Drown

13. Cherry lips

"Please," he says. He is sweating, from the heat or something else, I don't know. His hair is dark with it, matted down to his forehead. His nose is running. "I need it. I need it. I need it. I need it-"

"Stop!" Then, more gently, "Please, Vince. It's okay. I'm here. You don't need it."

His hands shake and shake. "You don't understand."

"You don't understand," I said and choked down a sob.

"You're right," he said which made me look up, surprised. All I had heard this summer was, I understand how hard this is, I understand what you're going through, I understand I understand I understand. But here was one person, the only person, who had admitted fully that he didn't.

"You're right," I said to him now. "I don't. I don't." I moved closer to him on the couch and reached out my hand to touch, to comfort.

He crumpled into my lap. I wipe his face with my shirt. "It was easier. It was easier with the drugs." He's nearly hyperventilating. I hope he isn't going to have a panic attack.

"Because it numbed you, but you have to feel."

His mouth twisted. "Says you. Says you, the one who doesn't want to feel at all." I knew he was just lashing out. I knew that. I also knew he was right.

"Okay," I say. "Yeah. Yes. I'm bad at this."

He keeps going, his mouth twisting further, cruel. He looked all angles to me now. I could see how skinny he was, his collarbones jutting out. Sharp. "You don't even talk about him. You never do. Have you visited his grave at all? Have you?"

"Stop," I say, wrapping my arms around the middle of me, already feeling pieces of me chip off the more he talked. The more I thought about him - my...dad. I didn't allow it. Couldn't.

"Do you ever talk to your mom about him? You don't, I know you don't." "Leave me alone," I say, talking over him. "Stop. Stop it." "You have to try to accept it," he says, and I break and crack and explode.

"Don't," I nearly yell. "Don't tell me to accept it, don't be that person. I'm not going to. I never will, get it? I never will accept that he's under the ground and I'm here. That's never going to heal. You have a drug problem. You can heal that. Don't... don't fuck with me, Vince. Not you. Please, not you."

He's looking at me. Ever since he's been completely clean, his eyes are more lucid than I've ever seen. He doesn't look hazy, though I'd never noticed until now.

"Alright," he says. He touches my hand. His fingernails are bitten down.

"Alright."

He said for me to give him the summer, so long ago.

"I just want you to...live," he had said.

Looking at him, the pale skinny sweating tortured beautiful boy: I needed him. I wanted him to live because - because -

"Let me help you," I said. "Let me."

"Alright," he said again, his eyes clear and awake.

The summer was not yet over.

***

We never kissed anymore. We didn't touch. Not like that. We were friends. I thought about his lips. I thought about his hands and what they felt like when they cradled my face between them.

We were friends, because I would not dare to bring up the subject of what we were. All I thought about was Vince collapsing in front of me, and how I couldn't allow it to happen again.