Fortune Cookie

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I used to have a friend that joked about killing himself, though it was never a good time.

"If the history test wasn't tomorrow" or "if my Uncle would not visit next month and probably bring snacks from Britain" he would kill himself.

When he was alone with me, I often caught longing looks at things that could hurt him. The knife, the scalpel at biology class, girls who weren't right for him, his father's fist.

That friend got a promotion and no longer makes jokes about killing himself.

The friend has a family now and looks longingly at the people he cares for. He looks at things that could hurt them and makes sure he's there to catch them if they ever do.

He only looks for knives to cook food.

He only looks at his father's name now, engraved onto a stone-- cold and hard like his heart used to be-- once a year.

We are rarely alone now, because we are barely friends now.

Despite it, Patrick is still the boy I've pried a loaded gun out of calloused fingers that etched to the cool metal in despration I've never seen before.

Last week, we've seen each other at the grocery store in the middle of the night, and his eyes were as desprate as they were that day with the gun.

And then he spoke three words with such hopelessness that I mistook them for bad news. It was as though he said "I have cancer" or "I am dying", words he used to wish for years ago.

He said those three words with much meaning and the weight of the consequances of even thinking them made his vocal chords quiver in the same way his knees used to when he would look at the trail of bottles leading to his father.

"I love you."