Wearing My Smile | ✔

Saturday, April 19th, 2003

The first time they found what a gem you were, Sam, wasn't at all quite how you'd imagined they would, but it was exactly how I'd meant it to be. In the middle of April, around two weeks after my fourteenth birthday, we were sneaking into that new bar right at the border of our town, snickering to ourselves the whole way.

"Stop laughing," you whispered loudly at me, smirking, your eyes glinting in the dark. How happy you'd looked, how alive.

"You're the one laughing too much!" I hissed back, my heart racing inside my rib cage. "You're going to get us caught!"

"No, you."

"You!"

"Shut up, Roo."

The bar wasn't like any other bar we'd known-it wasn't like we went to many of them at the time, but still, for one, Bright Night quickly became famous due to the live music they played every Saturday night. The band played mostly jazz and chill music, but that wasn't what had drawn us there.

It was the violinist.

From the back door we sneaked into the back of the bar, peering our heads beyond the door to the front. It was loud and crowded, bursting with life, and I found myself restless with so much energy which didn't know where to go.

I'd taken a serious interest in photography from locking myself up in the dark room of my house for hours at night while you were practicing your violin. That's why I had my camera looped around my neck all the time by then. I took a picture of the scene the first time we came, memorizing it in my mind how colorful and warm it was. I still had the picture in the album book inside my room, along with the picture of how you had looked on the stage much later that night, smiling as if you were made of light.

"Did you see him?" you asked.

I started to shake my head, but then my eyes caught deep brown hair with violin right beside the curtain. I nudged your elbow and pointed. "There."

"Holy shit," you breathed out, sounding almost afraid. "I can't believe it's really him."

Few days before that night, we'd met Damian Doyle while we were cycling around the neighborhood. There had been moving trucks right outside the sold vacant house and he was just sitting there, on his front yard, clutching something in his chest.

I'd decided right then to ignore it and continue cycling. It wasn't my place. The thing about me no one really knew-no one other than you-was the fact that I could easily turn a blind eye for people I didn't care about. Damian Doyle had been a stranger, a new addition to our neighborhood I hadn't know yet and so I hadn't cared about him. But you'd stopped your bicycle and watched him closely, a frown colored your face.

"Sam?"

"What's up with him?"

I glanced at the man, then back at you. "Not sure."

"He's clutching his hand. Maybe he's in trouble."

I laughed under my breath, uncertain. "What?"

You looked back at me then, and I stopped my laughter because I saw your concern. Here was something about you no one else seemed to know: how achingly kind you were.

I nodded. You didn't say anything, Sam, you didn't have to. I knew what you wanted to do. So, you rode your bicycle to the man and I followed you along. You knew even then that I'd follow you anywhere.

Turned out he had sprained his wrist trying to take his things out of the truck. Damian had initially refused to see it to the hospital, but I knew what you were like when you were being stubborn, Sam. You scowled at him worriedly when he got out of the hospital's emergency room.