A Personal Conversation

Landon was awoken as the door he was leaning on slammed into him, also waking Remy, who almost but didn't quite avoid the swinging door. They quickly crawled away, looking back at what disrupted them. Renee stared at them, looking better than she sounded from earlier. "Landon? Remy? What are you doing?"

Clearly feeling better, Landon said, "Um, sleeping. Duh."

"So sorry to disturb you," she retorted sarcastically. "Silly me, opening my own door to get out of my own room."

"Well, I accept your apology."

"How long have you been out here? I thought you left hours ago."

Looking surprised, Remy asked, "Hours? What time is it?"

Checking her phone, she said, "About 7:30. I was about to get something to eat. Wanna come with?"

With a dazed expression from sleep, both boys nodded their heads, pulling themselves to their feet and following Renee as she led them to the cafeteria.

As they ate, Remy thought about what he heard and contemplated whether or not he should bring it up. But he figured it could wait until after dinner.

"Where's Emmitt?" Landon asked. "We could've invited him to eat with us."

Remy answered, "Oh, actually, he's with Step tonight."

Landon looked at him sadly. "Oh. But what about you two? Is it not happening?"

Renee looked between them. "Wait, what? What's happening between Emmitt and Remy? What are you not telling me?"

Landon smirked at Remy, "They totally made out! Can you believe it?"

Renee clapped her hands and made a sound like, "Eeeeeee! Yay! That's awesome! Why was I not told this sooner?"

"Well, Remy told me privately, so I figured it was his own thing to tell."

"But you literally just told me now. You didn't let Remy do it at all."

Landon paused for a moment before saying, "Well, I meant to. And it's the thought that counts. Right, Remy?"

"You're a dingus," he said.

"I know, but answer my question. We got a lot off track. Are you guys not together yet?"

Remy answered defensively, "No, it's just, like, a casual thing. We haven't put a label on it yet."

"You need to lock that shit down."

Remy looked at him weirdly, "Ew. Don't say it like that. But also, I don't really know that I want a relationship with Emmitt. I don't know! Like, he's really cool and, like, the best person ever, but I don't know if I want to be with him."

"But I thought you said he was a good kisser."

Renee gasped, "Really? I always thought he would be."

"I know, right?" Landon said.

"Okay, stop talking," Remy interrupted. "As I said, he's a great friend. He also happens to be a great kisser. But I think I'd like to stay friends."

Landon sputtered, "Bu-But... What? That doesn't make any sense. You like him as a person, and you like him as a lover--"

"Please don't refer to him as that."

"--so why aren't you together?"

"I don't know! Maybe I'm just not ready for a boyfriend."

"But you're ready for a lover?"

Remy glared, a smile slipping through, "Stop!"

"Okay, okay. I get it. It's your p-biz and I don't need to know."

Renee and Remy both looked at him weirdly this time. "What?"

"Ya know. Like, personal business." His explanation was met with the same expression. "They said it in Adventure Time."

"Oooooh. I guess that explains it." Renee said.

"Why am I still surprised by the weird shit you say?" Remy asked.

Renee answered for him, "Because just when you think he's said the weirdest thing, he finds a way to top it."

"Well, I try my best," Landon said proudly.

After dinner, Renee claimed to be too tired to do anything else, so the boys said goodnight to her and headed off.

"Where to?" Landon asked.

"We can try my room, see if Allen's out or not."

Landon nodded, and they headed to the room. As usual, Allen was not there. "What do you want to do?"

"Uh, actually, I kind of wanted to talk to you about earlier. About what you and Renee were talking about."

"Oh. You heard us?"

Remy nodded shyly, "Just a little bit at the end."

"Oh," he said again. "Renee was just having a bad day. She needed someone to talk to."

"Landon..." Remy said softly. He knew he was lying, and Landon knew he knew that.

"I... Look, it's fine, and I can handle it. You don't need to get involved.

"Landon..."

"Stop," he snapped. "You can't fix it any more than I can. So what's the point?"

"You can't do this alone."

"And what exactly are you going to do?" He raised his voice.

"You need someone to talk to."

"What, I'm just supposed to talk to you the way Renee does to me? That'll just make you feel like shit, too. It doesn't help to know what's going on, Remy. Sometimes you just wish they would've kept their mouths shut and spared you from knowing how they feel, thereby sparing you from feeling the way they do in turn. It doesn't help anyone. It doesn't change anything." Landon's voice was much louder now, and he was staring deep into Remy's eyes.

Voice extremely small, he suggested, "You could go to a therapist."

"And tell them that I feel bad because I killed a guy? I'll go to jail."

"What about Renee? She could see one. And she doesn't have to mention anything about Mark's death."

"I told her that a long time ago. But she said I'm the only one who understands. She refuses to talk about it with anyone but me."

"What about me, though? She told me about the trial."

"I... I don't know, Rem. It's weird. This whole situation's weird."

"Yeah. But there's gotta be something we can do for her."

"Maybe we can try to convince her to go to therapy."

"Alright. We can talk to her tomorrow."

"Actually, can we just go now?" Landon asked. "I feel fired up, like I need to do something. I'll be so anxious if we don't talk about it tonight."

"She might be sleeping, but sure."

They walked over to her dorm and knocked on the door. There was no reply. Landon knocked again. This time they heard a muffled, "I'm sleeping!"

"Come on, Renee! It's only 9:00. You can't be that tired."

A few seconds later, she came to the door. "What do you want?" She said, annoyed.

"We need to talk to you. It's important."

"Right now?"

"Yes, right now."

"Fine," she grumbled, still standing in the doorway.

"Can we come in? It's kind of private."

She paused for a moment. "Can you wait a minute? My room's kind of a mess."

"How bad could it be?" Landon smiled. "We were just in there a few days ago." He pushed past her and turned on the light. "There's barely anything on the floor. What are you talking about?" He walked further in, then stopped when he seemed to notice something.

Remy followed him, asking, "What? What is it?"

He was shocked to see tears in his eyes as he turned to Renee. He weakly whispered, "Please tell me you didn't. Renee... tell me you didn't."

Renee also had tears in her eyes as she explained, "I'm sorry, Landon. I'm just done."

Landon pulled his phone out from his back pocket. Remy peeked over his shoulder to see what he was doing, his face going pale as he saw him dial 9-1-1. He put the phone to his ear, wiping at the tears that had fallen.

Voice panicked and wobbly, he said, "We need an ambulance right away. My friend... she took a bunch of pills. I don't know how long ago."

Remy looked at Renee in shock. She was leaning against the door, eyes drooping. He was so overwhelmed by all that had happened in such a short span of time, but somehow, before he and Landon grabbed onto Renee and took her out of the building, he was able to see two bottles of pills resting on her desk, and while they weren't open or askew or anything, Remy knew they were both empty.