Cookies and Guilt
~by~ Shiva’s avatar

[Mark’s POV]

I was tempted to just spit out the stupid cookie, but then I realized I’d just have to clean it up. Can’t anything ever go right? Seriously, does every situation I enter have to be lose/lose?

I just wanted the damn thing gone … Had I been thinking, I would’ve just thrown the whole batch out without even trying one. I really should have known it was ganna’ taste this bad. It’s what happens when your cookie has more guilt in it then chocolate chips …

I heave a sigh after I finally manage to choke the stupid thing down, and throw the rest of the bag into the nearby trash can. It dawns on me that I could have just spit out the cookie in the wastebasket, thus solving all my bake good woes with a limited amount of personal misery. Fuck. Whatever though, story of my life … have an easy answer right in front of my face, and blatantly miss it to suffer through things the hard way.

Sighing again, I toss the still full glass of milk I’d just poured into the sink, and almost feel bad when I turn back around and see the blue cellophane the cookies were wrapped in peeking out of the garbage can. Steve probably worked really hard on them …Scratch that … I was sure he worked really hard on them. He always was the most dedicated of us when we used to bake with his mom … my stomach flutters a little and I consider pulling the cookies out of the trash and eating them anyway.

Then I remember that they were pity cookies made with guilt, with not nearly enough chocolate, and growling I stalk out of the room.

Who did he think he was anyway?! Where did he get off trying to cheer me up?! Did he really think his stupid bake good bribe was going to make me forgive him? Well it wasn’t! This was all his fault anyway …

When I asked if he wanted to fuck, he sure as hell didn’t say no! He was the one always staring at my ass! I mean seriously, when someone acts like that, what are you supposed to think? … When they let you hug them. When they hug you. When they won’t screw your drunken ass because they know, despite being completely plastered themselves, that it’s hurting you. When they stare at you with endless brown eyes always filled sympathy and empathy. When no matter how awkward they feel around you, they keep trying to cheer you up, just because they know you’re down …

Fuck. Maybe the cookies really didn’t taste that bad … maybe it was all in my head. Despite myself I want another one, and consider pulling them out of the trash. I’m not that desperate though … well, not yet anyway, so I settle for stomping up the stairs. Still almost feeling guilty for tossing Steve’s cookies.

Whatever though, this is all his fault.

Black socks on white carpet, three more steps and I’d get back to the sanctuary of my room. I try to wonder if that would make good song lyrics … I try and wonder if Alex would like them. Leaning against a russet wall, a picture of my grandmother scowling over my shoulder, proving that the dead can still show displeasure at their living relations, I try to think of anything and everything … anything other then Steve, and everything but how I miss him. Avoiding the portraits pitiless green eyes, I walk down the hall and lean against the third door on the left. His room … my brother’s room.

I don’t open the door though; just rest my head against it, knowing that it’s not going to look like it’s supposed too. His bed had been dragged down to the basement, most of his posters taken with him when he left. Everything else that was in there to remind me of him, Mom made sure to throw out. She even rented a dumpster for a day just to, as she put it, “clear out all the crap”. There’s new carpet in there now, complete with a desk, some bookcases and an exercise bike … daddy dears brand new home office.

I wish he was here …my big brother … he’d be able to tell me what to do. Or at least he’d be able to make me smile. No matter how much mom and dad fought, no matter how bad they treated him, no matter how alone I felt, he always went out of his way to make sure I never stayed feeling down …

People used to wonder how I could be so happy … but with a brother like him, how could I have been any other way?

My stomach lets out a light growl, and I try to remember how long it’s been since I last ate. The only thing coming to mind is that damn cookie … which for some reason I recall as having tasted a lot better then I know it did.

Apparently my body wants to betray me, because it’s all but craving another chocolate confection … I almost feel bad for throwing them out …

Wait! No I don’t! This … this depression … this hurt … it’s all his fault.

Figuring ansting isn’t going to make me feel any better; I pull my head off the wooden door and march into my room. I pull out my CD player from a desk drawer, and with a quick twist of a dial have it blaring in my ears. Maybe if I flood my head with noise, it’ll stop being so stupid …

I consider, for a whole minute, doing some homework … but my bed is sending out nap waves just way to powerful for me to resist. I jump on the bed; let myself bounce a time or two, and then grapple a pillow, burying my face into it. It still smells vaguely of whatever coconut concoction Steve uses in his hair … it’s been weeks, I know, since that night … but I won’t let my mom wash this pillowcase. I know the scent is getting fainter, and it would probably seem really stalkerish to anyone else … but I just don’t want to let go of that night. That was the closest I was ever going to get to the boy I loved …

Crap … if I thought of him anymore, I was ganna cry again and I’ve been doing that way too much lately. So I clenched my eyes closed and tried to concentrate on the music roaring in my ears, and for a little while I was able to stop thinking … at least until my stomach rumbled again.

Because then I really wanted another cookie … even if they were just pity cookies.

More then that though, I wanted my friend back … and I felt horrible for tossing his hard work away. I threw out his cookies the same way I’d tossed out our friendship …

Because after all it was all my fault … I was the one who got him drunk … was the one who wasn’t happy with things as they were … am the one still ruining every good thing he gives me …

Great … and now I’m crying again.

And all I really want right now is Steve …

… because I really need a hug.

***
Author’s notes-

Disclaimer ~ All characters blatantly stolen from Tab Kimpton’s web-comic “Khaos Komic” … and this drabble is based completely on their work. In short? I claim nothing other then cookie motif.