I don’t think I can get drunk tonight, either.
The hot wine warmed up my body, but it didn’t get all the way to my core. None of the glasses after that made me feel any better. All I was getting out of this was nausea. Toying with my fifth glass, I was reaching for the wine list and thinking about ordering another bottle, but then I stopped.
This four-seat table was too big. No matter what bottle I ordered, no matter how many glasses I lined up, even if I called someone over—nothing would be able to fill up the empty space.
With nothing else to do, I tried opening the book I’d been reading, but I didn’t make even a page of progress, my bookmark stopped on the same spot. I’d reread this one so many times, and even though I knew how the story ended, I’ve always sought for what lay beyond the printed The End, the real conclusion. It was never over.
The single, correct conclusion, with no lies or deception. Even if I couldn’t attain it myself, I wouldn’t mind if someone else were to prove it really existed.
While my mind was busy, I drained the glass and stared at the opposite seat through its distorted lens. There was nobody there. All I saw was the pretty but unpleasant-seeming woman in the reflection. She was smirking at herself.
Suddenly, another figure appeared in that glass, startling me. The girl who had left before was there. She must have run over, as her shoulders were heaving.
“Did you forget something?” I asked, handing her a blanket and offering her a seat, and she took her old spot.
I leaned my chin on my hand, eyeing her. So what are you here for? She squeezed the blanket over her lap and her skirt together, appearing troubled. “Um…I really think what you just said wasn’t right… That codependency thing.”
Well, that was sudden. Was this what she’d come back to say? I started to think, then understood. I see—so she came today to protect him from me. If she were motivated by possessiveness, that would be charming, but I got the feeling this was closer to protectiveness.
Honestly, I would have liked to commend her for such admirable behavior, but when someone challenges me directly, I have to fight back. I’m not going to blame genetics, but I’ve inherited all the worst parts of my mother.
The truth is, I don’t like saying these things. It’s a hassle, I don’t have that much free time, I don’t find it interesting, and I’m not exactly eager to invite hatred from kids I’m partial to.
But I’d feel even worse to leave a mistake I might be able to correct.
Knowing it would make me feel bad, I poured the rest of the bottle into the glass.
✦ ✦ ✦
A red wave, dark like blood, sprayed up in the glass with rolling, fizzing bubbles. It was like my heart, still pounding after I’d run back from the station.
“That’s what it looks like to me,” she said. “…The relationship between you three.”
I’d never heard of the word codependency. I don’t even know exactly what it means. I don’t understand difficult things—because I pretend not to. Well, sometimes. Sometimes I really don’t understand at all.
But this wasn’t one of those times, and I realized that fast. This was very straightforward.
“You mean me, too…?” I thought my heart had finally settled, but now it was racing again. I didn’t ask for it, and I didn’t want it, but it was rushing anyway. I came to the answer quickly.
Then she smiled…and it was very sad. “Hikigaya is dependent on you, you know. You’re happy about that, and it makes you want to do anything for him… The truth is, yours is the worst case.”
“………You’re wrong. That’s not—” My lips trembled, and my voice wouldn’t come out right. I shook my head a bunch of times. No, no, no. That can’t be how it is.
“You have to be the most grown-up. You know what those two are like.”
She said something in a gentle tone, but I couldn’t hear it anymore.
“That’s just…what you do, though. Helping, I mean. If they’re struggling, I want to support them, and I always want us to be together, so…it’s not that.” I think it might have been the first time I’ve been truly angry, the first time I sincerely glared at someone. The air caught inside me spilled out on its own, and my throat went dry. Wiping my face with my sleeve, I stared straight ahead.
She watched me with a mature expression, but then she suddenly closed her eyes. And then, she muttered in a small, soft voice, “Hey…can you call that something real?” It was like a prayer, a question to some unseen god.
“I…don’t know.” I’d been thinking this whole time. What is something real? But I really had no idea, so I couldn’t help but get quieter as I answered. My vision was blurring from tears, and my face dropped. “…But it’s not codependency.”
When I lifted my chin, her face looked just like hers, her head tilted, like Why? I felt a sharp stab in my heart, and when I clenched a fist over it, the tears came out on their own. I’d thought they were all gone.
I know. This is what I understand. Just this. This is why I can believe in my feelings.
“Because it hurts so much…”
It’s not just my chest. Not just my heart. Everything hurts. Everything.
—All of me is crying out that I love them. So much that it hurts.