Reconciliation, Part One.

Why… Why does it always end this way?!

It's not like I haven't tried to do anything about it, it's not like I haven't done the best I could!

And yet it's always my fault that they pity me and they try to help and I hurt them more, and more, and more!

Why is it that nothing I do can change the outcome?!

Am I really just that useless…?

I can't think of anything else.

I don't know anymore, what to do, what to say, how I can just move on and keep going and pretend everything is fine when I've just ruined three people's lives!

I should help them, I should go and try to help them the best I can… They're the only ones who've been by my side, the only ones who've cared about me, and I don’t want to lose them…

How do you explain such insane bad luck again and again affecting everyone in my surroundings?

If only it could all play out like in that book I was reading, a more competent version of me would just come and methodically figure out the root of the issue instead of… evading it all.

My sin was not wanting to do anything. Ignoring the issue until it went away–but it never works like that. And even worse, I took the same approach three whole times.

Only a crazy man does the same thing again and again and expects a different result.

Logic dictates that the statement above is always true.

Therefore, re-examining my past actions…

“Dwelling on it won't do you any good at this stage, James. Please stop repeating the exact same mistake over and over again!”

That's the point, that's what I'm trying and failing to do!

If I'd just been a little more prudent in that warehouse…

Goodbye, and see you tomorrow at school.

I can vividly imagine Claudia saying that. She'd have been able to say goodbye to her grandmother… Her family could have mourned together, but now she's in a coma, now she's as good as dead…!

“It's okay, James. She'll be fine, she'll surely wake up soon. Don't believe me? Just pay her a visit instead of crying in a corner.”

What do you know…? You weren't there when the doctor said she wouldn't wake up that easily…

And even if she did, she'll just wake up to the news that her grandma passed away while she was in that hospital!

And it's my fault, if I hadn't been there she wouldn't have gone through all of this…!

“If you hadn't been there, she'd probably have been much worse off than she is. Stop whining about it, you little bitch.”

It's not even just Claudia, and you know that!

If I'd done what her brother had told me, and I'd been paying more attention…

Bye! And thanks for everything!

That's how it would have ended…

But realistically, I couldn't have expected myself to take care of her as I should have. I just let myself be carried away, stopped thinking about it, stopped worrying.

Oliver… He'd been the same.

No, in a way, it had been monumentally worse.

Once again, he'd saved me–he'd rescued me from my lowest point in all of my life. And yet immediately after that I proceeded to ask more of him, to keep pushing him to do for me what I couldn't do for myself.

I’d be lying if I said the thought that I was intruding hadn’t crossed my mind. It most certainly had. And yet, I did choose to not act on it, to convince myself that I was worried without ever doing anything to help…

Of course, I knew what the problems were. I also knew he wanted me to stay away from it all.

So that’s what I did.

It was only fair, right? I think anyone would understand, really.

All of these circumstances were completely out of my control, I couldn’t do anything.

As if—as if a scorpion had gone and stung me in my feet

Again and again. Poisonous.

And yet, it’s screaming, it’s crying for me to not kill it.

It keeps hurting me, the pain makes me want to die, and yet, it doesn’t feel like it’s poisoning me on purpose. As if it’s an instinctive reaction, something it can’t help but do, even though it regrets it…

…

That’s just me.

I’m the scorpion.

If only I hadn’t acted like that nasty scorpion, maybe things would have worked out the way I thought they would have.

Those strange patterns, those behaviors that capture one as if it was a ghost or some kind of supernatural existence… They were also like that, too.

Claudia, having difficulty to externalize her feelings and letting them all bottle up. Completely blind to herself.

Emma, who refused to let anyone see her as she was, who just wanted to be normal even though not letting people help her ended up hurting her a lot more than she deserved. An enormous coward.

Oliver, who chose to ignore his own pain completely to try and delude himself into thinking it wasn’t there. Whose desire to remain painless only ever ended up hurting him more and more.

And then me… I guess I’m all three. I’m the butterfly who didn’t want to see. The crocodile who didn’t want to speak. The porcupine who didn’t want to feel. The raven who didn’t want to accept reality, the scorpion who couldn’t help but keep stinging everyone in its surroundings, even thought it knew it would kill them all.

I can’t just move on before I’ve learnt not to make the same mistakes again, I can’t let this happen again or it will have been for nothing!

One more round, I need to reexamine my actions one more time, and again and again until I figure out all of my mistakes, where and why I went wrong and how not to repeat it anymore. That’s the ‘truth’ I’m looking for, the one behind all those supernatural entities that don’t exist…

Until I find it, until I put those doubts to rest, those what if’s, those ghosts that won’t let me go—until then, I can’t just go on with my life as if nothing ever happened…

“What truth, what supernatural beings, what the fuck are you going on about?! Are you really going to repeat the exact same bullshit all over again?!”

…

“Was all that not enough for you? Do you really need yet another repeat, yet another useless escapist fantasy to justify being stuck in the past forever?”

“No, I…”

“So what will it be next time? Have you already decided on your next farce? I suppose it would be easy, it’s really just another few weeks of isolation under the guise of self-reflection. You don’t even need a valid excuse by this point.”

“… How long has it been?”

“I don’t know. I stopped counting a very long time ago, but probably around three months.”

“I know it’s useless. I know I’ve been acting like an idiot, I know I’ve been running like a coward, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know…”

Just.

Please.

I need some time.

I know it’s selfish to ask for it now, but I won’t use that as an excuse to not do it.

I need to think, I need to come to terms with all this.

I won’t try to hide again, I promise. I won’t isolate myself.

I won’t run away anymore.

“… For once, I… don’t think you’re lying.”

I’m not lying this time.

“Yeah, I’m not lying this time.”