Page 100 of Two Marlboros

He took the shoulder strap and slung it over his shoulder, and in a few strides, he was at the door. With a jerk I blocked him before he opened it, but he shoved me aside to make his way through.

“I want to leave. Stay here and cry alone, I don’t care.”

I didn’t want him to leave, perhaps because I was aware that if he opened that door, he would never look for me again. It was when I grabbed his wrist that I wondered if pitying me was basically just a perverse way to keep him close to me. To keep everyone close to me, but especially him and his friendship.

I knew I had hurt him, though. And what he had said hurt me a great deal, because it was a sign that I had let him down.

“You’re right, and I apologize,” I whispered, only to realize my voice had not trembled, because I was no longer crying.

“Well, too late. And let go of my wrist.”

He was angry, and responding to his request exposed me to the risk of my fears becoming reality. I did as he asked, however. I let go of my grip on his wrist.

“Perhaps you should get off your high horse,” he continued, but without shouting.

I knew he spoke that way because I opened a wound in him again. He was not insensitive, and neither was I.

I didn’t want him to leave, and if I had been less stupid, I would have gotten that hug from him that I so needed. I couldn’t let him open that door and walk out of my life.

“Go to my room, Nathan. Look under the pillow, the one toward the door.”

“Why?” he asked testily.

“Because then you can see what thoughts have been keeping me company these past months.”

He studied my sentence for a moment, and backed away for a few steps, not taking his eyes off me, before turning and continuing toward the room as I told him. He rambled for a few seconds, then suddenly froze. He had found it.

He left the room with that expression of pity I had so detested, and instead found myself craving it in that moment. With every step he moved toward me, the excitement came pulsing back up my throat and stinging my eyes, and when Nathan was in front of me again, I knew I couldn’t take it much longer.

“I’m sorry for the things I said to you,” I whispered, hoping to gain his forgiveness. “But I just wanted to say that maybe you didn’t make it this far with your thoughts.”

The tears came out on their own, and I couldn’t bother to stop them. I couldn’t even remember the last time I had cried in front of someone wishing from that someone a real hug, from someone who is concerned about you. I felt the shoulder strap settle to the ground and Nathan’s arms around me, and I regretted treating him like I did, because I knew I had hurt him, and he had put those feelings aside just to take care of mine.

He let my head rest in the crook of his shoulder, and in an instant, I was clutching his body too, with a strength equal to the gratitude I felt for his friendship. My tears wetted his skin, and with each gasp he massaged my back, in slow movements.

“Don’t go away,” I begged him, with the same phrase I had thought of as Oliver’s coffin was lowered into the ground without me being able to do anything. It only took a few moments for the tears to turn into sobs; my body was shaken by a violent sob, and I groaned, but he contained all my despair with his embrace, brought a hand to my head and began to caress it.

“Take it easy,” he whispered slowly, as his hand moved slowly through my hair. “I’m not leaving.”

Oliver had never responded to that desperate request, and besides -stupid!- how could he when he was dead, inside a coffin? My fingers tightened into a grip on Nathan’s shirt, and I spewed more sobs, contained only by the caresses on my head. His touch flooded me with a warmth I had not felt in a long time, the one of sincere and deep affection, the kind Oliver had taken to the grave.

“I’m here with you,” he whispered again, his voice slow and quiet. “It’s okay.”

With the funeral over, everyone had returned to their own lives. But not me, because mine was gone, and hadn’t been there for nine long months. I sobbed again on Nathan’s shoulder, his caresses acting as a contrast, soothing a wound that still bled so badly.

“Why did you leave me?” I asked the nothingness, and moaned again, and clenched my jaw so hard it hurt, with Nathan’s hand that had stopped caressing me and was now holding me to him, as strongly as he could. I had survived so far, but when would it stop hurting so much?

I cried for many more minutes, with Nathan there with me, with his warmth and caresses, his reassurance, his calm,loving voice. Little by little I loosened the grip of my fists as the memories about Oliver left my head, until I returned to encircling Nathan’s hips with my palms. Only then he let his hand fall from my head to behind my back, and for several minutes we stayed like that, motionless, moved only by our breaths, until I stopped crying altogether.

Over the next two hours we ate together and ended up, I’m not sure how, filling his drum pack, as he called them. Seeing him lick the map no longer had any effect on me, proving that his friendship was more important than any dream.

We were on the couch, me composed, him sitting lengthwise. Suddenly, he stretched out his feet and rested his legs on my thighs.

“You comfy?” I asked.

He laughed, but I didn’t say anything to him. It didn’t bother me.

“Can I ask you something?” he asked.

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