Three Wishes

Mikey knew immediately that something was wrong. He could only speculate by the lack of updates on Twitter, the normality of everything on the blog, and the tabloid dramas sudden silence on the other side. Truth was normal wasn't how Pete liked to keep himself. He was much more for the romantic, spontaneous chaos that the fast life brought. So when Mikey started seeing the equivalent to a nuclear family with a bank teller father and cake fresh out of the oven wife, he was one to wrinkle a brow and worry. He didn't ponder it too hard though. Maybe just a slight grimace at the computer screen before moving on to his next eBay bid. It wasn't that he didn't care. He just didn't want to believe that something was going wrong. Even though he knew.

And then, there was a knock at the door. It wasn't in the same day or even the same week, but even later. In all honesty, Mikey didn't expect a knock. Not at his door. He never thought he'd be the first to be visited out of all the fresh faces that zoomed in and out of Pete's life. But when the knock caught onto the edge of his eardrums, making his whole face tense, he knew.

Mikey opened the door, looking up at his dear long estranged friend. But something caught his eye that wasn't what he had expected. This surely wasn't Pete's first late night knock at this door. But it was the first time that Mikey had seen his brown eyes so... quiet, content, and maybe even relaxed. The usual look was one of two extremes. There was the wild look. A little lusty, a little mischievous, but also a little childlike. Then there was the vacant stare that Mikey hated so much. The one Pete used when his connection with reality was pulled too tight and he left was hanging by a thread. But the one at Mikey's door, in that moment, was neither of the usual expressions. Instead, it was a look of a sheer, unrivaled ordinary.

“Hey,” he said with an awkward amount of emotion. Maybe just enough to make him seem a little impatient.

“Hey,” Mikey said carefully, not knowing how to deal with this undiscovered side of him. His mind rushed for an excuse for Pete’s presence and tried to push out something to coax the truth out of him, but his lips stayed sealed, experimenting with the idea that silence was the best treatment. “Come in.” Mikey mumbled out and opened the door wider for him.

Pete sped past him, leaving a trail that smelled of water and cleanliness and ...was that shampoo?

Mikey furrowed his brow at the idea of Pete showering. That surely wasn’t a good thing if he had such time on his hands to do things like shower. Something he had always loathed.

Mikey shut the door and half chased Pete to the living room, where the boy was already sitting cooly on the edge of the couch. His eyes rolling around the room as if it was the Sistine Chapel.

Mikey opened his mouth, tinkering between confrontation and ignorance, once again. “Something to drink?” he asked, scrunching a hand into his back pocket to feel at his cell phone.

“Water?” Pete’s eyes lit up a bit as if that was the happiest moment in his life.

“Coming right up,” Mikey half-whispered before disappearing into the kitchen. He grabbed a glass from the cupboard and the phone from his pocket. He quickly searched his brother before composing a message.

He is here.

He typed with his thumbs as he awkwardly filled the glass.

“Here,” Mikey said when he entered back into the room. Seeing that Pete had adjusted more to the space. His back now against the leather and his sneakers hanging on the edge of the coffeetable.

“Oh thanks,” he said, as if he had forgotten about it.

Mikey handed over the glass before taking a seat across from him.

Pete sipped it semi-viciously as if he’d been trapped in the California desert for weeks.

Mikey felt the vibrations in his pocket and glanced down a mere second to see the message.

He as in him?

He felt the sigh waiting in his throat, but he caught it. He typed back with adrenaline filled fingers that didn’t want to be caught.

Who else?

“It’s all so new,” Pete said as Mikey’s thumb hit send and he let his phone fall to the wayside. He glanced back up at his friend.

Pete’s eyes were still wandering, the edge of the glass hung on his lip.

“Well,” Mikey started, trying to sound as optimistic as possible, “you haven’t been here in what? Three or four years. We had just bought it then.”

Mikey saw a little spark of some sincere emotion flicker just a moment in Pete’s eyes.

Mikey closed his mouth, regretting the word choice. “So what’s with you these days?” He pushed on, still desperate to get to the truth of the appearence without seeming like it mattered. Pete’s eyes stayed placid and hard, but his lips spoke otherwise as he dragged his teeth along the bottom one.

But just as if he had awoken from a bad dream, Pete’s demeanor turned average again. “Ashlee wants a divorce.”

Again Mikey’s phone hummed against his leg and looked down slightly to see the message.

Well get him out of there, then.

This one didn’t need a reply.

But Mikey had a split second decision to make. Faking his surprise or skipping the melodrama. Knowing he was really choosing between sympathy and sincerity, he went with sympathy.

“I’m sorry,” he said with little emotion.

Pete smiled and let out a stifled giggle, as if it was a joke. “Don’t be sorry. It’s not a big deal.”

Mikey didn’t giggled back. It wasn’t in his nature to giggle. “Are you okay?”

Pete settled down and sipped at his water before answering. “Of course, man. You know me. I’m a highly resilient guy.”

That was a lie if he ever heard one. Mikey nodded regardless. “You could tell me if you weren’t okay.”

Pete stopped his actions, obviously not liking his emotions being called into question. Maybe cause he thought it was his job to do that.

“Nothing to it. Some times, people just aren’t meant to be. You know that.”

Mikey didn’t let his quick thoughts dictate his facial expressions. The synapses firing trying to try to find which allusion Pete was making, if any. Him, Alicia, something else entirely?

“Yeah,” was all he could muster out.

Pete looked away as if nothing had happened. He gulped down the last stretch of water and carefully sat the glass on the edge of the coffeetable.

“Well,” he stood up, “I best be going now.”

He’d been there for less than five minutes. Mikey blinked a few times, kissing away the nostalgia and bringing him back. “Okay,” he said a little distant.

He followed Pete back again now and this trip wasn’t any less of a race. Pete opened the door and looked back just in time for Mikey to grab the edge of it in his hand.

“Nice seeing you, Mikey,” he smiled, all too composed.

Mikey felt his lips quiver uncontrollably as he looked down to him. “You too, Pete.”

Without looking back, Pete started down the path and back to the driveway. Mikey solemnly closed the door and leaned his forehead against the chilled glass, defeated. Wishing he knew Pete’s true emotions.