Affinity

When a friend calls you attractive, they’re usually lying.

I know this because Landon is usually full of shit.

When a friend calls you beautiful, they’re usually drunk.

Even though I’ll sit at your side as you wrap yourself around the toilet seat, shivering cold in a public bathroom, it doesn’t mean I’ll feel sorry for you or show you any sympathy. And it doesn’t mean I’ll hold your hand afterwards. If anything, it means that you are a pathetic excuse for a friend, and oh God, I really don’t know what to do with you.

Landon is, in all honesty, the most pretentious self-righteous narcissistic beautiful person I have ever met. And everything he says is laced with some kind of poetic irony every writer wishes they could replicate. So, when I look at him, hunched over himself with his head in his hands and his heavy breathing, I am not sure a smile is deemed appropriate, but I can’t help myself.

You find this funny, he says.

And in a horribly sadistic way, I do.

Every time you call my name, I feel sick to my stomach. And I can barely touch you anymore because I have this irrational fear that your bones are made of glass. The other day, you told me to look at you when I speak, but, fuck, I don’t think I can.

Mom likes him too, no fucking joke. She says to me, Landon is a nice boy. I like that boy, she says to me. Yeah Ma, I like him too, I say.

Where’s his dad, she asks.

Gone.
Gone.
Gone, I say.

He’s the man of the house, I say.

After that fight with your father, that fight where he came home and stole Eli from his bed, that fight where he gave you the bruise below your left eye, I cried for you. You told me not to, not to cry for you because it wasn’t worth it. I can’t help but worry about you sometimes, sometimes. You told me not to cry for you because youjust don’t want to die without a few scars. And you had made me smile, so everything was alright.

But the other night, when you were so close to tears, when you tried to cover the sorrow with your typical reluctant rage and clenching fists, I wonder whether or not you are still a boy, whether christening youman is even apposite. And I decide, yes. Yes, you are still very much a little boy, such a frightened little boy.

In the end, everything comes full circle.

Everything is just another repetition, reproduction.

Everyone is just another carbon copy, cardboard cutout.

But, God—this has to be a first because I swear I’ve never felt such affinity with another human being. And I start to question whether this experience can be considered earthly because everything looks like a foreign film, seems like another dimension. And when his skin touches mine, I pray that this is not a dream, Oh God, let this be my waking moment, because I hate the way anything else makes me feel.

Nothing is infinite, he says, except for pain.

Get used to it, he says and looks at me with such intent, with intent to stir, with intent to leave. Without suffering, he says, you would be nothing.

You cut your hair, like Samson in the Bible, and lose everything you worked for, except you don’t believe in God or humanity. This is just an illusion; we are just playing a game. Don’t strike out, you say, keep your eye on the ball. Twelve locks of hair fall to the bathroom floor and you ask me what I think.

Nothing is infinite, I say.

Except for pain, you say.

Except for that.

Landon is, in all honesty, nothing special. He’s a mess of double helix and chemical reactions, just like every other person I have ever met. And everything he says is a mess of nouns and verbs, forming fragments dipped in mediocrity. So when I look at him, hunched over himself with his head in his hands and his heavy breathing, I do believe a smile is called for, because he is just like I am.

I like you, he says. You’re a real classy girl.

And in a terrifyingly masochistic way, I find this flattering.

Did you cry like I did? Oh God, please tell me you cried, please tell me you felt a unspeakable aching in your bones because I did and it kills me to think this doesn’t hurt you like it hurts me. Tell me you hurt, scream it to me because this silence is deafening. Tell me you are as angry as I am. Tell me you are furious with God because I couldn’t stand to know that I am alone. Did you ache like I ached? Jesus, please, just tell me you died like I died.

When a friend calls you his, they’re usually full of lies.

I know this because Landon taught me.

When a friend call you his, they’re usually full of shit.