The Warmth of a Shiny New Toy

I hate the way your tongue curls over your upper lip; your lips in a smirk that’s supposed to read here is the gossip because I can’t wait to tell this story but instead reads as I am so much better than you, as you say, “I am so hungover.”

I hate the way I’m forced to nod and agree, wondering the whole time if my pain is written across my face, wondering if my own smile translates as I care so much, I’m glad you had fun and not please don’t make me jealous like this.

like a racing horse setting off at the crack of the pistol, my mind wanders to when I sat in the front seat of his car and had my first taste of freedom in the form of a Marlboro skyline, lit with a white lighter, a salute to the dead. “Kurt Cobain was found with a white lighter when he was dead. it’s bad luck. Jimi Hendrix was, too, and a lot of other people.” not like I listen to them but I could understand the significance.

I’m sixteen, but I never feel that age. some days I feel younger; some days I feel like a five-year-old when I’m compared to you or him or anybody else as I have to hear about the drinking and partying and sex that I so desperately want but am being denied by life; like I’m that little five-year-old in the toy store desperately craving that shiny toy that everybody else seems to have and enjoy, and even though I should have it, even though I could have it, I have no idea why I don’t, so I’m left wondering if it’s just because I don’t beg enough for it or if I just don’t deserve it.

some days I feel older, like my back is bent and brittle resembling my tiny grandfather’s before he died two years ago. a bent and brittle back caused by this “depression” the psychiatrist said I had the last time I was there for slitting my wrists and was never cured by the pills I eventually decided to stop taking. I have them piled up in the back of a drawer in my room, and everyday, when I can’t seem to find a reason to keep up the Happy Charade, I pull them out and count them over and over until the numbers lose meaning and the pills all blur into one. they’re my crutch, my safety crutch; as I’m crying so hard the tears stop flowing and I’m dry-heaving, it seems like it would taste so good to choke them down, forcing myself to be calm in the last few minutes I have as my body shuts down.

you seem to find a way to compliment me while insulting me, seem to have a way of making me feel special and unique but also pathetic and annoying. I don’t think you do it on purpose; I think I’m just sensitive. maybe I’m sensitive because I didn’t think you would pass out in your hung-over stupor on my bed as soon as you got to my house, maybe I’m sensitive because I told myself that tonight I could possibly open up a little bit and tell you about my feelings, my depression. should’ve known that when you were with your other friends that you would be partying and that this was a waste of time.

should’ve known that four years of being “best friends” didn’t really matter when you called everybody your “best friend.” when no matter how much I tried, compared to you or anybody else, I will always be the ugly friend, the unattractive friend, the awkward one, the worthless one. maybe I’m smart, but I’m not the smartest. maybe I’m funny, but I’m not the funniest. maybe I have a nice body, but that doesn’t matter when my face is nothing special and all the makeup in the world can only make me feel more self-conscious and susceptible to the judgments of all the people that don’t want me.

I guess it’s all this hurt I felt when I decided not to wake you up to invite you with me. I’ll be back in a few hours. I was quiet as I maneuvered through my room, pulling my pajama bottoms off and pulling on jeans, deciding at the last moment to pack a wristlet full of money and, after a brief fantasy of my mother or father walking out for the morning paper and finding me asphyxiated in the lawn, my depression pills. slowly and silently slid the window pane up and crawled out, climbed down the ladder meant for a house fire and hit the wet grass on the side of my house, jogging through the late night Spring air to his car.

“hello,” he said as I settled into the front seat and he immediately peeled away. I glanced over my shoulder, wondering if I would see one of my parents running out in a robe with a flashlight, but it didn’t happen.

the windows were cracked, the scent of cigarettes faint in the car. he offered me one. I took it.

“hi,” I replied. lit with the white lighter. sucked in. tried to pretend that I was a champ, that I could take the heavy smoke in my lungs and the way the nicotine made my head rush in both a good and a bad way. pretended to be as cool as him, not offering up any proof otherwise.

we didn’t talk. he drove his old beat up black car to the park, where we would normally hangout. I never actually snuck out with him before; all the other times I “went on a walk” that lasted a few hours, but neither my parents nor my siblings even noticed. for once I was sort of glad they didn’t really seem to pay much attention. figured that if I couldn’t get them to see me even as I sliced my arms and popped my pills I might as well take advantage of the freedom.

the parking lot was empty, as was the park. we got out into the beautiful Spring night, and I felt that kind of sad nostalgia, but it was a good kind of sad nostalgia, one that filled the heart. the stars twinkled in the navy blue sky. he took my hand, the one not holding the wristlet, and led me towards the merry-go-round.

he plopped down and patted the empty seat next to him on the right. his bare arm against my own bare arm was warm and soft and inviting and just heightened the sad nostalgia and made me want to cry. to my surprise, he took out a flask and took hearty gulps of it.

“you’re going to drive after drinking that?” I asked.

“yeah. no big deal,” he said, passing the flask to me.

I should have said no let’s go home, told him that drinking and driving was bad, that I had to climb up a ladder back into my room, that I didn’t want to die that night all mangled and intoxicated, another teen statistic, but then I realized that I was never afraid of death when I was slicing my own wrists just months before so why should I be afraid to die while living the life I’ve always wanted? become a statistic and I might actually contribute to the world. I took as many hearty gulps as he did, not even wanting to puke as the alcohol burned my throat and my stomach.

we passed it back and forth as we sat on the merry-go-round, not even talking, and I wondered again for the millionth time why he bothered hanging out with me when we didn’t talk, didn’t have fun, and didn’t mess around. why he texted me good morning and good night and told me these deep secrets about himself, then picked me up in his car to drive me to a park where we would sit and look at the lake as we drowned in the silence.

I was waiting for the alcohol to kick in and I didn’t even realize it had as I opened my big stupid mouth and said, “why do you always hang out with me?”

“what do you mean?”

“I mean why do you bother? I mean, you’re older, you have a car, you’re attractive,” I took in his black hair, tall frame and dark brown eyes with those green specks in them. it wasn’t even just my delusions; all of my friends admitted he was attractive, too. “what am I even worth?”

his reply was by leaning in to me and kissing me, and even though he thought it answered the question, it just gave me a million more that I wanted to ask so bad but his lips felt good on mine, softer than I thought it would be. when he pulled away I mumbled, “that was my first kiss.”

“I know.”

“that was the first time I drank.”

“I know.”

I wanted to sink into the mud underneath the merry-go-round made by the shoes of the five-year-olds that sloshed through there, not caring whether their brand new Sketchers were dirty or not. I wanted to cry like the five-year-old who just skinned his knee, or the five-year-old that finally got the taste of what human cruelty is all about. I wanted to float in an imaginary land made up by a five-year-old’s imagination, with me and him and nothing else bad, believing that we could go on this way forever, that he wouldn’t get over me in the next week and that the pills in my wristlet wouldn’t tempt me too much.

“do you believe in forever?” I asked him as I slipped off the merry-go-round and made my way to the big lake that sparkled in the day time even though it was neglected and dirty.

he hobbled behind me, not keeping up. he was probably a lot less drunk than me. he probably had more tolerance. and then all over again I was so mad. so goddamn mad that I couldn’t have the life I wanted. so fucking mad that I’d have to stand and stare at that goddamn shiny toy in that goddamn stupid toy store while everybody else would play and play and tell me all about it as I slowly sunk to a rock by the side of the lack and unzipped my wristlet.

“what the hell are all those?!” he asked incredulous as I dug a fistful of the pills for my depression in my hand. a few years of softball prepared me for the moment I launched them into the lake and they landed on the water like giant rain drops.

“pills for my depression.” I dug around in my wristlet for the remaining ones, which I also hurled at the lake.

“what are you doing that for?”

“because they don’t work,” I told him.

“oh my God-”

“don’t worry about it. it’s better I get rid of them anyways,” I tell him, and he gets the meaning. gets that I want to take my step toward having the possibility of forever. not that we’ll get there; I’m not that stupid. I know we won’t last. but if those pills could have called to me any louder from that drawer then there would be no possibility, and sometimes possibilities are beautiful.

~

the next morning I awake to the sunshine and to you shaking me. “dude! what the hell is wrong with your room?”

there’s mud on my windowsill and the wall where I climbed back in. mud on my sneakers, and my shirt and hair reek of cigarettes and pot. guess when I came back in even drunker than before, I tore my room apart looking for the pajamas I never put on. I slept pants-less.

“I went out last night,” I tell you simply, burying my face in the pillow away from the sun. “what time is it?”

“noon.”

only you could sleep from nine at night until noon the next day. but then again, I got home around two and I feel like I haven’t slept at all. I just wanted to fall back into the mattress and dream of his arms wrapped around me as he told me that it would be okay. not like I believe him. not like I believe that I’ll ever be happy. but I’ve just played with that shiny toy and maybe I can get him for keeps.

“where the fuck did you go?”

I peek at you from the pillow. I can see you holding that toy, stroking it. I want to steal it. I can’t help it; I’m made of jealousy. I want to steal it and keep it as my own. I tell you who I went out with.

“no way. you’re talking to him? how? when did he start talking to you?” and you turn to me with a fierce gaze expecting me to spill the details.

“in a little bit,” I tell you as my tongue curls over my upper lip. “I am so hungover.”