Wearing My Smile | ✔

Saturday, August 9th, 2003

Turned out though, we didn't have to. Early in the morning, the sun hadn't even come out yet, you knocked softly on my window and I was already wide awake. I don't know why I didn't tell you then about my dreams—or nightmares—plaguing me at the time. They all came suddenly, not long after our school graduation.

But I didn't think of that when I opened the window because the first time I noticed when I saw you was your wince.

So many emotions whirled inside me; elation, joy, guilt, embarrassment, relief, but the moment I saw a new blue sling wrapped around your right arm and my concern eclipsed everything else.

“What happened to you?” I asked before you managed to say anything. I grabbed your good arm and helped you climb into my room. Your hair was messy, your eyes bloodshot, your T-shirt rumpled.

“Ah.” Averted eyes. Left hand wiping your neck and cheek. When you finally looked at me in the eyes, you said, “I fell.”

“Like hell you did!”

You let out a long-suffering sigh. “I didn't come here to talk about that.”

“It's him again, wasn't it? When did this happen? Did you—” I noticed with horror the past few days you must have locked yourself in your room. Usually when bad things had happened in your house, you'd run straight to my house. Waiting for the storm to pass, you'd say with tremble in your voice. You'd stay overnight until it was safe enough to come back home. You never stayed for more than two nights in a row.

When I asked you the day after what your parents had thought about you staying in my place, and all of the other times over the years you had stayed, especially those weeks after your mother's miscarriage, you'd laugh and say ruefully, “They didn't even notice I wasn't at home.”

“You should have come here!” I hissed at him, checking up the sling and the cast in panic. Inside me, my guilt was eating me up inside. It seemed that it was everything I felt the whole time we were together, Sam. Something I could never forgive.

“I can't—”

“Sam, you know you're always welcome here—”

“It's not that,” you cut me off, the quickly you added, “It's just—I thought about what I did to you the other day and—I don't—I'm not sure what you thought about that. I didn't mean to—I mean, I wanted to, Roo, but not like that. The point is I want to say—I'm sorry.”

“For what?”

“Did you not hear what I said?”

“I did, but you're not making sense. And you're talking too fast.”

Right at that second, you looked like you wanted to hit your head to the wall.

After taking a deep breath, with a tint of blush across your cheeks, I watched the way my bedroom light colored you. How soft it made you look. The mussed blond hair, longer then than it had ever been before, your hazel eyes, almost dark brown in the low light, the way you bit your lower lip and averted your eyes before settling them back to me.

Finally, you said, “It all gets fucked up. I meant to tell you first that I'm—” you coughed, "—gay. But. But I saw you with Penny and it messed with my head. I mean, I like you, Roo. I like you a lot, so I did that without thinking and—I don't know, maybe you don't see me that way. It's okay, I swear, we can be just friends like before, just, just don't hate me, Roo. Please. You're—you're all that is for me. So please. I'm sorry. Okay?”

I was still watching you, not saying anything. You'd grown taller than me, probably not more than five centimeters, but taller nevertheless. I wondered then how come I didn't notice that before. Maybe because we had been together all the time so we didn't look for the little changes.
Your Adam’s apple bobbed as you gulped down your nerve. Your eyes, Sam, you didn't know how much you eyes had haunted me, how they haunt me still. “Roo, say something.”

“I don't want to be friends.”

The pain in your eyes was so obvious that it hurt me, too. “Okay. Okay, Roo, I get it. I'm just—I'm sorry.”

“No, wait. Sam.” I held your face so it would keep facing me. You looked sad then angry and I wondered what it was you'd been thinking. Most likely you were just sad and you hated how weak it made you feel so you became angry. Always at yourself. Never at me. “Sam. Friends don't kiss each other.”

You closed your eyes, saying, “I know. It won't happen again, I swear. We'll play soccer, or games—like always.”

I shook your head until you opened your eyes. “I don't want that.” Before the hurt came back, I pressed my lips against yours. It was chaste, and dry, and brief, but firm. I pulled back and waited then, until you registered what it meant, until you understood me.

“Roo.” When you breathed out my name, there was that reverence in your voice again, as though you saw through me, Sam, and you saw me as something more than I was.

I felt my mouth curling with fondness, then let go of your face. You didn't move away. You kept on watching me with disbelief clear in your face, as if you were afraid of blinking and realized you were back in your dark room with parents who didn't care about you.

“But what about—”

I sighed. “It was nothing. Penny wanted to try and I couldn't refuse her puppy eyes.”

You frowned at my explanation then narrowed your eyes. “You have to refuse that puppy eyes from now on though.”

I threw you a wide grin. “Yeah?”

It surprised me when you pulled me into a firm hug, though I don't know why it did. You hugged me all the time since we were little. The hug was awkward because of the sling and I didn't know which part of your body was okay enough to be touched since I knew it couldn't have just been your right arm that was hurt, but I gave you the best I got. You sighed into my shoulder and the sound was as content as I had ever heard of you in years. It filled me with so much relief and joy I could almost burst.

“Okay?”

When you pulled back, your smile was bright and the sparkle in your eyes made it hard to breathe. You said to me, “I am now.”

Sam, you might not have known, but you had owned me even then.