Better to Have Loved and Lost

[Pippi]

Today was June 8th.

At least, that was what the date at the top of Stepney’s phone said. In truth, he’d kinda lost track of time on the trip. Life, as they say, had been good. He’d spent the past seven days eating, playing cards with anyone interested, fleecing tourists of their hard-earned money, and getting banned from the pool after he jumped in there fully clothed. It was almost a shame, there were so many dares he’d had in mind for that, but it had been totally worth it in the end. The ten dollar note in his wallet said so.

But now he was sitting on the edge of a fountain, the very same fountain that a certain pair of misfortunate lovebirds had found themselves paddling in a few days ago, gazing blankly at his phone, and feeling like his heart was about to tear itself out of its chest. It wasn’t born from the same intense excitement and adrenaline of his most daredevil stunts, it was from somewhere else, somewhere different. Somewhere unfamiliar.

He wasn’t nervous. Stepney Cruz didn’t get nervous. There were no butterflies in his stomach, no red flush in his face. It was just hot out, that was all. That was the only reason he might not be acting himself. Suggesting otherwise was just crazy talk. Yeah.

Crazy.

He took a deep deep breath, chewing on his lower lip and staring at his screen for what felt like a full minute. He had the Messenger app open, but there was only one word written in the text box currently.

Hey

Even that didn’t feel right, somehow. But ‘hello’ was too formal, ‘hi’ was too peppy, and ‘yo wassup motherfucker’ didn’t really fit the tone of the message he intended to send at all. Stepney made a low noise of frustration, and tapped his thumb just above the touchscreen. All these years of patter and wisecracking, and it had all suddenly abandoned him when he needed it most. Typical.

He took a glance at the name at the top of the screen, at Ming Robinson’s name, and his heart did the funny little lurching thing it had started to do whenever he looked at it or whenever he talked to her. It had never supposed to turn out this way, of course. They’d met regularly after they bumped into each other at the record store, and he’d asked her to prom as a casual, friendly thing, and she’d said yes, and he’d worn his kinda dumb, kinda tacky, dollar-bill suit, and even then he’d wondered whether he should have worn something else as he stood outside her front door, but she’d laughed, and it had all been okay, and they’d had a real awesome time.

But it wasn’t supposed to be anything more than that.

She was… lovely, really. She was kind and sweet and smart, and had an aura around her that just made Stepney feel happier. Less prone to snark. She was the perfect counterbalance of calm to his trickster, jokester, and, let’s face it, pretty damn chaotic nature. Too good for him, really. Would she wanna be with somebody who took your money without a second thought, and who’d set fire to their hand if it got them another ten bucks?

He didn’t put his phone away.

It wasn’t really his style either, y’know? Didn’t fit his image, wasn’t what you thought of when you thought Stepney, right? Yeah, something like that. He had an image to maintain, people saw him a certain way, and he was totally happy with that. And, besides, he didn’t even know what she looked like. That was insane, right? To want to date somebody whose face you wouldn’t even be able to recognise? Yeah. Insane. Totally insane.

He still didn’t put his phone away.

He’d gone through these thoughts over and over and over again, trying to prove to himself there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell anything’d work out, and each time they’d gotten less and less convincing. As soon as he’d realised what had happened – as Abel would probably put it, that Stepney had ‘caught some feelings’ – he’d tried to put it off and put it off further, knowing that graduation was a handful of weeks away, and they’d all go their separate ways, and he could put it all behind him and pretend it had never happened.

But here he was, sitting by the side of a fountain, staring down at his phone, the word ‘Hey’ burned into his brain.

What would be the point in pretending? Why was he so scared of admitting he’d fallen for somebody? Yeah, he could probably wait the next few days until they’d graduated without saying anything to Ming. Sure would be worth all the regret that would be certain to follow. Maybe he just needed to look at it another way. If Ming did say no, then he could just avoid her until they graduated, and he’d only have to suffer mind-boggling awkwardness for a few days at best until he left the country and became a fisherman off the coast of Iceland, or something.

Wow, that helped, exactly as much as he thought it would! He grit his teeth, and made another frustrated sound.

C’mon. If he could jump off a balcony into a pool, he could send a goddamn text.

Stepney glared at his phone, squeezing it in his hands, and for a moment, he was tempted to stand up and hurl it as far as he could, like he was a businessman who’d just realised the true meaning of family. Then he took a deep breath, and started typing, hitting enter to send each message before he could stop to reconsider them.

Hey Ming
Whats up?
still sucks you couldn’t make the trip but i got u a couple souvenirs n stuff
Yea I know, Stepney Cruz parting withhis hard earned money, the worlds gone mad
lol
i guess I’ve just been thinkin about you a lot
It feels weird, not seeing you for a week now, and not being able to hang out with u
I was wondering whether you wanted to like, hang out more when I got back an keep in touch when we both graduated
I think I like you a lot
And stuff
Sorry, no jokes here
serious Stepney time

And breathe. Was that good? Did it matter whether it was good or not? It didn’t matter whether it mattered anyway, at this point. He’d sent them all flying towards Ming now, and there was no stopping them. He stared at his screen for another few seconds, waiting to see whether she’d reply immediately, but nothing came. He guessed she was just busy. He closed the screen.

Then he started laughing, and he looked up at the sky, grinning like a madman as the clouds sailed overhead. There we go. That hadn’t been so hard now, had it?

Well, actually, yeah it had. But he was glad, no matter what happened, that he’d done it. Sometimes you just needed to go and do something stupid, and sometimes, everything would work out wonderfully when you did.

He felt like doing something else stupid. It was that sorta mood, now.

Stepney raised his phone up, taking a quick photo of himself, then placed it face up on the ground, next to his wallet and room card, still grinning. He wasn’t getting any money off of this, but, eh, whatcha gonna do. Maybe he’d find a quarter at the bottom of the fountain.

He held his nose, and tipped backwards with a loud splash, and when he resurfaced, Stepney was still smiling, and the sky above was glorious, and he had something to look forwards to.

Not the trudge back to the hotel in soaked through clothes, though. That was gonna suck.

((Stepney Cruz, continued elsewhere))