“Is that a yes?”
“Yeah,” Luka agreed. “You can ask me anything, I’ll do my best.”
“Figures. I saw your roommate’s post.”
“What?” Luka looked down the hall at August’s closed door and thought briefly about hanging up on T-yan to ask August what they’d done.
“They posted about you being a nice and honest person and being sad, or whatever. I don’t really care how you’re feeling if we’re being real here. But here’s the thing—Reno isnotokay, and he misses you, and as much as I’m angry with you for leaving like you did, I think you should come back.”
Luka swallowed, feeling the weight of T-yan’s words in his chest. “He hasn’t spoken to me, though.”
“You haven’t spoken to him either! Shocker, Reno picks a partner just as stubborn, if not more stubborn than himself.” T-yan made a frustrated sound before saying, “While usually I’d say he needs someone like that in his life, it’s not helping right now. Tell me, why aren’t you texting him?”
“I don’t know what to say. I ruined his life by being with him. How would me reaching out help that?”
“He said the same thing.”
Luka’s eyes widened. “Wait.”
“Moron. He’s been ripping himself to shreds thinking you’re going to end up like him in the long run because of this shit Joy pulled. Which, by the way, an update on that—the legal team was able to trace a good portion of the accounts spreading information on you and Reno to her IP address. She’s not very bright.”
“What does that mean for Reno?”
“Means she’s violated the order of protection and is going to jail. But let's focus, mate.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine," T-yan grumbled, then paused for a moment. “I don’t think you understand what Reno was like the first time he went through this. He’s a mess right now, sure. But it’s nothing like back then. We had to pull him out of spirals for years. After a while, we finally called an intervention with a professional who ended up treating him for several more years afterwards. Shit was scary, he really lost sight of who he was, had a lot of trouble telling what was real. It was like a voice in his head constantly saying he was all the bad things Joy said he was, that he did the things she claimed, even though none of it was true.
“It still haunts him. And, I don’t know, all of this has not been great for all the progress he’s made. It’s like the worst test ever, and the nastiest part, in my opinion, is that through it all, he’s only worried about you. He’s not even worried about himself; he’s only worried that you’ll end up confused like he was back then, that you’ll become unsure of yourself or think less of yourself.”
“That’s…” Luka tried to keep his hands from shaking. “Why is he like this?”
“Because he’s mental, I dont know. No. Shh, I’m kidding. We’re all fucking mental over here. I think its because he’sgenuinely good," T-yan said. “I wonder sometimes if he’s ever had a negative thought about another person that didn’t immediately have a ‘well, maybe they’re just having a bad day, and took it out on me’ or‘they acted that way to me because someone must have hurt them, I bet they just need some love and they’d be okay.’ It’s frustrating. Like goddamn it, sometimes people just fucking suck! But, Reno won’t accept that.”
“Oh, I…I kind of get that,” Luka admitted, “A lot. Fuck, I think I might do the same thing.”
“Disgusting. You two make me sick. Now I get why he’s worried this will affect you the same way it did him.”
“It won’t. I’ve been through slander before. Not on this scale, but still, they’re not capable of saying anything about me that would really hurt me.”
“Well,that’sa relief. I will say, Reno doesn’t really have as much trouble with it as he used to. He’s had a lot of practice pulling himself out of those kinds of loops and has gotten better at asking for reality checks from us. But, he’s still isolating and I had to basically break down his door for him to admit that he’s freaked out and worried about you. He’s not eating. You see how it is?”
“Yeah, I do.” Luka felt more like a piece of shit with every passing minute on the phone with T-yan. “Will you tell him he doesn’t have to worry about that?”
“Fuck you.” T-yan laughed, and it was bitter. “I didn’t call you to become a messenger boy.”
“Why did you call me?”
“To knock some sense into your head. Maybe make sense of things. To tell you to come back. To chew you out for leaving Reno when he’s at risk any moment of falling back into his bad mental shit. You’re supposed to be his partner, and you left himalone!” T-yan cleared his throat, and when he spoke again, he wasn’t so close to yelling. “And, to make you feel like shit for making my friend sofucking sad.”
“Well, I do feel like shit.”
“I don’t care. I’m going to go talk to Reno about all this bullshit. I suggest you do the same," T-yan said with an air of finality.
Luka could feel the sweat at his brow sticking to his phone screen, but was too overwhelmed to wipe it clean. He’d already been fearing that Reno was upset, that the reason he hadn’t reached out was because he was too sad to do so. And to get confirmation that Reno was depressed enough to have T-yan, of all people, calling Luka, made him feel like crying again.
When T-yan didn’t say anything else, Luka sighed and rubbed at his burning eyes. “I’m sorry.”
