To my Sweet Potato: Episode 2
Aug. 4th, 2024 09:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_cute_batataI guess before any of this can make sense, if any of it does, I ought to tell you about her.
This is Aubrey. I met her several months ago, before you got here. At the time, I guess you could say I was minding my own business, still helping to fight in Somnius, figuring out the things I wanted to do to get stronger. One of those times we have one of these crazy situations, and I come across this frantic girl, still getting her bearings, and you know me. I go to help.
Aubrey. Man. I sometimes don't know if I have enough words to describe the kind of person that she is. She was fierce. She was confused. She was trying to piece together things about this place, about herself and her friend Sunny, figuring out her place here. I reached out to help, like I normally do and...at one point, she spurned me away, and I stubbornly refused to go.
Stupid, right? If someone wants you to leave, you should go, especially if they're insulting you. Which she was. But at the time, I remember feeling like if I did it, I'd be confirming to her how weak the bonds she made here would be, that she was right to push things away. I didn't want that, so I stubbornly stayed and wore her out. I wanted her to know I'd be there for her, that I'd lend a hand if she needed me.
It seemed like a chance meeting, but. I think I started to feel something then.
I didn't know what to call it at the time. I've been strangely stupid about stuff like that. I could see it in other people, but definitely not in myself. When I saw her, when I helped her, I started to see if I ever liked anyone again after you, if I couldn't ever see you here...that I could fall for someone like her.
And that was the dumb thing. "Like" her. There's no one I met like Aubrey. She comes at you like an angry storm, then calms and suddenly the sea is at rest, and the tempest is gone. You see in this person the things that made you remember why could like anyone.
You see brilliance. You see reserved affection. You see a hardened shell that was made over time, that the person you are makes to protect those closest to you.
And then you arrived, and I panicked. I couldn't like her when you were here, obviously! I must have been mistaken, I thought. Now that you were here, I was in a good place, and the idea of being with anyone else was just a passing thing.
But I never stopped hanging out with Aubrey when I had the chance. If she were near me, we went on an adventure. If she was having a time, I'd come by and try to help her. A few times, she even saved me. She was a friend, but closer than I had ever expected her to be.
She has a boyfriend. Two, actually. I know them. One of them has his own secrets, but I can see in his eyes that he loved her deeply. It's an intense love that I think he shows her and the people he cares most about. The other boy, he has secrets. He's from Aubrey's world. He's a friend (they both are), and there's still so much about him I want to help, but no one knows him better than Aubrey.
What they have, what she and the other boy have, I respect. They care about her in ways that only they can, and talk to her as only they could.
So where do I fit in there?
Sometimes I doubt it, I doubt ME. I look in Aubrey's eyes and get lost sometimes. I flail. And somehow, she's seen through me when I do that. She realized my feelings, me REAL feelings, before I did. When I figured it out myself, I panicked a little. I made mistakes, I wondered if I replaced you in those months we weren't together with some fantasy.
I wasn't being honest to myself in that moment. I was thinking of things in the way of being faithful, as if you meant less somehow, and for a moment, I hated me. I hated knowing I could hurt you, because I was somehow being selfish and greedy.
That's the thing about love though. It will take you to places you never thought you'd go, make you understand things you never thought possible. You find that thing that you would never have agreed to before, it's something you now see so many sides to, that has its own beauty that you overlooked.
Aubrey is like that. I see her bravery, her faults, things she's still figuring out, and I love those things. They make her HER, unflinching, strong. Sweet.
Precious.
I write this part, and I know it will hurt, because you think I'm comparing her to you. But the truth is nothing about you dimmed because I realized I love Aubrey. I wouldn't know love like that if I never met you. I couldn't come to terms with my feelings, then go seek out help if you hadn't first taken your hand and held mine, been there for me at my darkest hours, turned on the light for me.
I love two people. You were the one who made love like that possible, and I'll never forget it. It's why I'm writing his now, so you can understand what I'm feeling. I don't know if you'll want to be with this person that is me after this: I have no way of knowing that now.
But I wrote this for you, to understand. I wrote this for me, so I could concretely recall what made me chose this path.
And I wrote this for her, because she inspired me to do so.
This is Aubrey. I met her several months ago, before you got here. At the time, I guess you could say I was minding my own business, still helping to fight in Somnius, figuring out the things I wanted to do to get stronger. One of those times we have one of these crazy situations, and I come across this frantic girl, still getting her bearings, and you know me. I go to help.
Aubrey. Man. I sometimes don't know if I have enough words to describe the kind of person that she is. She was fierce. She was confused. She was trying to piece together things about this place, about herself and her friend Sunny, figuring out her place here. I reached out to help, like I normally do and...at one point, she spurned me away, and I stubbornly refused to go.
Stupid, right? If someone wants you to leave, you should go, especially if they're insulting you. Which she was. But at the time, I remember feeling like if I did it, I'd be confirming to her how weak the bonds she made here would be, that she was right to push things away. I didn't want that, so I stubbornly stayed and wore her out. I wanted her to know I'd be there for her, that I'd lend a hand if she needed me.
It seemed like a chance meeting, but. I think I started to feel something then.
I didn't know what to call it at the time. I've been strangely stupid about stuff like that. I could see it in other people, but definitely not in myself. When I saw her, when I helped her, I started to see if I ever liked anyone again after you, if I couldn't ever see you here...that I could fall for someone like her.
And that was the dumb thing. "Like" her. There's no one I met like Aubrey. She comes at you like an angry storm, then calms and suddenly the sea is at rest, and the tempest is gone. You see in this person the things that made you remember why could like anyone.
You see brilliance. You see reserved affection. You see a hardened shell that was made over time, that the person you are makes to protect those closest to you.
And then you arrived, and I panicked. I couldn't like her when you were here, obviously! I must have been mistaken, I thought. Now that you were here, I was in a good place, and the idea of being with anyone else was just a passing thing.
But I never stopped hanging out with Aubrey when I had the chance. If she were near me, we went on an adventure. If she was having a time, I'd come by and try to help her. A few times, she even saved me. She was a friend, but closer than I had ever expected her to be.
She has a boyfriend. Two, actually. I know them. One of them has his own secrets, but I can see in his eyes that he loved her deeply. It's an intense love that I think he shows her and the people he cares most about. The other boy, he has secrets. He's from Aubrey's world. He's a friend (they both are), and there's still so much about him I want to help, but no one knows him better than Aubrey.
What they have, what she and the other boy have, I respect. They care about her in ways that only they can, and talk to her as only they could.
So where do I fit in there?
Sometimes I doubt it, I doubt ME. I look in Aubrey's eyes and get lost sometimes. I flail. And somehow, she's seen through me when I do that. She realized my feelings, me REAL feelings, before I did. When I figured it out myself, I panicked a little. I made mistakes, I wondered if I replaced you in those months we weren't together with some fantasy.
I wasn't being honest to myself in that moment. I was thinking of things in the way of being faithful, as if you meant less somehow, and for a moment, I hated me. I hated knowing I could hurt you, because I was somehow being selfish and greedy.
That's the thing about love though. It will take you to places you never thought you'd go, make you understand things you never thought possible. You find that thing that you would never have agreed to before, it's something you now see so many sides to, that has its own beauty that you overlooked.
Aubrey is like that. I see her bravery, her faults, things she's still figuring out, and I love those things. They make her HER, unflinching, strong. Sweet.
Precious.
I write this part, and I know it will hurt, because you think I'm comparing her to you. But the truth is nothing about you dimmed because I realized I love Aubrey. I wouldn't know love like that if I never met you. I couldn't come to terms with my feelings, then go seek out help if you hadn't first taken your hand and held mine, been there for me at my darkest hours, turned on the light for me.
I love two people. You were the one who made love like that possible, and I'll never forget it. It's why I'm writing his now, so you can understand what I'm feeling. I don't know if you'll want to be with this person that is me after this: I have no way of knowing that now.
But I wrote this for you, to understand. I wrote this for me, so I could concretely recall what made me chose this path.
And I wrote this for her, because she inspired me to do so.
