[Trigger Warning: an intense fight wherein Orion's attempt is brought up]

As soon as Jake opened the door, he looked pissed. It crushed me. Without saying a single word, he sidestepped, arm extended, signaling me to come in. Swallowing thickly I scurried in, jumping when he shut the door behind us.

I'm led into the main room. I like Jake's house, I always have; most everything has a black and white aesthetic, accented with wood and glass. He even has one of those cage chairs hanging from a chain, wooden, painted black. It's smart, it's classy, it's contemporary. It's very, very Jake.

Jacob sits on his white leather couch, the couch whose back faces the black marble fireplace. I sit across from him in the matching white armchair, a glass coffee table with black metal legs separating us. Resting on it is a decorative bowl filled with faux fruit. He had the entire thing commissioned by some high-falutin artist whose name I couldn't be bothered to learn.

Behind me rests a bookcase, white and filled to the brim with books. I know without looking most of them are books that I had either given to him, suggested to him, or slipped them in there when he wasn't looking. I once stashed a tentacle hentai movie (don't ask) on the upper shelf, and he didn't even notice it for months. Months.

I look at the TV situated above the fireplace. It's shut off, obviously. Seeing myself in the reflection does little more than make me even more nervous. So instead I look back at Jake.

His hands are splayed against each other, touching at the fingertips. I always thought a frown didn't suit him; this scowl didn't, either. Jake's elbows are on his knees and he's sort of hunched forward. Instead of being in a room with my best friend, I feel like I'm staring at a tiger whose cubs I just killed

I decide to try and start slow. "Um. H-how've you been?"

Jake doesn't reply, eyes alit with rage-filled, smoldering flames.

I clear my throat. "Er, s-sorry I missed your b-birthday."

"Not a big deal," he finally says curtly, narrowing his eyes. "I mean, it was only my last birthday as a twenty-something year old."

I wince, rubbing my sweaty palms against my legs. I can practically feel every second tick by.

"Well," Jake speaks through pursed lips. "You wanted to talk. So, talk."

"I didn't mean it," I say, and even though I've promised myself to not be so weepy, I can't help the wetness forming behind my eyes.

"You said that already," he tells me.

Well, that was rude. I take a deep breath. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

He laughs. He laughs. Crossing his arms, Jake leans back and glares at nothing off to the side for a moment. He then whips his head back to me, and when he speaks it's low and rattling. "Every single second I spend with you hurts."

My eyes go huge. "W-what?"

Jake leans forward, snarling at me. "For as long as I've known you, you've been nothing but trouble. Spracking off to teachers, getting arrested, knocking up your girlfriend--"

Goodbye, composure. Now I'm just as angry as he is, if not more. "Fuck you--"

"No!" Jake screams suddenly, leaping to his feet. "You do not get to say 'fuck you' to anyone! You are such a selfish little cunt!"

I laugh cruelly. "If I've been such a selfish little cunt this entire time, then why did you put up with me for so long?"

"I don't know. Insanity?" Jake begins pacing, and I watch him with venom in my eyes. "But I'm happy things turned out like they have. It's like the shade has been pulled off of my eyes."

"Yeah?" I droll. "And what do these shadeless eyes of yours see now when they look at me?"

"A snot-nosed, pathetic excuse for a human being that is so out of touch with reality it's sickening."

"Ah, I see you've taken a page from my book." I get to my own feet, and Jake stops pacing. "Digging in where you know will hurt most, eh?"

"No," Jake's voice rises again. "I'm just finally being honest with myself how I feel about you. And guess what, dickwad? I'm not the only one."

"Right," I laugh, choosing to not even acknowledge the last part that was obviously meant to make me feel paranoid, "because you're so Goddamn perfect yourself--"

"You used to be perfect!" he explodes at me. "That's the thing with you, Orion! You're so--so--beautifully fucked up, you're just this--this--this enigma that just kind of limps along, and you make everyone feel sorry for you."

The more he screams at me, the angrier I'm becoming.

Jake points at me and laughs a shaking laugh. "Oh, but that's your trick. Yes, Orion, that's your trick right there! You lure people in, get them to love you, then you sink your talons in and fuck them over!"

"Oh, so I'm a bird now--"

"Here I am screaming at you, and you're cracking jokes!"

"I'm not cracking anything," I scream back finally. "You said I had talons, like a bird."

"A harpy is more like it!"

"Classy, Larson, just keep hurling insults my way--"

We're now standing over the table, practically nose to nose if Jake were a little taller. "I'm trying to get you to feel just an ounce of what your little stunt made the rest of us feel!"

I laugh, but it's deadly. "'Little stunt'? 'Little stunt'? Did you honestly just refer to me trying to kill myself as a 'little stunt'?"

To my surprise, Jake pushes me. Hard. I stumble against the chair, catching myself. Jake is on me then, and I've barely righted myself before he starts pushing on my shoulder repeatedly, backing me up. "That's what it was, wasn't it? Life was getting too perfect for you, so you had to go and mess everything up?"

"I don't do that!" I gape.

"You flourish in chaos, so when things get too easy for you, you just gotta rile everything up, right? Shake it, mix it up?"

Now I push Jake back. "Fuck you!"

"You had a fucking perfect boyfriend!" Jake screams at me so loudly his voice cracks. "You're rich, and you're famous--"

"Right, because we all know how fame equates to happiness!"

He pushes me, hard, and now I'm against the bookshelf. "You had people who loved you! Fuck, Orion, I loved you!"

I don't say anything. I can't. Because even though I'm angry, Jake has started to cry. And it's ugly, and his face is bright red, and he's still screaming. He's still so angry.

"How many times have I held you while you were breaking, huh? How many times have you done something moronic and I helped you pick up the pieces?"

"I didn't ask you to do that in the first place!" I bellow at him.

Jake wipes his nose, and walks away. I follow him. "How many fucking times did I cover for you over the years? My parents bailed you out of jail once! When you showed up to interviews wasted, I made sure to do most of the talking because I didn't want the world to realize what a monumental fuck up you were!"

And just like that, all the anger rushes out of me. I let my head fall to my chest. "I deserve all that. You're right."

"No. No no no no."

We've re-situated to standing across from one another over the coffee table once more.

"You do not get to play the 'I'm such a fuck-up, woe is me' card. No, Orion, not this time."

"I'm just being honest--"

"Do you even know what that word means?" Jake runs his hands through his hair. "No, we're not talking about this. We're talking about how I have done so much for you--I got you into rehab with Gloria's help, everything I've done over the years for you--"

That's it. Without thinking, I grab one of the glass decorative fruits and wing it at the wall. It shatters. I'm surprised when it just makes Jake laugh.

"Oh, so now we've reached the temper-tantrum phase. Lovely."

"Yup," I say calmly, but then I pick up another fruit, toss it once, and then throw it against the wall, too. "C'mon, keep going, Jake. Please, continue to tell me what you really think about me. I can't wait to hear all the resentment you've been clinging to all these decades."

"You wanna destroy shit?" Jake upends the entire glass table and it shatters. "Well, c'mon, let's destroy shit, Orion!"

"I'm done here," I tell Jake with a glare. But instead he grabs my wrist. I flail out of his grasp and glare.

"Don't touch me."

"Yeah?" He grabs me again.

"Back off, dude. I'm serious."

"Or what? You gonna hit me?" He shoves me.

"Knock it off," I snarl at him.

"You know what? I'm glad you tried to kill yourself. Because now I see what a fuck you really are, I'm not just blinded by the man I lost my virginity to and fell stupidly in love with--"

That's it. I sucker punch him in the face. But instead of going down, he hits me right back. And then we're wrestling, and I'm trying really hard not to slip or trip because there's fucking glass everywhere, and if we go down we'll get all cut up. Then he pushes me off, but I have tunnel vision and I'm not even aware of where I'm situated in the room. Jake, even though he pushed me away, comes right back and grabs a hold of my shirt.

"You used me that night!" He's centimeters away from my face. Before I can get him off me, he shoves me away again. "I was drunk, and then you wouldn't return my phone calls, and when you finally did you weren't interested in actually talking to me, and then the next thing I know I'm getting a hysterical call from Simon from jail that you were dead!"

I blink.

"Not, 'Orion's been rushed to the hospital'. Not, 'something happened'. He told me you were fucking dead!"

Jake is by the bookcase, and I'm somehow across the room from him. He takes a thicker book with a hardcover from the shelf and throws it at me as he screams. "Do you know what that was like for me?"

I can't move in time. The book hits me squarely in the face. There's a sickening crack, and then everything goes black.