thenewnormal | Duplicity Messages

Uh. Yeah? What's up? You doing okay after that mess at the beach?

It's not about that.

Hayley Marshall. What does she know about me?

Hayley? She knows we used to date.

[ If you could call any what they'd done since he left for the Air Force as 'dating'. ]

Why?

[ Sidenote: Alex had said they were dating?

Had they been dating?

No, he'll come back to that. Later. Maybe. ]

Not about that
About me.
She knew I was in foster care, Alex. She knew I was in the system
My life when I was a kid. I don't talk about that, I don't tell people
I just told you.
So.
What does she know? I don't know how to be around her right now, much less work with her, and I have to, so. Tell me, please.

Oh. Right. That.

[ How to explain the unexplainable? ]

So you know there are people from other worlds, here, right? At one point, some of the people we know disappeared and...other versions of them showed up. A Bass who was actually younger than I am. A Kyle who hadn't become a doctor and was instead in the NFL. And a teenaged Hayley who knew both of us. It was... a lot.

I told Hayley some things when she got back because it didn't seem fair to have a version of her who'd walked around that she didn't know anything about and there may have been others who told her more. It seems for that young version of Hayley, we were pretty much her world.

I mean, that guitar? Apparently you got that two years earlier in her world and we were involved in some kind of band.

We, as in, you me and her?

She told me some of that. How the other her lived with your mom
How she knew me from the foster system. That's what started all this

Look, I know the idea of quantum realities isn't new. It's been talked about for a long time, it makes sense. It's logical
It's something different being faced with it.
I hate that she knows that kind of detail when I didn't tell her.
She might not even be the only one who does

I mean I want to talk about NFL Kyle, too, we can't not make fun of that
It's just. I don't know what's private anymore.

I don't want to talk about Kyle period, so.

[ Hard line there, Guerin. ]

Then ask her. I can tell you that what I told her was because it was her story. Or at least kind of her story. Just like I told Bass what happened with the younger version that was here.

But it's not like I've been spreading your story to everyone I meet. I didn't even mention the 'a' word to the one I knew, let alone more personal things.

I wish I knew what to tell you to make it easier. It was bizarre knowing that she knew my MOM. I mean, it makes me wonder whether it means I made it a point to visit more often as I grew up.

There's too many what ifs in our lives as it is
We start wondering if we'd have done it better in an alternate world, we'd drive ourselves crazy

I'm not mad at you
I trust you.
And I like her, I just needed to know what she knew. I don't think she'd use it against me.

Alex
I was kidding about Valenti, but
Back home you just got done telling me to get over high school and give him a chance.
What's changed?

Edited 2020-09-17 23:42 (UTC)

Then you have my answer. Ask her.

What he did then was just about me. He made my life hell, but I survived it and I moved on. And when I came back, he was different. He'd grown up, just like the rest of us.

Besides, what you probably never knew is that we were friends when we were kids. We were kind of like those cousins who spend time together whenever their parents get together.

Anyway, I thought he'd changed and when I found out he was bi, fine. I punched him, we made up, and I moved on. But then he met Elijah. Sometimes I think moving on with Bass seems like too much, too soon. But it's taken us nearly a year to get where we are and that only after a lot of soul searching.

[ All of it about Guerin, or near enough. ]

It took him less than a month. I'd found out they were living together when I showed up at Kyle's place to check in on him. And then after this one big party, Hayley comes and tells me that she and Elijah basically got married. That they were this whole thing back where they were from.

...kind of like you and me.

And then she comes and tells me that he's not 'allowed' to spend the night with her. Turns out that was because Elijah and Kyle were suddenly soulmates. Or something. Either way, Kyle knew about Hayley and Elijah. If not before, then he did after the fact. And he said he was going to let Elijah take care of it, but the next thing I knew, Hayley had her memories of her relationship with Elijah erased. Her own doing, so please don't bring it up to her. And she's years older than the last time I talked to her.

[ There's a moment of pause. ]

I don't know. Hayley and I have become close since she basically rescued me from getting my ass kicked and seeing her hurt was upsetting. Especially when it was because there was emotional cheating going on. Physical, given this place, I could maybe understand.

[ And no, there's no reason why cheating would be a trigger for him, why would there be? It's not like he was with Guerin when he slept with Maria. Even if finding out still stung. ]

[ There's a lot to deal with there. More than Michael likes. He reads over it several times before answering, his mind spinning with everything Alex is saying. And everything he's not. ]

I won't say anything to her, don't worry about that

Look, I haven't been here that long, but it's long enough to see that this place plays with your emotions. It makes you do things you try not to, or sometimes things you just wouldn't.

Kyle fell for a guy. You can't always control who you love, Alex. If we could, it'd be a hell of a lot easier. Elijah's the one who had a commitment. Maybe he loved them both, and had to choose. I don't know. Either way, it sucks that he didn't choose Hayley. Being left alone like that? I don't blame her for choosing to forget. It wouldn't be my call, but I get it.

I don't think that's Kyle's fault, though. But maybe that's just me.

Is that really how you think of us? That we're a whole thing? Comparable to people who got married?

Sure it does. But those things go away. If this were something the city did or whoever's responsible for the things that happen, it would have lasted weeks. That? That I would have been able to live with. Even if it then provided a place to start from. But I've looked over those weeks forwards, backwards, and sideways.

The big things tend to happen at the same time. Like the beach. Many people experiencing roughly the same thing at the same time. I've been on both sides of that. Looking at it from the inside and the outside. It lasted a couple of weeks and then I was back to normal and horrified. And maybe some of the things I said, I actually meant, but I was generally back to my usual status quo. Everything else, the temporary stuff, is usually only a matter of hours. Maybe a night at most.

This has been going on for months. So unless it's something new and terrifying, it's all them. And yes, it was on Elijah because he was the one with the committment. But Kyle should have stepped back when he realized what was going on. Given Hayley and Elijah time to work it out.

I don't know. I mean, I believe in love at first sight, but not the way it went down. There was something that just seemed off about the suddenness of it.

[ Of course he believed in it. He'd lived it. Maybe that day at Guerin's truck hadn't been the first time they'd seen each other, but they hadn't really interacted in any meaningful way before that. He'd always just been Max and Isobel's friend.

Which, of course, brings him to the next thing. And it takes him a minute to respond. ]

Ten years, Guerin. I tried to forget you for ten years and the minute I'm back in town, it's like those ten years never happened. If that's not a thing, I don't know what is.

Yeah. It was a thing, for me. I wasn't with anyone serious in ten years, and we just picked back up. I know.

Wasn't enough, though.

[ It wasn't enough to make Alex stay at home, and it hadn't been enough to stop him falling in love with someone else here. ]

Maybe it wasn't for them, either. I don't know, I don't know either of them well enough. Maybe it's better that she doesn't remember. You think she's okay?

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