Wearing My Smile | ✔

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2005

Your father left the town for around six months. Being called by the big family, as your mother had muttered to you in the midst of her perpetual high.

Luce came back living in my house and had to drive more than an hour to her work, but she didn't complain. She had decided it was good if you lived with us from then on after you were allowed to go home, which I knew you'd wanted to protest, but her face turned awful, like she was on a verge of tears, as she said, "Sam, just shut up for once, okay? Shut up and do what we say for once." So, the next day, you moved into our guest room and in the morning you were sitting in our dining room, eating breakfast as if you'd been there your whole life.

The physical therapy sessions were terrible at first. You couldn't move your left arm at all and once or twice I saw your eyes watered in frustration. I had to be the one who called Damian and explained to him the situation. He came by to my place a couple time a week to see how you were doing, but I could tell it made it harder for you. You started hiding yourself in the guest room on the days he came by. I wanted to explain it to him but by the rueful smile on his face I knew he understood why.

The therapy days came twice a week but not once you chose to ditch it. Until finally, after a little more than three months you started making a significant progress, lifting objects and carrying them around. Your face lit up with it, and mine with yours.

Each night, after you kissed me senseless, groaning and panting my name on the living room couch, you never failed to open the case of your violin that you'd taken back to my place. There was reverence in the way you touched it, the same one I recognized every time you touched me. I'd press my lips to your left fingers and you would shudder. We'd walk through the halls, where the guest room was, but you'd never stayed there. You slept curled next to me in my room, without words, always.

We were sitting on my front porch, four months after the incident, a week after I found you drinking alone under that mango tree. I'm thinking now they were probably the most peaceful months of your life because I saw it in your face. I saw how you relaxed there as though it was right where you belonged and I found myself wishing those days would never end. Maybe soon, you would be able to play your violin again. I believed with my whole heart that someday you'd get it back. Your soul, I mean. And I couldn't wait for it to happen.

Six months and four days. You father didn't come back. Your mother was rarely ever sober anymore that you had to come into your house every evening just so she'd remember to take a shower and eat. Six months and five days. The physical therapy was going well, but you picked up your violin, the sound you made was stilted, sharp and angry, and it was still not enough.

Six months and nine days. We were at school. Everything was fine. We smoked cigarette every day. You needed to sit under that mango tree drinking some nights, I'd grab your bottle on some days you drank too much, but everything was fine.

Until six months and nine days, I heard a commotion about a brawl in the locker hallways and I walked calmly around the crowd who shouted and cheered.

Six months and nine days, I saw a glint of your blond hair in the middle of the crowd.

Six months and nine days, there were blood on the knuckles of your right hand and a fist of bloodied T-shirt in your left hand. The right fist came down over and over onto the boy under your mercy. For a second I thought there were claws. Your eyes were a cold pair of hard stones. The faint smell of blood.

Six months and nine days. The day you decided to give up.