Fortune Cookie

two

Patrick was chubby as a child.

I was always on the tall side, up until tenth grade when I became average- but he was shorter. And chubby.

He was quite unpopular for a long period of his life, not because others chose to bully him, but because he was unsocial.

I believe that had we not met when he was still a child, unaware of the darkness in his mind, we would never become friends either.

Patrick and I were friend since we were four, so it was never weird for anyone to see us hanging out.

I was athletic and popular, and the captain of the team for my Senior year, and he was chubby and bitter.

I remember one time when a friend from the Football team came over to hang out with us, Patrick let slip that he contemplated suicide.

All I told him was "dude, we've got some tampons over at the bathroom." His eyes looked at me, black and unseeing, and I felt as though I was a cartoon character that was falling off a cliff.

I felt as though he was falling.

I felt us both falling, pulled to different directions, torn from each other. By me.

All me.

I made him fall.

The next day, he never uttered a word to me.

The day after, he took his usual place next to me in Biology and showed me a new book his little brother gave him.

I never mentioned the bandage I saw.

When Patrick sits in front of me with a big americano clutched in his hands, soft tremor giving away his nervousness, he is no longer chubby.

He works out now.

I, on the other hand, don't even remember what the inside of a gym is supposed to look like. The only reason I do not gain weight is the constant chafing and painting of my own walls leaves me with less time to eat than my mother would like. I often simply sleep off the hunger and leave my dinner to rot on the table.

Perhaps it is because I do not work for my money and my mother sends me more than enough that I do not appreciate my food.

But right now, I beg of my mind to stay still as I look back at Patrick.

His lips part as he looks at me. He closes them. I feel my heart beat, quickens. Then slows. Quick again, before--

"I mean it."

"What?"

"I love you."

"Pat--" my voice leaves my throat. There is nothing in me. I feel empty, and I understand Ariel's distress all of a sudden; my voice has been taken, held hostage between my heart and my mind. Each has a part of it, leaving me anxious for its return.

"I know I haven't been around. And I know it's been shit," he explains. "I heard you tried killing yourself, and I could not get you out of my mind since. But I love you. Not since the day we've met, not like that. But I loved you, always, more than my wife. How am..."

"I didn't." Patrick looks broken for a moment. "Try to kill myself. I tried to fly."

He smiles. Not like the doctor did. He believes me, because he used to think the same. "You're not good at flying."

"You're not good at anything, really," I retort, crossing my arms. He laughs, and I grin. "Yeah, I suck at flying."

"There are worst things to be bad at," Patrick comforts. I smile again, and simply look at the way his black eyes glint at me. "Like love."

"You think you're bad at love?"

"I'm not doing it right, that's for sure."