Page 174 of Two Marlboros

“You used me.”

Everything we had experienced had been a sham. Good crap.

“I didn’t use you.”

I kicked away a pebble. I looked up at him and met his gaze again.

“Prove it.”

He swallowed a lot of air and spit it out through his nose, lips tight. He stopped looking at me to glance around and waited for a small group of people to flow out before turning back to me. Not that it made much sense, since we had been shouting up to that point.

We were alone again, guy in the shed excluded. Once again, my stomach shut down, and with the disappointment some anger had returned as well. I was fine with being used by Harvey, because I already knew he was an asshole and I had been dumb to fall for him, but Alan? Alan “I-suffer-so-much-for-my-ex,” Alan “champion-of-justice”? But in the end, it was my fault. I was the one who had placed expectations on him, and I couldn’t blame him for disappointing them. No, it had been foolish of me twice to fall for it again.

I was about to open my mouth and tell him that it was obvious he didn’t know how to prove that he hadn’t used me after all, because - surprise! - that was exactly what he had done, but against all odds he tightened his lips and drew in a deep breath.

“About your departure,” he whispered, then cleared his throat. “Is there really nothing that can change your mind?”

For a couple of seconds, I thought of nothing. I didn’t really want a demonstration - I mean, yes, but I didn’t imaginethat. He always knew how to say the right thing at the right time, because a slew of answers began to dart through my head since yes, heck, there was something to change my mind after all. And the fact that he had chosen that very question in the face of my request - for what, then? Trust? Affection? Love? -, made me feel important to him again. All in all, I no longer felt anger, no. But a tiny bit of huff, I did.

“First think about saving my ass.”

He blew out a half laugh, perhaps thinking it was a joke. It kind of was, but not that much. He shifted his gaze to the ground for a moment, after which he tightened his lips, as if to contain his embarrassment.

“You know you’re my priority.”

I blinked two or three times because I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. Man… He had really taken this whole demonstration thing seriously, but I didn’t want to give him a pass.

“Oh well,” I tried to play it down. “Imagine if I wasn’t.”

He bent his head to the side and pulled a smile. He wanted to be serious and a little pissed off, but he wasn’t doing it well - and maybe deep down I wasn’t doing well either, certainly not after what he had told me.

Someone called him from the hallway. He turned around. It was Ash who needed him, and with some urgency, too. In my head, the background noise became muffled, that of Ash’s voice almost intangible, still lost in my thoughts.

Alan turned to me and sighed again.

“See you,” he said, and walked away, without me being able to say goodbye back to him.

32

Second chances

(?R.E.M. - Losing my religion)

The last notes of a pop tune ended up hovering in the air of the car’s cockpit before I turned off the radio and my mind for the day. It wasIt takes a fool to remain sane, one of Oliver’s favorite songs, and bounced around in my head all those words about prejudice, the walls between people, and the struggle to be oneself on those newly dissipated notes; and the next thing I thought was that Oliver would never like new songs again - after all, it was crystallized in a moment of time like a snapshot, which would fade away little by little.

As I re-entered the house, I found my father on the sofa reading the newspaper, while all I could hear of my mother was her voice from the kitchen. I heard her closing the refrigerator and, soon after, complaining that it was empty.

“Hello, welcome back,” he said to me.

I greeted him back, and my mother appeared in the doorway.

“Hey, honey, welcome back. How was your day?”

I was glad to have them around, but I was even more glad that in those three and a half weeks they had been too busy with my mother’s business to occupy the guest room.

“Let’s just say it’s been pretty heavy.”

She smiled and went back to preparing who knows what. I took a seat on the sofa next to my father and peeked at the sports news he was reading.

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