Wearing My Smile | ✔

Monday, August 8th, 2005

I rounded up to you when we were going home together later. "Why?"

You frowned at me. "Why what?" There was a bust at the corner of your lip. I tried to touch it, but you moved away and averted your eyes.

"Why were you fighting?"

"No reason."

"Don't bullshit me, Sam," I snapped, but you already started pedaling your bike so I had to pick up mine. "Stop stalling."

You sighed. There was a sense of defeat in your frame, as if you had seen the future and known what it would look like. I wonder if that's also how I looked like to you back then, Sam. Staring at you with my haunted eyes at the nights I was wrecked with my own horror. "It's stupid," you finally replied. "They're asking for a fight. Calling us queers and shit."

"And that's different from the other days, how?" This wasn't something new. At the start of that year, people had started a rumor that we were dating each other, which wasn't wrong in the least, but no one but Penny knew that and I knew Penny wouldn't say that kind of thing. By then, we'd been together for two years, even though it really didn't feel all too different from how we were before, only with kissing.

"Well, for one, this guy said that you must have been—" I watched you gritting your teeth, "—the bitch in the relationship." The words were spat with so much venom that I could feel your hatred toward them.

It was a little bit funny because of how ironic it was. I remember at that point we'd never gone past mutual hand jobs. Once or twice over the past months perhaps, and even when we did, it was obvious to me what you'd wanted. I didn't have preferences as I had never been interested to try this kind of things before you, but I found myself being the dominant one when we were in bed.

Even so, not in a million years I would use that kind of insult to anyone else, straight or gay relationships aside, because it was just derogatory way people did to hurt other people just so they'd rise above them. It was making me sick.

"Most people are mean because they don't understand," I told you softly, soothingly. "And because they don't understand, they're scared. I won't say that's not a shitty fucking thing to say, Sam, it's rude as all hell, but I'd rather focus on other people." I shrugged. "You know, the many other kids who don't care about the rumors. It's almost July, Sam. It's already an old news."

You didn't say anything. I should have noticed then something was wrong.

"So, did the teacher call you to their office?" I asked carefully, parking my bike beside the porch steps.

It took you a long time to answer, at least not until we were sitting on our couch, watching the television. "Yeah."

"What did they say?" You were so quiet, I had to ask again, "Sam?"

"Nothing much. Just that I would be expelled if I fought again. I mean, my class absences and bad grades had already pissed them off. I skipped the classes a lot." You shrugged nonchalantly as if that wasn't at all news to me. "They won't, though. Expel me, I mean. But I might not pass the grade."

"Sam."

"I didn't tell you exactly because of this reason. Because then you'll worry your head off."

"Of course, I will, you dumbass!" I hissed. "You're skipping classes? What the fuck?"

"Yeah. So, don't worry about it. They're never going to expel me. My father had made sure of it the beginning of our school year."

I didn't like the sound of it. Your tone was so flat. "What does that mean?"

Finally, finally, you looked back at me, then with a wince of pain you looked away. There was a flash of shame there and I found myself wanting to hold you, but it was gone as quickly as it came. "It means he'd 'donated' a lot of money before he left to make sure I finish high school. And I mean, a lot."

Then, I heard it. The thing you didn't say. "He's not coming back, is he?"

Your smile was a mix of anger, tinted with sadness that threatened to leak. It was an eye-opening moment, because even though all I could feel was relief, I can still remember how you'd looked like that day. The obvious longing in your face. The crippling devastation. I recalled then the reason you'd wanted to stay at all. I've got to fix it, you'd said. They used to laugh a lot, Roo. I've got to fix that.

I watched the way you curled your left hand, then opened it again, over and over as if you wanted to remind yourself it was still there. It was something you did often then, right after you'd started attending the therapy. I realized then that was why you'd agreed to live in my house in the first place, not only because Luce had begged you to, but because you'd known. That was why some days you'd sit under the mango tree drinking because that must have been your way to mourn, because you'd known.

I was breathless, as if there wasn't enough air. I wondered if that was how it felt like to be you, Sam. Living, but never quite breathing. How does anyone ever manage to live that way?

"You were right, Roo. There's nothing to fix." Then you scoffed because of how funny it was. I wondered if you'd been blaming yourself. You must have. Because if you hadn't been so stubborn from the start, if you'd just listened to me then, if you'd just left that house, you wouldn't have been here, with your left arm ruined, with a father who was too much of a coward to see what he'd done to his own son.

And because I knew that was what you were thinking, I held you tightly in my arms. You stiffened before melting into me and I felt as you breathed me in. How soft it was. How soft you were. I said to you, "We're going to make it, Sam. I swear to you."

But I didn't know if you believed me. I didn't know if I even believed my own words.