SoKeefe One-Shots

Keefe's Diary

*SPOILERS*

(A diary entry from Keefe after he finds out that Fitz and Sophie are dating in Legacy.)

So that's the end of that I guess. Elwin was right about writing out your feelings, it seemed useless at first but I'm glad to have the outlet now. There's nobody I can talk to about this, normally I would talk to Sophie or Fitz but now, I guess there's nobody again. Especially Sophie, before her I had never met anyone who understood the loneliness of being in a room of friends and dreading having to go home. Finding that she felt things like I had and didn't look at me like I was a wounded puppy that needed to be saved but as a person who had just grown up differently was like a breath of fresh air. 

That seems unfair, in hindsight, it shouldn't have just been hinging on her. She always has so much on her shoulders, I shouldn't add to it. I know better. I should have seen this coming, I knew this was coming and I still let myself end up here again.

She loves Fitz and that's that. I knew that the first time I saw them together, her feelings were obvious without having to read them. Still, my stupid heart thought I had a chance, after everything it still wanted a chance.

Maybe I really am stupid. 

I'm finding that it's hard to believe that someone could love me. When your own parents can't find a reason to, it's hard to believe that anyone else could. At least when I was younger I believed that they had to have wanted me at some point. I mean, why else would they have children right? But now I know that they just needed a vessel for their legacy. Their experiment. They didn't care about me. Who I was as a person or who I became, as long as I was powerful and shared their last name that was enough. And I couldn't even do that, even in their lowest expressions of why they wanted a child I was a failure there too. I used to want a sibling that I could relate to so I wouldn't have to be alone through all the bad times growing up. Now I'm thankful they didn't have another kid, I wouldn't wish this life on anybody. I saw other families and how they interacted, how they cared for each other. My life wasn't like theirs, and there was no chance of it getting better. Once I realized that, I knew that these stories and fairy tale endings were just that, stories. Love wasn't fair and it certainly wasn't equal. There wasn't some kind of cosmic justice that made sure karma was enforced. Sometimes life was just bad, and no amount of good was going to make up for that.

At some point, you have to wonder if you can be loved. I mean, sure, there were lots of girls who admired me but it was never for who I was. They loved my looks and my easy-going nature, the rebel they could bring home to upset their parents. Nobody ever knew me well enough to actually love me, not my friends, not my parents, and certainly no romantic partners. Nobody, it seemed, wanted to. Or maybe they did but just didn't like what they found.

Suddenly there was Sophie, and for some inconceivable reason my heart wouldn't listen to my head and I allowed myself to fall for her. I had been shown time and time again that nobody was going learn to love me, that I was always going to be something that other people never figured out how to love. I let my heart hope despite knowing the pain it would bring me when she ended up choosing someone else.

But she learned me, she found my pieces and put together my grief and understood me. She's probably the first person who wanted to get to know the bad parts of me and still stuck around. And she chose someone else. Something she had every right to do and something I fully understand the reasoning behind. She liked him more, it's the logical conclusion. How could anyone say no to her, when she chose you there was no choice but to love her back. It makes complete sense, why wouldn't she? He's a great guy, it's why we're friends.

But as the hope died in my body, when I saw the two of them together smiling and happy and I was happy for her, I think a part of me broke. She was, of course, a very small part of it, likely the straw that broke the camel's back and all of that. But, the voice that had been telling me that the only reason I hadn't been loved was because no one had ever wanted to get to know me was silenced. She had gotten to know me. She had gotten to know me and liked me, wanted me around.

And it still wasn't enough.

I don't know if that part of me will ever be put back together. There is a voice in my head yelling at me for even thinking that, the mature part of me that knows I'll get back on my feet and I'll survive this loneliness. But there's a kid who's watched his parents leave him time and time again who can't seem to fathom why he was brought into a world that couldn't love him. That wouldn't love him. The child that I have told time and time again that there would be others that loved him, that point to his friends and their parents that have taken care of him in the past. But I also know that when it comes down to it, they all have their priorities and I am not first for any of them. 

Hell, Grady cringes every time he sees me with her. Maybe he's right too, maybe he sees all my broken pieces and knows that getting too close will just damage her too. Fitz's dad came by recently and told me to back off from Sophie as well, maybe he can see it too. Maybe they all know the reason I shouldn't be loved and will be kind enough to tell me one day.

It makes me want to run away again and I hate that part of me. I know running away makes it worse for everyone, that it hurts them to lose their friend. Part of me wonders, though, if going somewhere where no one knows me would be some kind of freedom. At least then I had a choice in the matter, at least then I could say I made the decision to be alone and it wasn't thrust upon me as it has been in the past. 

They say to wait, that your perfect person will come when you least expect it, but one has to wonder if those people have ever not had a support system. If they had to take themselves to the doctor when they were sick, if they went days without talking to anyone else simply because others were too busy with the important parts of their lives, if they had no one who was guaranteed to help them when they needed it. If waiting guaranteed that one day my perfect person would come, maybe I would be less agitated by the whole issue. But there is no guarantee, there is a chance that I might just be on this planet alone for the rest of my life. As much as I love my friends and I love being alive, loneliness like this is crushing and I don't know how to allow myself to get past it.

I don't know if I want to get past this feeling because afterward, I always just have a sort of numbness that never seems to go away. I can laugh, I can be happy, but it feels like every time I let myself break like this, I never fully go back to being the person I was before. It scares me that I can heal all I want but I always go back into a duller person than I was before.

I can't just be sad all the time, I have to try to heal even if it seems like giving up on my grief. Especially when I heal by myself, if there were no witnesses to my grief who's to say it happened at all? Which just adds another layer to the loneliness I already feel and the cycle continues. Sometimes I wonder if the universe has had enough, if I've given enough of myself away.

But I will heal and become dull and maybe a bit too excited by a dangerous opportunity, if only to let the adrenaline allow my heart a new sensation. I will move past this but I don't see myself letting people close anytime soon. 

Maybe I'm being overdramatic, I'm sure I'll wake up in the morning and perspective will allow me some peace. It's nice to have my thoughts on paper though, like they still exist even if I do heal from this brokenness. I can't keep wishing things would be different, it's not a healthy way to live. 

Plus, she needs me. I can't just stop being her friend because she made the right decision for herself, what kind of friend would I be? Her kindness shouldn't be conditional and I will make sure it isn't. I know how important it is to have a friend who understands you the way we have been for each other.

For now, I will try to make my admiration fade and be a better friend. Maybe my person really is out there and maybe I will allow myself the freedom of letting someone in again. Just not anytime soon, maybe not for a while.

Damn Elwin for being right. Not that I'll admit it, it's not like this will ever see the light of day. Unless Ro finds it, which would likely result in a very long talk that I would rather not have to get into. Now where to hide it...