Wearing My Smile | ✔

Sunday, May 8th, 2005

Peace had never stayed long, not with us. Or with you—at least that was what you had always told me throughout our teen years while you were taking a long drag of your cigarette, a half-empty bottle of whiskey in your lap. You rarely ever wore your hair in spikes anymore. I remember the first time I found you drinking hard in the evening, under the gigantic mango tree. You weren't even trying to hide. We were fifteen, it was months after the incident. I'd known you'd taken up smoking from the time before the incident, something you'd done in secret as though you'd thought I wouldn't find out and figured what it had meant. You'd rarely answered me when I asked how your family had been doing that year, but it didn't matter, I'd learned to hear answers in your silence.

I opened my palm up in front of you. You glanced down at it, then up at me. Question in your eyes.

"Give me the cigarette," I asked you, then I saw the conflict in your eyes, the way you wanted to protest, so I added, "Just one of them. I want to try."

You laughed. It sounded odd and unhinged, the way it always did after the incident, but you took a piece and handed it to me as I took a seat right beside you, taking a drag to get it lit, then coughed violently. It was vile and bitter, with a hint of strange mint at the tip of my tongue. I chased the cool taste and noticed the way you watched my lips moved, before slowly dragging your eyes back to mine. "It's menthol."

"What?" Licking my lower lip, my voice was scratchy with desire. I wondered if you'd noticed then. You could read me like an open book, so you probably did.

You smiled at me softly. "The mint aftertaste. I like this brand because of the menthol."

"Oh." I took another drag. It still made my eyes water and I still coughed a couple of times, but it got easier as I found the way to do it right. "So, why are you sitting here alone, smoking and drinking, in the late evening, right where I could see you instead of someplace I didn't know like you did before?"

"Ah, you knew about that, huh?"

"Give me some credit." I wanted to snap, but the words fell flat from my mouth.

"I always give you all the credit, Roo."

I didn't have an answer for that.

"Maybe I want you to join me," you told me when I didn't reply.

"Finally," I muttered to myself.

"Don't get mad, Roo. I'm just trying to spare you my angst, which basically is all I have these days."

I could feel my insides twist at your words, the way you so nonchalantly said it, as if it didn't matter anymore. At the time, I was so frustrated I wanted to yell at you not to give up, that the therapy might not work that time, but there were other ways we hadn't tried yet, weren't there? But I knew you, Sam. I knew what you'd say.

So, I said instead, "If keeping up with your angst means I get to be with you then I'd like to be here."

The bottle paused on its way to your mouth, it shook a little because you held it with your left hand. With low voice, you asked, "Oh really?"

"Sam, don't be stupid. Of course, I do."

"I'm afraid of being a bad influence. Luce and your dad would kick my ass for it."

"You're not." You glanced at the cigarette around my fingers and gave me an ironic smile, so I insisted, "You're not."

The way you shrugged was maddening.

Long, silent minutes later, with cigarettes out and the bottle of whiskey finally empty, I saw how flushed you were. You had this dopey smile on your face that was entirely too soft to be your usual one, that I figured you were most likely drunk, then realizing how much of drink it took you to get intoxicated told me that that wasn't the first time. There were times, of course, during the violent explosions of your father that he'd mentioned about you messing with the stash. I suppose right then I understood what it had been all about and I didn't know what I felt right then. There was anger and a sense of betrayal beneath everything else as I thought of all the things you'd apparently decided to keep from me.

But then I looked at you, how relaxed you seemed, almost eerily serene, and the emotions were gone as quickly as they came.

"I'm sorry I disappointed you," you told me quietly.

The knot inside me loosened a little. "You could stop now."

"Oh, Roo." Your voice sounded so regretful yet gentle, as though saying this hurt you, Sam. "But I can't, can I?"

"Why not?"

"Because I like the peace. It calms me down even though it never lasts." Almost like an afterthought you added, "Nothing ever does, though, not for me."

I wanted to get angry. I wanted to shout at you, What about me? Am I not always there? Aren't I enough? Because the way you talked made it seem as though you were so deep inside your loneliness that it clouded you from seeing me. Me, Sam, your best friend, your boyfriend, your family, and once, years ago, you'd called me your home. Was I not enough? What was it that you needed but you didn't have? Couldn't you just ask me for it? Thinking of it now, it was probably cocky of me, to be saying that I could drive your demons away when I couldn't even drive away mine. And anyway, that was you, and the Sam I knew never asked for anything from somebody else in his life because he was too proud.

But I didn't say any of those. The next nights, when you haven't come home to my place, I would immediately look for you under that mango tree. I would sit beside you with my legs crossed. You would hand me a cigarette or two in silence and we would watch the dark night sky for hours.

Some nights, you'd ask me if I'd thought death was easy.

I'd say yes.

I'd ask what you thought, but you would never answer.