Work Text:
Your name is John Egbert, and you’re happy. Really, really happy. What is there to be unhappy about? You survived the… your childhood. You have the most awesome friends in the entire world. You’re rooming with your best bro and it’s been going great. You think you finally know what you want to do with your life. And to top it all off, you think you might have found the greatest girl ever to share your life with. Everything is perfect.
Or well… it was. But now the girl of your dreams has told you that your best bro is in love with you, and instead of denying it, he kicked you out of your room. And it’s not right. That’s not the way this is supposed to go. You know what your life is supposed to be, and this isn’t it. You graduated high school with honors, you’re going to school with your friends. You’re going to graduate college now with a degree in meteorology, and maybe be a weather forecaster or something. Like Nic Cage in The Weather Man. You think that would be cool. And when you leave work you’ll go home to your suburban house and your loving wife and daughter. You’ll have dinner with your family and watch the next awesome Nic Cage movie and then maybe chat online with your best buds for a while before going to bed with your amazing wife and everything will be perfect forever.
And you think, maybe, if you just push through it and keep on smiling… maybe you can make it happen.
Right now, though, you’re not smiling. You’re pretty sure you’re crying, actually, and you don’t think you can handle facing anyone like this. When you grabbed your bag you thought you might head to Lisa’s place, hang out with her for a bit and wait for you and Dave both to settle down. Then, when you went back tomorrow, everything would just go back to normal. You’re not so sure that’s going to happen now. Dave seemed pretty upset… like, kind of angry actually, and you don’t really think you did anything wrong, but you’re not sure he’s going to forgive you anyway. So yeah, you’re going to need a little time to get your smile back.
Instead of heading straight for Lisa’s, you turn the other way and walk the path around the lake toward Picnic Point. The breeze coming in over the water is soothing, and you can’t do the windy thing anymore, but sometimes you think you can still draw the air in and wrap it around you like some ethereal hug. You sit on the shore and immerse yourself in the almost-embrace until the sun has nearly set. Then you shoulder your bag and turn around, heading back with a smile on your face. Everything is perfect. No one needs to know that there’s still a pain in your heart. Least of all you.