they had started really locking in on each other. He still found himself using phrases he had lifted wholesale from her vocabulary, or enacting little ticks he'd noticed and adored in her. He listens to what she's saying and he knows it's true, it's something that's said all the time in recovery. If you don't end up dead, you'll certainly end up lonely. "I think I'm choosing that for myself before they can." This is an observation directly from his therapist, though Zac decides against crediting her. Soon the chips are laid bare on the table, something that makes his heart hurt though he breaks into a smile. "You really carry those round?"

[lily mccarthy]

Had they had this conversation before? She wasn't sure, attention rapt at the transparency regardless if this had been a midnight toil, or a spiral at two in the morning. Staring at one another in a prolonged back and forth, unaware she was holding her breath until his light "Maybe" parsed through the air. Still wary, almost waiting for the excuses to claw their way back out. For once she'd be ready for that fight if it came, unaware of what else she had to lose as she tilted her face. "Because it started hurting other people, not just here." She taps the side of her head. Lily goes to say something else but pauses, trying to figure out how to word it as her eyes sweep the cushioned booth beneath her thighs, the glint of the jewelry on his hands, the sun settling further amidst the skylines. "Choosing to be lonely?" she starts, bottom lip worried between her teeth. "Or choosing to be alone?" It's a harrowing request for clarification, fingers back to drumming a tiny beat against the tabletop before heaving a sharp breath, beginning again. "It's funny because to me, I feel like you want to be happy with someone. You wouldn't...I don't know, 'pursue' things otherwise," Lily mimes air quotes, voice calm and clear, but soft. "But maybe that's really just me." It feels naive to admit, skin betraying her in the flush she feels skate across it. Busying herself suddenly with the chips, spinning one against linoleum. "They're either in my bag or in that dish by my front door. No matter how I'm feeling about you, they're still important."

[isaac mcavoy]

Step eight: Make a list of all persons we have harmed, and become willing to make amends to them all. The woman sat opposite him had overtaken even his mother as the most harmed party, which was a fact he could only just about force himself to accept, feeling with it a guilt so intense he was surprised he didn't crumple on the spot. "I've been hurting other people for a long time." A sip of coffee, his nose scrunching up in distaste. "I don't know how to stop." Good things had come after big betrayals; the band taking off as he quit med school, Chloe to Alessia, world tours after weeks of his no-showing to practice. He had gotten used to a world without consequences, she was right about that, but it seemed his road would soon run out of track. "But I want to. More than anything, I want to." He lets her talk, giving her suggestions the air they need to be fully considered. Initially the clarification is one he can't make, his brow furrowing as he tries to parse what's been said for what she really means. But all becomes clear as she continues, the guilt inside him emulsifying with the intense affection he felt for her, making him unsure if he wanted to run to her or from her. Exactly what she was getting at. "Lonely. I have such a deep, pathetic fear of things going wrong that I make them go wrong before they have a chance to go right." He sighs and it's a shuddering sigh, this whole conversation feeling like a purge. "It's like I'd rather live with a known pain than put up with the uncertainty of a possible future pleasure."

[lily mccarthy]

It's terrifying, the urge to reach out. Slide her hand across the table, knowing he'd tangle his touch with hers in a heartbeat. Lily often felt guided by physical proximity, comfortable stepping into the space of others, warming to tight hugs or congratulatory grips on her shoulder. Finding it difficult to override the natural affection that still lingered, trying to ground herself in facts. He'd made his choice. He'd hurt her, even if so few in the world knew it to be true. She huffed out a laugh, suddenly; in breaking the heart of thousands of fans, shattering an illusion, he'd taken hers right along with it. "I'm hesitant to believe you. That you want to stop." she chooses to say next. Nothing outright, I don't trust you, but honest all the same. This whole conversation felt raw, misplaced in the familiarity as she winces at the hot coffee in her mouth. Forgetting she'd had it refilled, mind clearly taking up space elsewhere. Her fingers holding the heat as she sets it back down."Did you think we were destined to fail, then?" Lily asks suddenly, dark eyes glancing back to his. "Setting this up so you could lose me, too?" And her brother by association, heart aching because she knew them. That friendship, the years together traversing fame they'd only dreamed about from an old leather couch in a sweltering garage. She'd have never guessed it would be like this now, eyes dropping before a new confession can slip from her lips. "I'm writing again. I don't know if you'll love it or hate it."

[isaac mcavoy]

This had been such a sacred place for them, and the tired old diner still held some reverence. Before it had provided a bubble from the rest of the world, easy to hide in one of the threadbare booths, heads ducked low and whispering conspiratorially over a shared vanilla milkshake. Now it let them both feel safe , provided a neutral ground for a difficult conversation neither party would want to be overheard. She laughs but it has none of the warmth that used to ring through, instead it's full of an exasperation he unfortunately knows just as intimately. "I don't blame you." The boy who'd cried wolf how many times now? He didn't entirely believe himself so it was hardly something he could blame her for. He picks up a napkin and twists it for something to do with his hands, threading it between his fingers as the taste of coffee turns ever more bitter on his tongue. He's utterly defeated. "I had hoped that we'd be different." But we weren't, is the lingering unspoken truth. Though that wasn't true, what they had had been different, completely distinct from anything he had ever experienced before-- unfortunately, he was still himself, and that had proved fatal. The topic of writing provides a respite from the rawness of his confessions. "Oh yeah? Why's that? Don't tell me you're Taylor Swifting me."

[lily mccarthy]

”I had hoped that we’d be different.” It’s a funny thing to say, Lily’s brows drawn together. When had it ever been anything but different? Falling over phone lines and state lines and drawn lines, orbits colliding the moment they’d locked eyes in that karaoke bar, mics in hand. Then her tour, then the fallout, then the moment in her house still so burned in her memory she’d flinch at just the thought. Everything, all of it, without so much as a ghost of a kiss. She wasn’t sure whether she should mourn what she never knew, or be grateful that she didn’t know what she could have had. "You never gave us the chance to be." Because it feels too late now. Watching the final page of a chapter slice through her skin like a paper cut. Scar visible in certain lights, if she looked for it. Or wrote about it, finger timidly tracing the edge of her mug. "Might be," Lily says softly, thinking of the war torn notebooks on her bedside. The things she’d ripped out and the words that had appeared on fresh pages. "You said it was nothing. Maybe I want to say it was something."