Sample Disc

It’s two weeks after prom.

From my perspective, probably from his perspective, as well, it feels like years.

Holy shit, it feels like years.

Dressed in black and staring at a hole in the ground, and Ryan’s dad is being lowered down, slow, slow, too slow, this day is too slow.

Ryan called me, frantic; “I haven’t heard from him in days,” he had said. Said that he was worried that something was wrong, and could I come with him to check in on his dad?

“Of course,” I said, figuring it couldn’t do any harm. Of course, of course I’ll go with you to your dad’s house.

And it stunk. It reeked. Like old beer, and too many cigarettes, and stale, and static.

The whole house. We searched the whole house. Up, and down, and bedroom, and bathroom, and here and there, and wherever else we could think to look.

“Brendon,” he said, “Brendon, he’s not here.”

I’d already realized this. It didn’t take a genius to realize this, and I am no genius.

“Lets just go back to your place,” I sigh, walking towards the door, “He’ll show up sooner or later. We’ll just keep checking back.”

We kept checking back. No one was there. Nothing moved. The house still stank.

Ryan filled out a missing persons report. “He’s my father,” he said, “and I haven’t seen him in days.” Haven’t heard from him, no sight, no sound.

“We’ll find your father, Mr. Ross,” the police officer said, taking the paper from Ryan’s shaky hands. Like too much caffeine, like not enough cigarettes; he was shaking like he was enduring waves of withdrawals.

It took another couple of days for the phone to ring. For us to be tongue to cheek, and fingers touching places fingers wouldn’t normally be allowed to touch. His phone rang, and Ryan, in all his eagerness to find his father (understandable.), jumped out of his skin; bones and blood reaching for the brick on the bedside table.

“Hello?” It’s excited and hopeful, and wanting ‘Mr. Ross, we’ve found your father, he is alive and well and happy and at home. He went out to buy some cigarettes, and got lost on the way home.’

He expects so much from so little.

“Yes,” he said quietly. I crawled over to him, breathed too loudly in his ear.

It’s quiet. His face paled, and I took the phone from him when he remained unresponsive.

And then I hear the news, barely, because Ryan is shaking, and I can barely focus. “We found him by the highway,” and I clicked the phone off.

He shook, and he cried, and he never said a thing.

It’s been a week since then, and he’s barely said a thing.

Now, now we’re watching his father’s long dead body get cranked down into a whole, where the body’s natural worms, the ones that eat dead flesh, will come alive and snack and dine on someone I lived with for months; the last someone that Ryan had.

I squeeze his hand, and my stomach turns, and he’s not crying anymore. Just staring ahead at the other headstones of the cemetery.

Death is such an unfriendly thing.

I don’t know what to say, because no one knows what to say in these kinds of situations.

“I love you.” It’s the stupidest thing I could have chosen, but that’s just what I did.

He just keeps staring ahead, and I only hold his hand tighter.

--

Ryan hasn’t gone to class.

He hasn’t gone to work.

He hasn’t picked me up from school.

I take my parent’s car to his apartment everyday after school, and I clean up, and try to get him to talk to me, and all I want is for him to talk to me.

“Ryan,” I breathe, because it’s been weeks. No, I didn’t expect him to be over it by now, but I would like to talk to my boyfriend again at some point.

He just looks out the window, past the fire escape, and his bloodshot eyes look too tired to still be open.

“Ryan, please,” I sigh. He lolls his head over to look at me, and tears are welling up again, and I’m a total softie, because I lay down next to him on the bed, and I watch his shoulders shake, and I pull him as close to me as I can.