Page 128 of Two Marlboros

The text was there. It said, “Wednesday at 5 p.m. is fine. Alan.”

It wasn’t his, it couldn’t be. Yes, at the bottom was his signature, and that was a hallmark of his, but it couldn’t be his.

It couldn’t andshouldn’tbe.

So, it occurred to me to check the number and I ran frantically through those menus so I could see the details. I scrolled through the numbers and always hoped that the nextone was wrong, different from the one I remembered and that was saved on my phone.

But they weren’t.

That was the number, the text existed, and it was asking Steve to meet.

I handed the phone back to him without saying anything; I didn’t even look up.

“So, are you two dating?”

My voice had trembled - I had heard it, man! - and I had stuttered like in January when you have a frozen jaw beating on its own.

“Who knows. Are you curious?”

Steve approached me, with a vengeance in his eyes that I had never seen in him.

“How does it feel to be sidelined, Nathan? How does it feel to be on the losing side?”

I was on the stage of my life. There was silence, as always. There wasn’t even popcorn on the floor, a sign that no one had passed by for a long, long time. If I was silent, though, I could hear something: it was the banter from the theater next door, it was the applause of proud parents of their children, it was the cheers of success from those around you. All that noise was an echo. And my theater was so empty that the loneliness acted as a sounding board.

“It’s fine, you won’t last long.”

“The wheel of fortune always turns, it seems. And don’t you dare meddle, understand? You’re nobody, Nathan, and I don’t see that Alan cares that much about a spoiled child like you.”

“Did you come here just to tell me that?”

“Yes. I wanted to tell you about the good news in person. Bye-bye, Nate.”

Steve left, just as he had arrived, letting his news train unceremoniously pass over me. I stood dumbfounded for at leastten minutes staring into space and wondering how such a thing could have happened. I had thought I was the rare flower, the train not to be missed, and instead it was Alan, who had left without even the train conductor’s whistle.

I hadn’t even noticed.

Alan and Steve.

And I hadn’t even thought of him that way, given all the things he had told me! I had left all his charm aside to let him recover from his grief. Not even a week earlier I had felt as if there was an intangible affinity between us, an incredible understanding that you could only experience because there were no words to describe it.

Now, however, there was Steve.

He would become his new distraction - for how long I didn’t know; and who would ever remember Nathan, that stupid kid who only makes stupid jokes, who only writes stupid texts, because - fuck!

HE IS STUPID!

I should have been honest from the beginning and tried to resolve the issue in a civil manner.

But then, what issue? That stupid party thing?

Really?

I had reached a new peak of patheticness. I deserved loneliness, to be envious of other people’s lives. I put my stuff back in a flash because the air in that classroom had become stifling, then I left the university in a hurry to take a walk.

The streets were quite crowded, but one only had to turn into some lonely alleyway to find as the only background the clink of accidentally kicked cans, rolling on the asphalt until they slammed into garbage cans. One of those cans bounced back and hit me in the ankle.

The thought of California came to my rescue. By now it was done, I just had to wait and pack when the time was right.I wondered how my mother would react to the news of my departure and imagined her pleading with me not to leave for the sake of the family. Soon after, I wondered how my father would react and wondered if in fact the move might not be a good card to play. He would lose his little toy on which to vent any frustration, the human being he would crush in order to feel better. In my mind I was already anticipating the spectacle... but I felt even better when I realized that basically nothing was stopping me from making it a reality.

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