Wearing My Smile | ✔

Saturday, August 12th, 2006

Your father came back to your house one day in August, when I'd already turned seventeen and your birthday was still a couple of months away. I felt the awfulness grew inside me, but you touched my hand and said, "It's going to be just fine. He just came to visit."

I remembered how your mother spent her days being drunk or high and how every day you would come into that house just to take care of her. I replied, "I don't feel good about this, Sam. Your father wasn't exactly a good father in all the times I'd known him."

"You've never seen Dad sober, Roo."

"You're saying he's sober now?"

"Yeah."

I shook my head. "It doesn't feel right."

"But I've got to try," you insisted. "You know I have to, Roo."

I knew, of course, I knew. But I also knew you to become a different person when he was around, how you would beg just so he would accept you as his son as though to be one you had to be something much bigger than you already were. I knew you to be hurt by his words, that you would take his blows just so he would stay. Did that change over the years? Did anything change?

I could probably tell you many things. Reasons upon reasons why nothing would ever work between you and your family was because they asked you many things you could never give. Not because you were lacking, but because they never had the intention the meet you halfway through.

On the days that it hurt you think about them, about your unborn sibling, about your violin, about your left hand and the things you had lost, when you came to me with unshed tears in your eyes, whispering in-between kisses, "Hold me, Roo. Won't you hold me until it's gone?" I'd murmur to you how much I loved you, how precious and priceless you were to me, how you were worth the whole fucking world. So, I would tell you over and over again that even though I realized most of the time our sex were just an outlet to ease your pain or something to ground you, I would do it all over again.

But I looked at you in the eyes then and there was just so much hope inside them it hurt me to say anything else so I wouldn't mention it. I wouldn't tell you how hopeless it was. I'd keep it in me so it would never hurt you.

"You can't do that anymore," I told you sternly.

"Do what?"

"Let him walk all over you. I won't let him, I won't let you let him do that." I cupped your face in my hands and added, "You belong to me, remember?" And you smiled at me as though I'd just handed you the whole world.

I could tell it wasn't going well when I saw it was almost nine in the evening you were still not coming back. Your house right across was lit brighter than it had ever been in all the years it was occupied. I saw your shadow or your father like he was pacing. I didn't know what you talked about and to be completely honest, I couldn't imagine what it was like for you to talk with him at all. I never could understand your love for them, Sam. Many times I'd suspected it was just that you didn't understand what a normal affection between family members felt like. The worst part was I didn't even know if I could explain it to you what compassion should have looked like.

From the window, I could see you stomping outside. The front door slammed so violently the whole house shook. As you walked back to where I was standing on my front porch, I heard a loud crash coming out of your house's kitchen, followed by shouts of outrage and another fight between your parents.

Your face was grim when you reached me, holding me so tightly, inhaling my scent as if you would float away if you didn't remember it. Faintly, I could hear the yelling coming out of your house. Something about having a son who didn't know how to like a girl like any normal boy would and whose fault it was.

I held my breath. "You told them."

"I did," you replied flatly.

I clutched onto you tighter and whispered, "Sam."

"It's okay."

I thought about broken bones, about unresolved rage, about sadness at the tip of your tongue, about desperation when you clung onto me. "How is that ever okay?"

"It doesn't matter. There's nothing we can do about it now."

"But we could have—we could have stayed silent. I wouldn't object to that—"

"No," you cut off. When you pulled back, I recognized you. My soft-hearted friend. "You're important to me, Roo, and I won't ever lie about that anymore. I'm not going to have it. If they're not going to take it then I'm leaving them for good." Even though your smile was sad, I saw the resolution in it. Unfurling inside me was warmth I didn't know I could feel anymore.

If someone had told me that was how hope felt like—blinding, overwhelming, all-encompassing—I wouldn't have believed them.

Later that night, you would take your chance to be on top and I remember vividly the way you told me how gorgeous I was lying under you, pale eyes looked almost dark with desire, and how good it felt to be inside of me. I'd laughed under my breath, but immediately stopped with a gasp when you thrust deeper inside.

"Laughing when you're being fucked isn't good for my ego, Roo." But you were smirking. It made you look much younger, Sam, like you were my kindest and most soft-hearted best friend again instead of the jaded teen.

"It's just, your dirty talk, man."

"What of it?"

"Oh, I don't know. I've known you for too long, I think it doesn't work on me anymore." But I gasped when you did it again.

"Like hell it doesn't."

When you kissed me, Sam, it felt as if I was brought back to life. Lying there in my bed with you smiling down at me, I thought to myself what would ever be better than this? To have you in my arms. To wake up next to you again. To laugh at your jokes and to take our bicycles, pedaling around the town.

We were just a normal pair of teens, and I know, Sam, I know I shouldn't blame myself because not once you had ever blamed me, but on the days like today I'd remember running around, walking, laughing from one place to another. On my back yard, my front porch, sitting on its railing because we'd grown too much to be hanging on the beams anymore, climbing up and jumping down the mango tree you hated as much as you loved, the flamingo pond, the yellow willow park, the small library at the corner of Crossing End Street, swinging on the rusty swing set, the clearing in the north wood, the small lake at the end of it that we'd found one day when we were twelve.

Months after months passed, you were with me, always, and perhaps right then I understood your sadness when no one else was looking. You told me not to mind about it because you were happy when you were with me, but some days I'd find you touching your violin case, cleaning up all the dusts, and I wanted to scream at how unfair everything was. That you should have deserved everything good in the world. You, Sam, because you were everything to me.

When we were lying in my bed side by side, staring at the ceiling, chuckling under our breath, you touched my chin so I'd look at you and smile. You said, "Tell me again."

And I told you, Sam, again and again.