Page 112 of Two Marlboros

“I will go all the way. Consider it a last gesture in memory of our friendship,” I added, aware that perhaps those would be the last words I would ever speak to him. He did not respond, and instead turned away, surrounded by those people I had never seen, who were not right for him; but after all, what did I know by now?

I sighed as soon as I felt a hand on my shoulder: it was Alan.

“Are you alright?”

I didn’t feel much like talking, and he was far too apprehensive. I stood staring at the lawn for a long time, him beside me. I was trying to distinguish the blades of grass moved by the wind, but I couldn’t.

At that moment, I felt I was eighteen and not twenty-one. Since I had been kicked out of my house, it was as if my time had stopped. I wanted everything back: my family, my room, turkey on Thanksgiving. I could take no more of the smelly dumpsters and broken couches, the silence of that hovel, the furtive incursions into what I once called home. By now I was living a fiction. When had I become Nathan-the-stupid, just for company? And how many would have stayed, the moment I threw off the mask?

Would Alan have stayed?

“I’m so lonely.”

“You?” he chuckled incredulously. “You have a lot of people around!”

Sure, I wanted to answer him sarcastically,a lot of people who only want one thing from me. In the end, however, I said nothing. I couldn’t.

“Although maybe,” he continued in a softer tone, “what you need is someone who is by your side, who loves your every flaw and is ready to forgive everything to that bitchy face you have.”

He gave me a little pat and cracked a smile. He was doing everything he could to cheer me up. He hadn’t left yet, as the others had done when they hadn’t achieved their ulterior motive.

“Why don’t you say you want to fuck me, like everyone else does?”

Another incredulous laugh escaped him. “First, I’m not going to fuck you, as you say; second, I’m not ‘everyone else’.”

Alan would never care about me the way I wanted him to. He was considerate of me, but my impression was that he was considerate of everyone.

“Would you hug me?”

My eyes moistened, so he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me to him, letting the warmth of his body envelop meand cradle me. His grip made the gray clouds disappear from my head and gave me the feeling that I had found a support to rest on, in the long journey that was my life. I did not know whether to trust Alan completely, but in that moment, he gave me what I needed: the feeling that someone cared about me.

It was late at night when Ash arrived at my house.

“Thanks for the ride.”

I grabbed the handle to open the door but was forced to stop.

“I’ll get off too, if you don’t mind.”

Alan had decided to go with me, but why? I asked no questions and got out; he followed shortly after. Ash said goodbye and we were left alone. Just as he had done in the parking lot, he continued to follow me without saying anything until we were at the door. I slipped my keys into the lock, but he stopped me.

“Wait.”

I slipped them out and turned toward him. “What is it?”

“I’m sorry about tonight. If I haven’t been honest with you, it’s only for professional reasons.”

What difference did it make, after all? I shrugged and nodded.

“No problem. Now the script calls for you to disappear forever, like everyone else.”

“When will you understand that I’m not ‘everyone else’?”

I once again took the keys in my hand and slipped them into the lock but failed to turn them.

“Would you like to take a walk?”

I slipped them out once more and turned toward him.

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