Give Me a Break

Eggs taste like cardboard. Bacon? Chewy cardboard. The waffles drenched in syrup feel like glue running in chunks and slithers across my tongue. They taste about the same.

I’m eating because Jon keeps nudging my elbow under the table and Brendon’s tossing me puppy dog look presents, begging me to accept them as penitence for whatever he obviously did wrong to make me run away the first night at our hotel.

I’m here because Jon found me wandering around Hawaii suburbia itching at mosquito bites and partially delirious from lack of food. I’m ninety percent sure I’m mildly allergic to mosquitos. The red welts seem to demand a doctors attention. I’ve got better things to do than fight off a chemical related potential death.

I came with Jon to the restaurant because he promised not to ask questions and because I was too weak to argue. I’m not saying anything because there’s nothing to say.

Besides, it’s Brendon. He talks enough to steal the words from the other customers, drown them in their lack of anything important to say. The same old mindless chatter. How are you? How’s the family? Nice weather. Did you catch the new last night? I can’t believe she said that. You look great. Mindless. Mindless. Repeat. Repeat. Over and over until you run out of things to say and then it’s on recycle mode. The same conversation. A new dress. A new venue. A new hair cut.

If Jon spots the ferocity with which I cut at the waffles on my plate, his nudges into my sides don’t convey anything.

“I checked out that surf spot you told me about last night, Jon!” Loud and screeching and I can feel my ears bleeding. Or maybe they’re sprouting the syrup from my drenched waffle like a busted pipe under the sink. “It was amazing! I’ve never seen waves that big.”

Because you’ve never been to Hawaii, idiot. You’ve never been anywhere besides Chicago. You’ve been trapped, just like me. How does freedom taste to you, Brendon? Does it taste like cardboard and stale bread and that scent of decaying something lingering in your mouth and never really coming out? Brush however long you want. Sleep with the mouth wash dripping from your lips. You’ll still taste it. Does freedom taste like death to you like it does to me? Does it taste like betrayal, Brendon?

“I could take you out surfing, if you want. I’ve got some boards you guys can borrow.”

Jon. Always the helper. Always the charmer. Always smelling like coffee and feeling like something solid when he nudges my side to get me to eat, to move, to breath. Always offering to pay. Always leading the way to the waters edge. Always watching me the whole way down, clutching at my hand, casting me warm eyes, warm smiles. Always trying so hard and appearing to not try at all. As if it’s routine. As if it’s normal to care this much about a man he barely met.

“Can your surf?”

Me. Glaring because it’s easier. Shaking my head because I’ve always been a fan of lying. Shaking my head because fuck you, Jon. Spencer taught me how to surf. Spencer took me to California every summer to sit by the waves, cook fish in sand pit fires, and surf. So no. As far as you’re concerned, I can’t surf. Go play with Brendon. Leave me here to watch.

So why are you dragging me in? I’m in jeans, you jack ass. I’ve got my wallet in my back pocket. I can feel it dragging down my hem line. Only waist deep and I’m already sinking. Let me go. I don’t want to swim. I don’t like the water.

But he loved it.

I hate the water. Let me go.

“God, you’re a struggler. Ryan, the water will do you good. You don’t have to surf. Just stand here with me. No, no, hold on. You’re going to trip struggling like that. Just stand still.”

Let go!

“Okay, Ry.”

No, no, not okay. Don’t call me that. He called me that. Brendon can, fine. Not you. You didn’t know him. You don’t have the right.

“Just - stop - hey - Okay! Fine!”

Water up to my head, over my eyes. One trip and I’m drenched, spitting salt water from my mouth, flicking the droplets from my eyes. Bastard. It’s warm, but I shake. Goose bumps splatter themselves along my arms. Jon chuckles and splashes water at me. I splash back, angry, furious. The bastard. The jerk. Who the hell does he think he is?! I don’t like the water!

“Haha!”

Laugh like it’s funny, Jon. Go ahead. Laugh like I won’t hold it against you. Like I won’t make you blow dry the money dissolving in my pockets. Like I won’t pour salt on all of your food so you never get that taste out of your mouth. I never get that taste out. Neither should you.

“Haha.” Deep sighs to clean out your throat. Your voice. Jon, you’re not as charming as you hope. “You know, Ryan. You’re way too up tight. You....you hold on to the past too much.”

I stop moving, stop fidgeting, and wait. I glare and I frown and I wait because that’s not something you say without a follow up. Jon wobbles as a wave crashes by.

“He wouldn’t want you to.”

He’s dead. What does he care? He’s dead and in Chicago. If you’re talking about Spencer I’m going to kill Brendon because Spencer wasn’t his and he has nothing to say about him.

“Brendon doesn’t care what I do.”

Take the hint bastard. Veer away from what neither one of us wants to talk about. The salt stings, but I’m starting to not think and that’s the closest I’ll come to ever being okay.

“You know I meant-”

“Shut up.”

It’s stern and quiet, threatening and hissed. I’m not talking about this. We’re not talking about this. If I have to fake happiness and loving the beach to get it, fine. I’ll do whatever it takes to drown this out. To drown him out long enough for me to not think. To not feel either hollow or furious. Never happy. Never content. Always angry. Always miserable.

A night slouched along a river bank, spotted with bites and swells is enough to make me hate him, hate myself. I don’t want to think about it. Let me do anything but think of him.

“You need to talk about this, Ryan. If not to me, to Brendon at least. Please. It’s not easy on any of us-”

Smack!

He wasn’t yours! Stop it! He didn’t love you like he loved me! He didn’t know you! He didn’t sit beside you after your dad beat you and then whipe the blood from your face! He didn’t go to college with you and room with you and buy a condo with you! He didn’t bring you coffee every morning! He didn’t laugh with you and play guitar with you and talk about how Pete was going to drive the business into the ground! He did those with me!

He wasn’t anything to you! You weren’t anything to him! Stop it!

“We’re not talking about this.” A quieter growl because we’re pushing too far, Jon’s pushing to far. And no. This is not okay. The tears budding along my eye lid are not okay.

“What the fuck, Ryan?” He rubs at the red smear along his cheek. There are tears gleaming in his eyes too. Blinding. I didn’t hit him that hard. “This sucks for everyone alright?” His voice shakes. “We all miss him, but you can’t be like this.”

“He was my best friend. He. Was. Mine. Not yours. Not Brendon's. I don’t care what you think you know, but it’s none of your business. And you know what? I hate the beach.”

Jon doesn’t follow me back to the shore. He doesn’t trail me up to the hotel.

The money in my wallet never dries out. I leave it on the balcony and smoke a cigarette, getting up and switching between the three chairs every ten minutes to get a different view. The smoke curls and vanishes quicker in the humidity and I feel sticky, hot, wet. Brendon and Jon play chess on the cement beside me. Smoke. Play poker. Drink. Laugh. Talk. Invite me in and leave the invitation hovering between us when I don’t answer. They get lunch and bring me back a fish taco. I eat it without a word. I don’t tell them thank you. In the end, I only eat half. Brendon finishes off the rest.

We don’t talk about it and I play a round of poker with them. I win. I think they let me.

We go out to for dinner once the sun sets and one look from me talks them out of a roasting party on the beach. I’m not eating anything cooked in a sand pit.

Brendon skips ahead and Jon flutters in the space between Brendon and me, smiling (like always). We don’t stop for food and instead get some island ice cream that we eat on a street corner.

The entire time I’m licking through a pineapple scoop, I’m thinking and I’m wondering and I can’t figure it out:

What did Jon mean by “we all miss him”? Jon has nothing to miss.