defectivejunk

I went with Brian to lunch. Actually, I had to talk him into going. Over a period of several weeks. He didn't like going out among people, but he especially hated going somewhere with another guy. He was afraid everyone would think they (or we) were a couple. Most of the time, he wouldn't even go by himself to lunch. In fact, he didn't even like to eat in the company lunch room, because he would have to figure out where to sit. Most days he would have probably ended up eating alone. I would have too, because he would never sit with me. And I didn't like anybody else. So I went out to lunch most of the time. What did he do? Usually, he ate in his car.

"I don't think this is such a good idea. We might get caught." He kept looking nervously over his shoulder at the door, waiting for someone to notice our lurid combo orders.

"Caught doing what? Eating lunch?"

"You know what I mean. Caught ... together."

"It's not like you walked in and pulled your cock out, we're eatin and"

"DUDE. SERIOUSLY. SHUT UP! Good god, you're going to get us beat up!"

"Nobody gives a shit. Really. You've got to let it go already."

"Me let it go? ME let it go? Talk about the obsessive compulsive pot calling the kettle black. You're the one obsessing about my suicide."

"...What the fuck did you just say?"

"You know you are. You think you could have stopped it. Everyone knows you tried as hard as you could. Even taking me out to lunch here. Of course, that backfired pretty badly. And that's what you're thinking about now. You blame yourself for it all. Even for what happened here. But the point is, you tried as hard as you could. Nobody blames you."

"This is impossible. I can't believe what I'm hearing. You can't have said this. Leave me alone already. This didn't happen. It didn't..."

"It's up to you to let me leave you alone. I'm gone. You're the one bothering yourself. And you're doing that thing you hate where a writer has a big conversation between two characters and doesn't delineate which one said what. It gets confusing.", Brian said.

Brian continued, "Even worse when you have the same character talking twice in a row. But anyway, that's not the point. The point is, here you are revising a bad event just to make it worse. Just to make it harder on yourself. You always do that. Things are bad enough for you. You don't need to make everything worse. You're just one person. You can't fix everything. You can't be everywhere and everyone. After all, no one but yourself expects you to be perfect. You're the only one that finds it shameful to be human.

Hell, that's what you were trying to teach me, wasn't it? You know it yourself, but you just can't live with it. If you just had the willpower to do what you know is right instead of being afraid of being weak, your life would be a whole lot better.

But first things first; you have to stop thinking about me. I'm not coming back. After all, you're not even sure why I did what I did. You have an idea that you think is right, but there's no way to know for sure.

But you have to stop this. You have to snap out of it. I know deep down you're worried the same thing is going to happen to you. After all, you don't have a you around to listen. Even if you did, you have proof it won't help you.

Anyway. Snap out of it. Take some action, instead of being afraid all the time. Like I was. Like I am right now. I lost my chance, but you have yours. Don't let it slip away from you. Snap out of it!"

Just then, our food showed up. I opened my burger, just to make sure. They put pickles on it! That would not stand. I went back up to the counter. Brian nervously looked around to see if anyone saw me get up. Then he got self-conscious about being so self-conscious, and realized he was staring at me.

So he started staring at some random girl.