A Life So Hard - 4. Chapter 4

It intrigued me that he thought I was a mystery worth his time to explore. My feelings for him still haven’t changed, not really. I still hated him with every fibre of my soul for what he represented. He reminded me of when it all started going wrong. When things started to get bad and never recovered. I’ve taken all those long since buried feelings and attached them to him. At the same time, a small part of me wanted him to know, to figure out the mystery that was me. It was so small and so deep inside of me that I wasn’t really consciously aware of it, there was too much negative emotion burying the thought.

Everything changed on October 3rd. Brian didn’t talk to me the two previous days at all, which I had mentally noted and was wondering about. As much as I didn’t like him and didn’t want him to talk to me, I still liked him trying to talk to me. He was funny, kind, and really, really cute. On the 3rd, he didn’t say anything to me in homeroom, where he usually at least says good morning. I kept sneaking looks his way, and he refused to return them. I couldn’t help but frown and think that maybe I pushed him away for good. I was torn between ecstasy and horror.

Lunch time came around, and I got my food as normal. I plopped down at an empty table and started to eat. I was listening to my iPod and tuning out the world. It scared the living shit out of me when I heard another food tray slam down on the table in front of me. That was the last thing in the world I was expecting, so naturally I jumped two feet in the air. I took out my headphones, ready to lay into whoever scared me.

“What the -” I began, ready to lose it. I stopped, though, when I saw it was Brian. “Ohhh...” Was all I managed to say at that point.

“We need to talk. Like, actually talk. Not me saying something to you and you give me a weird look, or just say one word or something. We’re going to sit here and talk. Have a real conversation and you’re going to tell me what the hell I did to you to piss you off so much. From the quick conversation we had, I thought we could be, like... friends.” He was looking me right in the eyes. He spoke forcefully, but it was... soft. Almost like he was ready to admit defeat.

I sat in shock for a moment, the gears turning in my head as I tried to figure out what to say or do. Finally, after the longest minute ever, I finally came up with something to say: “Okay.”

He laughed. “Wow, just okay? That’s all you have to say. Well, it’s better then anything you’ve said earlier, so I’ll take it. It’s been killing me inside. Why do you hate me?”

I flinched; he went right to business. I needed to make a decision. What level of information am I willing to give him? I think I’ll give him the most basic information and kind of go from there.

I cleared my throat and tried to speak without letting the floodgates of emotion open up. “You remind me of someone I used to know.” I told him. I tried to say it as simply as possible.

“Oh...” He looked down at the table. He kept his gaze focused down for a while, I guess thinking about what I had finally admitted. “I’m a good guy.” He said, quietly, almost in a whisper. “I wouldn’t hurt you.” He looked up at me after the last bit, with a small smile on his face.

His words hit me hard, and deep. I felt the wall crumbling inside and my eyes began to tear up. I put my head on the table and covered my face with my arms before I started to cry, so he didn’t see. I was on emotional overload right now. I couldn’t even begin to process what he had said, what it meant and how it made me feel.

I lifted my head and with my words leaving my mouth before the filter could stop me from saying it, I asked, “Want to hang out for a bit at my house after school?”

“Oh, yeah. Sure!” He replied, clearly excited. “I’ll meet you at your car after school. We can leave gym together.”

The rest of the day flew by, and, before I knew it, the last bell was ringing. We had been playing basketball, so I helped Coach put away all the balls while everyone was getting showered and changed. After we had gathered everything up, I waited outside the locker room door for Brian. A few people left before him, but after about a five minute wait, he emerged.

“Oh, you waited. I’m glad.” He said, looking at me with that amazing smile.

“Uh.. yeah. Of course I did. Why wouldn’t I?” I asked him with a small amount of hurt in my voice.

“I just figured that, y’know... you’d bolt. You don’t really seem to want to be around me all that much. You’ve made that pretty clear. I figured you might of agreed earlier to get me off your back.” He explained, looking everywhere but at me.

“No, no. I guess you don’t know me very well.” He laughed, and I couldn’t help but laugh with him, because it was funny. My face grew serious and I put my hand on his shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. He turned in surprise when I did that. “I’m a man of my word. At least, I try my best to keep my word. I said we’d hang out, so I intend to stick to that.”

He didn’t say anything. It was more then enough for him to look at me and smile. I had to break contact, otherwise I’d start to blush and “other” stuff might begin to happen. I started walking again and we walked side by side to my car. As we pulled away, he joked about actually being in the car this time.

After a quiet drive filled with a comfortable silence, we pulled into the driveway. He made a comment about the house being beautiful and I quickly agreed. We quickly made out way inside, placed our bags by the door and were greeted by Elizabeth.

“Hello Andrew.” She said to me, with her trademarked warm smile. She turned to Brian, and much to my surprise, she curtsied. “Well, hello to you, Andrew’s guest. Is there anything I can get you?”

Brian returned in kind with a bow of his own, “No thank you, ma’am.”

With a cocked eyebrow, I looked back and forth between Brian and Elizabeth for a moment. I shook off the random, bizarre occurrence as just that.

“Come on” I urged Brian, pushing him in the back. “Come this way so we can meet my Dad.”

I lead him down the stairs into the basement and to the double doors leading to dad’s office. I gentled knocked twice on the door. After a moment’s pause, the okay was given to come in.

Opening the door, I introduced Dad to Brian. “Dad, I want you to meet my friend, Brian. We have three classes together.

“Ah. Nice to meet you, Brian.” He said in a friendly tone.

I turned to Brian and indicated for him to follow me as I left Dad’s office, closing the door behind us. “He’s got a lot of stuff to do.” I explained to Brian as we headed up the stairs. “Let’s go to my room.”

For some reason I was a little nervous showing Brian my room. It was like I was letting him into my private zone, my sanctuary. It was taking another step towards admitting he was something in my life, that he... mattered to me, at least on some level.

“Anyways... so, yeah. This is my room. There’s my desk where all the homework magic happens, bed, window, closet, etc.” I explained to Brian, pointing out the blatantly obvious.

Brian sat down on my bed and I awkwardly stood in the doorway. The tension in the air was suffocating.

“Err... now what?

“This is the part where you calm the hell down and we chill and just hang out,” he replied in jest.

I said alright and slowly shuffled made my way over to the bed, sitting as far as possible away from him.

“Come on. Get comfortable.” Brian urged me. He leaned back, his head by the end of my bed and his feet sticking out. I hesitantly followed suit and laid back as well.

Then it occurred to me. “Here, lie down properly. Put your head on the other pillow.” I told him, as I adjusted myself.

I closed my eyes and mentally scolded myself for having that massive pile of laundry in the corner. Luckily, besides that, my room was pretty spotless, thanks to my mild obsession with cleanliness and Elizabeth’s diligence. When I opened my eyes again and looked at Brian, I jumped a bit when I realized how close he was to me.

“Is there a problem?” He asked me, genuinely concerned.

I shivered when he asked me that, because I could feel his breath hit my face, that’s how close he was. It smelled so nice, like mint.

“Uh.. Oh, no.” I was desperately trying to compose myself. “You just caught me off guard with how close you are.”

“Oh, sorry.” He apologized, and his face sunk a bit. Disappointment. “I’ll shuffle over a bit then.”

“I didn’t say you had to move... I was, y’know... just saying you surprised me a bit.” I said timidly.

Brian looked at me, and I could tell something was on the tip of his tongue, like he was desperately trying to decide something. “So, I know you like, seem to really like your privacy and stuff... and you don’t like to talk about your past. I get that. I mean, we all have skeletons in our closets. But... is there any way I could, like, know more about you? Like, what’s the deal with Gym?”

I closed my eyes and felt the anxiety shoot right up. I took a few deep breaths, trying to get myself under control again. Finally I managed to say, “Alright. I suppose I can tell you about that.”

My eyes were still closed as I mentally tried to unravel the past into a coherent strand of thought. I was busy deciding which parts of the story I wanted to liberate and inform him about and which parts would be kept to myself. Almost as if he knew, when I had reached the conclusion that Brian would only hear the basic story and nothing about my mom, he put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed in a re-assuring way.

I opened my eyes and began, “so.. err.” I stumbled, trying to find the proper words. I cleared my throat and tried again, “there’s so much that’s happened, and it’s kinda all tied together... like a domino effect, I guess you could say. One event sets in motion another, which creates another, etc. I... I’ll be blunt. I don’t really want you to know everything about me. At... at least, not yet. So, I’m just telling you about the medical exempt. Some stuff might not make sense, but... yeah.”

With another squeeze of my shoulder, Brian gave me the strength I needed to actually continue. “I was like... 13 when it all happened. It was all my fault, but my mom was a really heavy smoker. She was like a human chimney. She’d give me drives to school because of other stuff, and the car would literally be filled with smoke.”

“Why was it your fault?” Brian asked.

I closed my eyes again as I felt another wave of anxiety overpower me. It took me a few moments to collect myself again. “Please, just listen, this is hard enough as it is.” I pleaded.

With an understanding nod from Brian, I continued. “It was a few months after my 13th birthday when I was diagnosed. It had been kind of hurting for a while whenever I ran. I was in school and it was recess. A few kids had convinced me to play tag and I was it. I was chasing some girls and was focusing so hard on running and catching them that I didn’t realize how laboured my breathing had become. I remember closing in on them, almost within an arm’s reach when my vision turned black and I fell to the ground.”

I gulped, then kept going. “I woke up in a hospital room. They had called an ambulance to the school and everything. Anyways, I woke up and there was a doctor there. My mom and dad were standing right by the bed and the doctor was in front of me, holding some papers and stuff. I still remember his words, I sometimes hear them in nightmares. He said, ‘Andrew, I have some bad news for you. A while ago, your mother was diagnosed with lung cancer, but we just found that you’ve developed a tumor as well, from the second hand smoke.’”

I stopped, because saying the words that have haunted my dreams took a toll on me. I looked over at Brian and had an indescribable look on his face and his eyes shone with tears. I grabbed some tissues from my nightstand and handed them to him, then grabbed one for myself.

“That summer, I spent so much time at that hospital. They did every scan under the sun on me to figure out exactly what was going on and what to do about it.” I looked at him with a small, amused smile on my face. “How’d you spend your first year of high school?” I suddenly asked him, as if to break the tension.

“Just the usual, I guess. School, trying not to do homework, hanging out with friends. Maybe smoked here or there. The regular stuff that 14 year olds do.” Brian answered.

I nodded. That was the kind of answer I was expecting. “Mine was nothing like that. They scheduled my surgery to remove the tumor on October 1st. Everything was going according to plan. The surgeon was the best in the province, specializing in cases like mine, involving young kids. There were some risks, but they were minimal. It really seemed like luck was on my side, for once.”

“So things didn’t go according to plan, did they?” Brian asked.

“Oh, no. No... they did not.” I said, shaking my head. “The surgeon opened me up, and was a little liberal with the slicing and dicing. I don’t remember exactly what he did or how it happened, because honestly I don’t want to know, but whatever he did left a lot more scar tissue then was thought. He got it all, but he wasn’t as careful as he was supposed to be.”

“There was an inquiry into what happened, although nothing came of it. Apparently, the good doctor was emotionally compromised, but didn’t want to tarnish his perfect record by saying something and getting replaced with another capable surgeon. Apparently being the top in the province reaped him some fiscal benefits that he didn’t want to lose. My case was really important for his career because... well, I don’t know.” I kept talking, surprised I was able to get this far and stay this coherent.

“Emotionally compromised?” Brian asked, as expected.

“Yeah.” I chucked. “The poor guy was served with divorce papers from his wife of 30 years that morning. Bitch took him for everything he had, too. He was so shaken up from his high school sweetheart cutting him loose that he took ended up taking it out on me. By the way, Coach or the school doesn’t know that part, and I’d like to keep it that way. All they know is that there were unspecified complications.”

The conversation finally caught up with me and the waterworks began. I sat up, cross legged and was clutching my pillow. Embarrassed, I was wiping the tears away as quickly as I could.

Brian put his hand on my back and slowly moved it in circles, trying to comfort me. “Look, dude. I’m really sorry all that happened to you. It sounds like a really, really shitty experience. We all get our fair share of shit in our lives, and it’s not fair that you had to go through so much. I just want you to know that I’ll be here as your friend to help you through it, and you can always count on my help if you ever need it.”

With a smile on my face I looked at Brian and thanked him. “That means a lot to me. You have no idea. I appreciate it. I owe you an apology as well. I know I have a lot of problems and issues and stuff, and it came make me hard to deal with. There’s just... some shit that happened that you kind of remind me about that I’d rather not remember. I’m sorry I let it hold me back for so long from being your friend.”

With that said, I stood up and walked around the bed to the side that Brian was sitting on. He stood up and I gently wrapped my arms around him, hugging him. We held the embrace for a moment, which I savored deeply. After the amount of time that is expected for two male friends to hug had elapsed, we broke the embrace.

Rain never ceased to amaze me. He had made himself scarce when me and Brian were talking, but now that the mood was significantly brighter, he sauntered into my room with a loud meow as a greeting. Jumping on my bed with an eloquence that only a cat can manage, he made himself comfortable, laying down on my pillow.

“Oh shit!” I exclaimed. “Look at the time. It’s already 5:30. Do you have to go for dinner, or can you stay?”

“I can’t see it being a problem. Let me just check with my mom. I’ll be right back, my phone is in my bag by the front door.” Brian explained excitedly, then took off.

I seized the opportunity, the first moment I’ve had alone since I’ve been home, to process the turn of events. I was still in shock in regards to everything that happened and was so surprised with myself for being so open with Brian. I was especially shocked at my forwardness, asking him to stay for dinner. There was nothing I could do about it now, so I might as well enjoy his company.

As it turns out, Brian did stay for dinner, and he made a habit of it. At least twice a week, sometimes three, he’d come over and we’d hang out then have dinner. As the days turned to weeks, me and Brian started to become better and closer friends. We both had a sort of silent agreement to avoid talking or asking about the past, which worked for us. I was quickly introduced to all of Brian’s friends and I got along pretty well with them. I knew that if they were friends with Brian, then they must be decent people. That was the reason I gave them a chance, and it turned out I was correct; the guy from the mall even apologized to me.

By the time December rolled around, Brian and I were inseparable. After I had mentioned to my dad about it only being Brian and his mom, he told me to invite them over for Christmas dinner. Naturally, Brian called his mom right away and she accepted our offer without hesitation.