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He used to be one of the happiest guys I knew. Now all that remained was a broken boy, his pain visible behind a smile. Before, his problems were hidden behind his smile, behind all his jokes.
I knew he'd always struggled with alcohol, he always drank on the weekends and sometimes the weekdays. I knew it was to deal with the pain of his father leaving him, his sister, and bis mother. But I tried my best to make sure he was safe.
I was his girlfriend at the time, I had to make sure my boyfriend was happy. That's who I fell in love with after all. He hasn't been the same after Johnny and Dallas passed away. He just didn't look the same. His smile looked like shattered glass. His eyes looked like a rippled lake in the moonlight.
He was distraught at Mr. and Mrs. Curtis's funeral, but he was even worse at Johnny and Dallas's funeral. It pained me to see him like that. Enough time has passed by, it was time for me to work my magic.
I started off by telling him we were spending a whole day together, whether he liked it or not. I got some static about it, but then I promised I'd never come out in the middle of the night for him again. It wasn't much of a threat, but somehow it got through his thick skull. I started off by baking a cake with him, chocolate on chocolate, the way he liked it. It was a breakfast in bed with beer for him, even if I didn't like giving him the booze.
Mickey Mouse was only on on Saturday mornings, otherwise I would have put it on tv for him. I did his laundry and picked up around the house, an activity his mother never had time to do and his sister never bothered to do. Two-Bit was already in a better mood, but an hour went by and he was still a little more grumpy than he had been all morning.
I then took him out to the hardware store. We spent about two hours in there, and the shopkeeper got bored of us walking around for so long. But we'd gotten away with a screwdriver and a knife. He still wasn't cheered up. I knew it'd take some time for him to heal, but it's been over a year since the boys passed away. Ponyboy was the one that watched both Johnny and Dallas die, and sure it must have been traumatic for Two-Bit too, but I was desperate to have Two-Bit back.
By the end of the day, he was no happier than he was when we started. I snapped on him, asking him why he couldn't get out of the vacuum he was in. It was his third Senior year, yet he still wasn't trying to get out of high school.
I made it out and clear to him that he needed to get his act cleared up, because I wasn't dealing with some bum that couldn't get out of this blackhole. We got in a big fight and I left in tears, slamming the door behind me. We'd broken up. I felt the world crashing down on me, of course being a silly teenager that couldn't understand that a fight didn't mean anything in the long run.
It took months for him to speak to me again. By the end of the school year, actually. Two-Bit showed up at my locker whilst I was cleaning it out. He was wearing his classic Mickey shirt and his leather jacket, despite Tulsa's arid late spring temperatures.
"Hey," I said to him
"Howdy," Two-Bit replied, resting his hand on the locker beside mine, "Listen, I uh... I dunno if you knew, but I'm graduatin'."
"Good job." I congratulated, smiling politely as I put another book in my bag
It was silent for another minute or two. I had finished cleaning my locker by then. I stood up and closed the door, looking over at Two-Bit. "What is it, Keith?" I asked
"I was wonderin' if y' wanted t' talk after school."
And I agreed. I sat on a ledge for him and waited for him to arrive. I looked at my watch and saw all the other kids walk out of school, smiling and laughing as they walked free from Will Rogers High School. Then I saw him walk out, combing his hair into a front swirl that hung down on his forehead. He looked over at me and smiled, the sun in his blue eyes. Two-Bit said his typical 'howdy' to me with a smile as he sat beside me.
I tucked hair behind my ear and prayed to my Lord this would go well. He then began talking, and he didn't sound the way he did when I stormed out of his house months earlier. He sounded... smarter. He sounded poetic and that just wasn't the Keith Mathews I once knew. Well, maybe poetic's an exaggeration, but it just wasn't the same guy I knew.
Yes, he cracked a joke as soon as he sat down and made a few jokes along the way in the conversation, but he wasn't aching to make fun of something the way he used to. And as much as I hate to admit it, I missed that. I missed him. And it sucked because he put me through hell when we were together after Johnny and Dallas died.
I also hate to admit the next part, but I'm also proud to do so. I took him back. My friends in the months prior had talked about him in the dirtiest way, and I always knew that wasn't Keith. He wasn't dirt the way they said he was. Yeah, he liked messing around with girls and flipping their skirts, but it was just who he was. But I also noticed that he didn't smell like booze when we spoke.
Maybe he sobered up for me, but I think he sobered up for Johnny. The poor kid whose parents beat him because they were drunks. Maybe he saw that maybe drinking all the time wasn't a good road to go down. I never asked, and I'm fine with not knowing.
I got in the car with him after our talk and we went for a drive, catching up with each other on what we'd missed. I knew then and there I'd end up marrying the sucker. And I did. As soon as I graduated, he proposed. It wasn't anything extravagant, but it had integrity.
Just like any marriage, ours faced roadblocks. He was in Vietnam for what felt like forever, and he came home with god awful nightmares. He went back to drinking as self-medication and I stuck him in a therapeutic institution, promising I'd leave and get custody of our kids if he didn't get better.
And as usual, he came through. He still mumbled at night, whether it was from the trauma of watching Dallas get shot or his comrades in war die in front of him, he still smiled for everyone. Yes, the happiest people are the saddest, but it was my life's duty to make sure he was always happy. And the same went for him.
