Cinnamon Muffins Chapter 25: Breakdown
Spoiler: Sometimes feeling your feelings means crying, getting punched by your bestie, and crying again
Aughhhh I am surviving!! Reminder that you can support my ability to get some off-grid land and and build a cob house, or get some new eyeliner, by clicking this nice little button:
Also thoughts and feelings on a besties promo where if you gift your friend a one-month subscription to this substack, you get one too? Anyways…
When I tell you this is THE chapter, I mean it.
Of course, as everyone had guessed, Taylor had snuck out of Todd's spare bedroom looking for a fight. He walked around near the bar, real slow, waiting for some drunk asshole to swagger out looking for a fight. And, because Taylor is an expert loiterer, he's there when a man built like a freight train with a Semper Fi tattoo on his neck stumbles out mumbling about some enemy with a name he can't even pronounce in his stupor.
Taylor says the right stuff, the usual stuff, and the guy lunges, gets a good whack on Taylor's shoulder where it meets his neck.
And then he stops. And Taylor doesn’t immediately see why amidst the adrenaline and the darkness. But he blinks away the bracing and Todd is standing there, in between them, arms up in placation.
And the face of the freight train with the Semper Fi tattoo screws up, confused, and then smooths in understanding, and he spits on the ground, calls Taylor a dirty name, and waddles to his car to get himself a DUI.
Todd turns on his heels and starts walking home before Taylor can get a good look at his face in the awkward glow of the distant street lamp. Taylor hasn't seen Todd upset often enough to be familiar with what it looks like, but from the way Todd is stomping ahead of him, that’s what’s happening. Because Taylor has been caught. For the first time in his life, he's been caught red-handed looking for a fight. He doesn't know what else he's supposed to do after being caught, so he just starts walking after Todd.
Todd is about the same height as Taylor, but it's mostly in the torso, so he walks pretty slow. Taylor has to waddle with an uncomfortably slow gait so he doesn't accidentally catch up to Todd and have to face whatever he's going to find in Todd's eyes.
If Todd knows, everyone back at the house knows.
Wes's gonna kill him, if Todd and Dalton don’t beat him to it.
They walk like this halfway home, and then Todd stops under a street lamp. He stands stiff as a board, and Taylor stops at the edge of the little circle of light, about four feet from Todd. He's never felt more distant from him, and Todd's shoulders hike with the weight of whatever he wants to say. Taylor knows there's not much he can do to prepare himself for it. You can’t brace against emotions the same way you can brace against a right hook.
But Todd just sighs out that hike in his shoulders until they're slumped in resignation and Todd scrubs at his face with the sleeve of his Patagonia jacket and it's just then that Taylor recognizes that Todd is crying.
"Todd, dude—"
"You know it hurts, right?" Todd bulldozes past any placation or apology possible, voice thick enough that Taylor can tell he's been crying the whole walk. "When you hurt yourself? I don't know, dude. It fucks me up.” Todd is lost for words. Todd can come up with something to say seemingly whenever he needs to, like water from a faucet. But today he kicks at the slush at the edge of the street around the light pole.
“Like, I have been right here the whole time, ya know?” he says. “You could have— I dunno, you could have talked to me, or Dalton— you could have talked to us, ya know? Just told us you need help? I wouldn't have asked if you needed me not to.”
Sniffling, facing Taylor now with his eyes swollen from crying, Todd looks miserable, and small, and angry. “You guys are my best fucking friends, and you know I don't have anybody else. My parents are never home, and even when they are they're just filling space. For me, it’s just you and Dalton— and now I guess there's Wes and Collin and Jaxson, but it's not the same. You're my fucking family, Taylor. Just—” he laughs, sardonic and piercing and it makes Taylor ache at every joint that isn’t already bruised. Bones unsettled. “I don't even know what I'm asking you for, I guess. Just stop hurting yourself."
Of course, Taylor has no clue what to do with that. He knows Todd cares, he knows Dalton cares, he just can't figure out why they care so goddamn much. Why do they bother? Taylor's own mom didn't so much as flinch when his dad broke his nose when they argued about the tater tots that one time. Moms are the metric through which one views love from infancy, and Taylor's mom didn't seem all too bothered when she had to drive Taylor to the hospital a few days after Taylor started complaining about how bad his arm hurt after his dad smacked it when Taylor didn't unload the dishwasher and she certainly didn't seem very upset when the doctor informed them that Taylor had a fractured humerus that was starting to heal wrong. Taylor just got punched once in the shoulder and Todd is crying. Why? He's not dead. The bruise will heal. Taylor is sure that if he were to go home right now and tell his mom that he got into a fight, she would roll her eyes and cross her arms and tell him to stop doing that before they have to take him to the hospital again. He can hear her voice chiding him ‘I'm not paying for the ER again, Taylor,’ and that is what bubbles tears into his eyes.
He misses his mom. And he knows his mom doesn't miss him back.
Todd doesn't turn around the whole way home. At one point he makes a call, probably Dalton, and all Taylor hears is "Yeah. Yeah. He's fine. Yes, like actually fine. Okay, yeah. Almost home."
Of course, everyone is waiting for them at the spot where the footpath entry to the Richards Estate meets the front walkway of the house. They all look pissed. Dalton falters in his sternness when he meets Taylor's eyes, and Taylor wipes his face with his sleeve to make sure there's no leftover tears on his cheeks. Then Dalton meets Todd's eyes and his resolve returns.
"This is an intervention," Jaxson says. It's half a joke, but this is the most serious Taylor has ever seen him.
Taylor doesn't ask what for. He doesn't ask why. Even if he kinda wants to ask. He's not hurting anybody who isn't looking for a fight just as much as him. He never gets hurt too bad. Nothing that would need a doctor. He's always fine at the end of the day. If anything, Taylor doesn't think Jaxson, of all people, has room to talk after that whole mess in the bathroom last Wednesday, less than a week ago.
What are they chastising him for? For being stupid? For getting hurt? He'd get hurt no matter what he did or didn't do, at least this way he gets to pick the when and the who and the where. Why are they so fucking upset? Why are they angry?
Wes opens his mouth to say something, but a tremor wracks his whole body and his jaw clenches shut and he doesn't open it again. Dalton is trying to look pissed but mostly just glaring between his feet and Todd. Collin is doing a nervous thing where he taps his fingers against themselves. Jaxson is the only one looking Taylor right in the eye.
So Taylor yells at him. "Hit me! You're pissed right? Hit me! I won't even feel it—" and Jaxson does. Punches him right in the jaw and instantly regrets it when Taylor doesn't even falter, just wipes the blood off his lip and says, "See! Doesn't hurt. Do it again."
"Is this what you fucking want, Macready!?" Jaxson screams, "Do you really need someone to rock your shit that badly? Get the fuck over here, I'll do it— I will." And he punches Taylor again, hard enough to send both of them reeling. Taylor's nose starts bleeding and Wes stifles an anxious scream. "You think I like this? You think I wanna do this?" Jaxson cries, "This fucking hurts! It hurts to hurt you! We're fucking friends— aren't we? Aren't we!?"
Taylor doesn't answer. He wipes the blood from his face with his sleeve and tries not to look at his friends' faces. Wes is an angry kind of panicked, with his hands clutching the sleeves of another jacket he's borrowing from Todd; Dalton is rubbing tears from his own eyes; Collin' eyes are blank and unfocused like he's trying to be somewhere else; Todd's expression is hard and tear-stained. Taylor hates this. He doesn't want them to be upset. He just wants to be in control of who hurts him, and when. He wants at least that much!
But this is hurting them. Taylor can't understand why but his tiny locus of control, the point of contact he's desperately trying to balance his rapidly-spinning world on, is hurting his friends.
It's all too much. Jaxson wraps his arms around Taylor's shoulders instead. "Dude, I don't want to hurt you," he says, softly, gently. "I don't like hurting you. What the fuck about that is not getting into your head!?" His grip on Taylor's shoulders tightens and he shouts again, "We are friends, Taylor! Friends don't hurt each other! We're friends, aren't we!?"
Taylor shoves Jaxson off, trying to hide that his eyes are welling with tears. "Then who the fuck is gonna set me right!?" he shouts, eyes blurry and casting wildly from Jaxson to Dalton to Todd to Collin to Wes. He can't look at any of them for long— can’t look at the fear in their eyes, water-stained by the tears blotting his vision. "I'm fucked up. If you guys don't let me go get my ass beat once in a while, I might—" he doesn't know how to finish that. He feels like he's choking.
What would he do, if he didn't go get his ass beat once in a while?
He has no fucking clue.
"Fuck. You guys can't— I'm trash!" Taylor screams, "I'm a piece of shit! I'm not good for anything—" Wes opens his mouth to interrupt and Taylor yells over him, "I can't even make a fucking coffee right! And I hurt all of you and I'm an asshole and— and— and I'm—"
"Everything okay, Mr. Richards?" one of Todd's bodyguards, drawn by the noise, asks. Taylor's whole body shivers and flinches like an exposed nerve.
"Everything is fine, Austin," Todd says thinly. None of the Richards's bodyguards ever really come near the house, mostly sticking to the perimeter, but there's never usually a whole lot of screaming from the driveway past dark either.
"Are you sure?" Austin presses, eyeing Taylor suspiciously. Looking at him the way everyone looks at him. "He looks dange—"
"Austin, if you say another word I will fire you," Todd snaps. Austin blinks; Todd has never snapped. "Go home for today."
"Yes sir, Mr. Richards." Austin leaves, but the damage is done.
Dalton sees what's coming first, and he reaches out a hand to try and comfort Taylor, but Wes is faster and he manages to wrap Taylor in a hug just before Taylor's legs give out and he's a sobbing mess in Wes's arms and he can't even think clearly enough to care.
"I'm dangerous," Taylor's voice cracks around the words, a hoarse whisper after all the screaming. "I'm bad."
Wes is still shaking too bad to answer clearly, but he holds Taylor close until Todd and Jaxson and Dalton and Collin come sit with them on the pristine, stamped asphalt of the Richards’ driveway.
"Taylor," Todd says, "You're not bad."
"And you're no more dangerous than I am," Dalton says.
"And you've been a good big brother to Hellen and Juniper-Maisie," Jaxson says.
"And you keep Jax from doing anythin' too dumb most times," Collin says
"You're a good person, Taylor," Wes says.
They go inside when the temperature drops lower. Dalton makes a joke about last Friday night's catastrophe, and how he's not throwing any more of his friends into lukewarm bathtubs, thank you very much.
Taylor is, even tens of minutes later, a sniffling mess, and very embarrassed about it. When not sniffling, he's got a very confusing pissed-off expression that dissolves into tears when Jaxson mentions Hellen and when Wes says things are okay and when Dalton gives him a big bear hug. They sit strewn all over the couches in Todd's basement and try to decide on a movie to watch. They'll be talking about what just happened, but they'll be talking about it when it feels less raw and when their not-yet-eighteen-year-old brains have had time to chew on the incredibly fucked up week-and-a-half they’ve had.
Dalton, as per usual, advocates for a military movie, but Jaxson says Barbie movies are infinitely better, and Todd mumbles that he would prefer to watch anime. Collin says that an action movie would be fun with this many people (and Dalton shoots that down by informing Collin that no action movie is fun to watch with Mr. Med School Lite (that's Todd) breaking the whole thing into unrealistic pieces and Todd shoots back that Dalton can never leave the imperfections in the theory and symbolism alone). Wes says anything sounds alright as long as they don't watch any of the National Treasure movies, because he just can't stand Nicholas Cage's face. Taylor stays totally silent throughout the discussion, but grumbles in a way that's half complaining and half not when Jaxson wins the rock-paper-scissors tournament and presses play on a pirated online version of Barbie and the Diamond Castle.
Taylor sings along to some of the songs, even if nobody can hear it because Dalton and Jaxson and Collin are belting out "I feel connected! Protected! It's like you're standing right with me all the time!" in horrible, horrible harmony.
Taylor doesn't tell anyone else that Diamond Castle was Hellen's favorite.
:) fellas, is it gay to have a screaming, crying breakdown on ur friends driveway at 8pm? NO. NO ITS NOT. FELLAS IT IS NOT GAY TO EXPRESS EMOTIONS TO UR FRIENDS. INSCRIBE THAT UPON YOUR HEART LEST THE DEMONS TAKE YOU.
and scream at me in the comments! nothing brings me more joy!! (seriously)
Lol sometimes you just have to yell about your feelings to get through them. they all need therapy, present parents, and medical attention...