Page 44 of Two Marlboros

“You just have to try.”

For a few moments he seemed to calm down, but immediately slipped a hand into the back pocket of his pants, from which he pulled out his pack of Marlboros.

“Forget it.”

He made no fuss and put it back where he had found it. “I can do nothing with you.”

I was already thinking about what to answer when he let out an excited shriek.

“What?” I asked.

His response was to turn up the radio so suddenly that it scared me.

“Are you crazy? Turn it down now!”

But he had already started fidgeting in that seat, restrained only by his belt, and imitating dances with his hands.

“Everyboooody...”

As soon as he started humming, it was clear to me that we had stumbled upon a song by the infamous Backstreet Boys.

He kept wiggling, singing with his fist in front of his mouth like a microphone, as if he felt like a star in front of a large audience. My ears forgave him for reaching the pain threshold only because of that burst of enthusiasm and vitality. Each bass line of the song was matched by a vibration that shook me from head to toe, rattling my rib cage and heart; so, without even realizing it, I began to sway my head to the rhythm of the music. That powerful feeling seemed to suggest that I should go wild like him.

So, the car was filled with noise, with vital shakes, with the singing of Nathan, who, meanwhile, had turned red from the effort of singing that song. When he finished, he turned the radio back down to an acceptable volume. He had a huge smile on his face, the smile of someone who always feels one step closer to his idols, those who can speak about us and represent our world, too difficult to explain in words. And there he was,letting the excitement make him less restless, happy because he had listened to them and perhaps because he had allowed me to catch a part of him.

“So? Aren’t they wonderful?”

“Just wonderful,” I replied sarcastically.

Yet another eye roll and another snort.

“Oh no!”

I quickly shifted my eyes from right to left. “What?”

“We were supposed to turn right!”

I shook my head. “It’s not my fault you were busy being a rock star.”

“Here, turn here! We’re close.”

I followed his directions and parked in the first free spot.

The last social event I had attended had been Oliver’s graduation party. An award for his brilliant exposition on the effects of viper venom and a roar of applause for hissumma cum laude, which I had welcomed with a smile on my face at how obvious it was.

At the party he had shown up in a suit and tie, as elegant in that suit as he was in his manner. He spoke softly and laughed in a composed way as he discussed with my mother the flaws in his display. Flaws that, of course, he was the only one to see.

He did not disdain photos and attention, he allowed himself to be the star of the evening, but without turning off the spotlight on the guests, a more than important side dish to make that party unforgettable. There were his classmates, his lifelong friends: the former lost discussing some unpronounceable name in the industry, the latter lost in front of that dark world.

I was part of the last group: I listened to him chatting with his colleagues about this or that professor, about the rubbish he was spouting about a disease I had never heard of, though I couldn’t laugh like them. Then again, it was morethan understandable, but it was enough for me to read the enthusiasm on his face to be happy, too, because his happiness was mine and it never had been as much as in at that moment, when I was beginning to think that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. A life that was snuffed out in a breath instead, that continued to consume itself and of which there was nothing left but ashes, a gray soot that had lost the resemblance of what it had been.

That was my first real date in many, long months. There was not a breath of wind to stir the air, so much so that the heat settled on my skin, sticking shortly thereafter. Maybe I was hotter than usual, or overdressed for that weather, or maybe I only realized at that moment that it was just me and Nathan. Because, yes, in the end that felt much more like a date than what had happened three days earlier; this time I had conscientiously agreed to it, though certainly not for him. Ashton had actually forced me to accept the invitation, because according to him I could find some interesting clues about the robbery, since Nathan was involved.

“Are you moving? You’re slow!”

I hadn’t even noticed that I had slowed my pace, caught up as I was in my own thoughts, although perhaps it was him who had sped up out of impatience. Meanwhile, he was still humming his idols’ song, and without realizing it, I found myself singing it in my head as well. I quickly hushed my thoughts, for I did not want Nathan’s injection to reach my brain as well, after it had overbearingly reached areas of my body of which I had almost forgotten the existence.

My gaze slid to Nathan’s back, to his shoulder blades peeking out of his T-shirt, to his narrow hips, to his hands tucked into the back pockets of his pants. He slipped them off and turned to me.

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