by A. L. Wood
He looks worried, an emotion I’ve never seen on his face. It makes me uncomfortable, maybe something happened with his parents. Maybe they knew that my parents were addicts and they were going to call child protective services, and then I’d be taken away and I would never see Anson again.
We wouldn’t see each other in school again, we wouldn’t play outside in his tree house, we wouldn’t stare at the stars together, and we wouldn’t have any more letters written between us, because he wouldn’t know where I was. He wouldn’t be my best friend.
I would have no one.
I would be all alone.
“Lyk, look at me.” Anson calls through my dark reality, “I saw you through my bedroom window pacing, I had to come over. I needed to know that you were okay, I came in through the back door. Your parents didn’t see me, and mine don’t know that I left, they won’t find out. I promise. Why are you crying?”
“I was just thinking about what would happen if your parents found out. If they discovered everything. I wouldn’t live here anymore. I wouldn’t be you friend and I would never see you, they can’t find out Anson. Promise me now, you won’t tell them anything that I tell you ever, even if you feel that you have to, you won’t say anything. Promise me!”
“I promise Lyk, I’ll never tell them anything. You can’t move. So, tell me, why are you upset?”
“I can’t say it out loud yet. I just can’t speak the words, because then it makes it true. Once I say it, then it’s the truth and that’s the way it is.” My words hang in the air.
I can’t let my parents being addicts become my truth. I have to hold out as long as I can, because once that becomes the truth it makes it real and being real means that my parents chose a drug over me.
That they chose a chemical that’s temporary over a real life, a life that they created, a life that they had wanted at one point, and that life no longer included me. That life no longer included a family or goals or a future.
That life was only guaranteed to include pain and suffering and sometimes death.
That’s a life I hadn’t wanted just yet, so I needed to wait a little while longer before declaring it my present.
Writing it down though in the form of a letter doesn’t make it real, yet. It doesn’t make it my truth, “Give me a second, I’ll write it.”
Anson nods his head. He knows that this is what I need, even if I can’t say it. I grab my worn notebook, the one that I’ve written letters to Anson in since the beginning of this school year. I’ll splurge on notebooks when the store puts them on clearance. Sometimes writing means more to me than my next meal. It feeds my soul, my heart. For me that is worth more than anything else. My closet is filled with written in notebooks, so worn that the wire spiral is stiff and puts up a fight every time I want to re-read letters to new ones that smell like fresh paper that are still begging to be written in.
I grab a new one, because it happens to be sitting on my dresser, that way Anson doesn’t see how messy my closet is or the black tinged mold that’s crawling its way down from the ceiling headed straight for my floor. I’ve washed it six times so far with watered down bleach that I stole from Anson’s house and every time I think it’s gone away for good it comes right back.
I can’t let him see what I live in, daily.
He sits on my bed while I stand at my dresser and begin writing.
Dear Anson,
You’re my best friend and because you are I am about to tell you something that might change your world. Or maybe your life, it has mine. As your best friend, I have to remind you that you just promised me that no matter what I tell you, you can’t tell anyone else. Ever. Because if you did, they would take me away and I would never see you again. I need you.
You promised!
I found a needle tonight. Yes, a needle. All this time I thought that my parents were so exhausted and sickly looking because they were working so hard to pay all the bills, but they aren’t. They look and act that way because they’re addicts. My parents are drug addicts Anson. I don’t know what I am going to do, but you can’t say anything. I can’t even speak of it. Maybe I can find some way to get them help, but not tonight. I just can’t say it out loud yet. But I promise that when I can I will talk to you about it. Thank you for coming over.
Love,
Lyrik Everly
Anson reads it, slowly. My hands begin to shake, the nervousness of waiting for him to read the letter puts me on edge. When he finally finishes, he remains speechless, for a time. He sits on my bed beside me staring at my face.
“Are you going to say anything?”
“Lyk, I–”
“Just say it, this one time, say whatever you want to.” The anxiety coursing through me is too much.
“Lyk, I love you and I don’t want you to live here with them anymore. But because I swore not to say anything I won’t. I just want to know that you’re safe, and you won’t be here with them alone and messed up. I’ll look out for you though, I’ll make sure you’re okay until you can do something about it.”
“You’re the best friend in the entire world. I love you, too.” I hug Anson.
Because I have no one else to hug and right now I just need one.
October 15th 2004
Age: Twelve
Lyrik
At twelve I already have jaded views of the world, thanks to my parents. Besides life, that’s all they’ve ever given me. For the last two years that I know of my parents have been addicted to heroin. They only leave the house to score their very loved drug or to sell whatever meager possessions we still have left for money to purchase what’s now become their life.
Once a month they clean themselves up, put on clean clothes and head to the county building to collect their monthly benefits. Food stamps are sold for half the price in cash, but their rent is paid automatically by the lady at the building and the power, so until they fuck that up somehow, which they always do, I’ll have a roof over my head.
I’m not a teenager, yet, but I feel like I’ve aged to an adult over the last couple years. Somehow, I’ve become the parent in this situation, I put them to bed every single night, and I clean up after them. I safely throw away their syringes, clean their spoons while wearing Rubbermaid gloves and discard it all so that no one else will find out. If it weren’t for me their drugs would be left everywhere for all to see if anyone had stopped by.
I just have to get through the next six years then I’m free. I’ll go to community college, choose a degree that doesn’t take forever to achieve and work my way through classes. Whatever I have to do I will– just to get out of here and away from them.
I’ll always love them to a fault. They created me and at one point I was happy, we were happy. They loved me and each other. Too bad they fell more in love with bad habits. With their addiction.
Memories flash through my mind, ones where my parents were their own adults- where they cared for and loved me. Those memories could fill the palm of my hand and not flow out. The rest are filled with days like today and nights like this.
Nights where I sit on the roof of my parents one story shack of a house wishing for a better life. Wishing that I hadn’t been born to these people- practical strangers. Wishing that I had been born to parents such as jock boy, Anson Blake next door. Parents that dote on their honor roll child, and shower their child with love. Parents who celebrate birthdays and holidays with joy.
Not parents who celebrate every day they’re alive by drinking and drugging themselves into unconsciousness.
Not like the ones who created me.
Anson
She’s upset. She only ever goes out on the roof if she’s sad and reflective. My parents don’t want me around her, they think she’s a bad influence because of her family, but they don’t know the truth like I do.
That she’s alone in this world, that she only has me. Her parents don’t give a shit about her or anyone else for that matter, not anymore. When they first moved in– her paren
ts were happy.
She was happy.
But that’s all gone down the drain along with her smile. Same with the light in her brown eyes, she used to have such pretty eyes and too many times to count I remember becoming lost in them. I’d count how many colors would intermingle with that boring brown because of that light. She’d have small gold flecks splattered about, with a rim of green around her pupil. Now when you looked into her eyes all you saw was a dull brown. Eyes full of sadness.
I want to be the one to bring that shining light back, but I’ve tried and every attempt has been futile. The world has weighed her down at such a young age. She thinks that being a part of my life makes her an interloper. But she’s not. She doesn’t belong because my parents have money, because in school my friends look down at her, but she doesn’t see that I look up to her.
She’s my best friend, even if I hate her most of the time, because she doesn’t smile and she’s bossy and she won’t talk to me when were in school.
I still don’t want her to hurt, like she is tonight.
I sneak down my hallway to make sure my parents are sleeping, luckily they are, so I grab a notebook and a pen and open my bedroom window. There’s a tree in between our houses that had wide thick branches, strong enough to hold an adult. One branch leads up to my window and another right to the roof Lyk is laying on. I lift my shirt up, stuff the pen into the spiral of the notebook and shove it down the front of my pants. I climb onto the branch, wrapping my hands around the branch above my head and walk from one end to the tree. I shimmy to the branch that leads to Lyrik and jump off on to her roof.
Her parents wouldn’t be disturbed from the noise, they’re too high to pay attention.
I take the notebook out of my pants, slide the pen out of the spiral metal binding and flip to an empty page and write.
Lyk,
I know you so well that I know you’re out here because something happened. What’s got your mind so busy?
AB
A,
Life.
L
L,
Tell me about it.
AB
A,
I don’t want to.
L
L,
Yes, you do. That’s why you’re out here. Write me, please.
AB
She’s trying to act tough, for her sake or mine, I don’t know. But her being tough doesn’t matter to me, she’s twelve, just like me. If I were in her shoes, I’m not sure I would’ve even made it this long alone. Lyrik doesn’t have any other family that I know of. No one ever comes around, no one stops in to see if she’s okay and her parents are barely ever conscious.
She rereads the last note I jotted down a few times, then turns her back to me and begins to write.
Finally.
Lyrik
Anson,
You’re always so nosy. I’m just out here, enjoying the view so go back home and leave me alone.
Lyrik
I toss the notebook at him. He’s always thinking something’s wrong with me. Yeah, I can be a bit dramatic, but my life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows every day like his is. I’m allowed to be pissed off about it, but I don’t have to tell him every time I am and he doesn’t have to come running like some knight when he thinks I might not be happy and when he does show I don’t have to tell him anything like he demands that I do.
He sits the opened notebook between my legs and climbs back onto the tree, our tree, to get back to his bedroom. He doesn’t turn to look at me, he just keeps walking out of his room.
I look down at his note.
L,
Fine. I’m done with this.
AB
Anson
I’m over this, her hot and cold, one day my friend the next I’m just some lousy nosy next door neighbor. I try all the time and she always shuts me down so I’m done. I’m tired of being her friend when she’s not mine. I leave her sitting on that run down roof by herself, she can be upset alone and have no one to talk about it with because that’s what she wants. I’m always here for her, every day but she pushes me away like I’m a nuisance. I don’t close my window behind me when I manage to climb back into my room because I don’t want to have to turn around and see her reading my letter. Maybe this time she'll see that I mean it. I’m done with a one-sided friendship.
My stomach begins to rumble so I leave my room and sneak down to the kitchen to grab something to snack on. I find what I want quickly and run back up to my room, my bedroom door’s shut when I reach it and I know I didn’t close it. “Mom?” I call out softly, usually my parents are down for the count when they go to bed but it’s happened. I’m just glad that it didn’t while I was out on the roof, if my mom had caught me I would probably be grounded for the rest of the school year which would suck. That’s how my parents would punish me, they ground me from the outside until they said it was time which meant I was grounded from Lyrik. They didn’t like our friendship and on more than one occasion they threatened to pull away my college fund– something I didn’t care about anyway but they didn’t know that. Mom never replies so I slide my door open quietly and hesitantly just in case. When the door is cracked wide enough I amble my head around the door to see if the coast is clear.
The notebook, my notebook sits open faced on my bed and Lyrik reclines in the chair next to my bed while strumming the chords on my guitar. The one that I rarely play these days because I never have the time, with school, sports, homework and my responsibilities at home I have no free time.
Maybe she came for an argument, and if so I’ll just have to send her back home because I don’t want to risk waking my parents up while she’s in the house. They’d rip me apart if they knew she was here at one o’clock in the morning without their knowledge. I walk over to my bed to see that she wrote a letter, I fall onto my untouched bed, the blankets still tucked in and read.
Anson,
Don’t give up on me just yet. I don’t tell you what’s bothering me because it’s not your burden to bare. You shouldn’t have to shoulder what’s weighing on me and honestly you already know what’s on my mind. It’s on my mind every single day. My parents, getting out of this town and away from them. You and if you’ll always be my friend, even when you’re not allowed to be. School, am I getting high enough grades to obtain a scholarship someday? What if I’m not? Those things are always on my mind so yeah, sometimes I need to lay on that rickety roof and stare at the stars to realize that I can’t control everything. I mean, up there, were just a speck in the universe. Singly, we are nothing. It helps me.
I didn’t mean to be snappy with you. You’re my best friend. Forgive me?
Lyrik
I smile down at the page. It sounds childish that I threaten Lyk all the time that I’ll just walk away from her, but it’s what works. It’s what gets her to open-up. I could never leave her alone. I look over to her, she sits with her legs crossed in the recliner chair, my guitar on top of her legs. Her head leans against the neck while her fingers strum every chord, over and over. She’s holding it like she’s playing a bass.
“You’re playing that wrong,” I laugh, “Let me show you.”
Lyrik
“Let me show you,” he says. Like he’s so musically talented. I’ve heard him play, it’s always sounds like a bunch of random chords in no certain order. Like he’s trying to play but doesn’t know how.
Anson sits across from me on his bed, the guitar lying in his lap the correct way unlike how I was holding it. Truthfully, I did that to bug him. I’ve seen him fiddle with that thing enough times to know how you’re supposed to hold it. I just wanted to break the ice after what I had written. After making him upset with me.
He always says that he’s done with me, but I know he doesn’t mean it. I just frustrate him, even at twelve he wants to fix the world for me and gets mad that he can’t and that I don’t always go to him. It’s not his responsibility to care for me, it’s my parents. He doesn’t have to fix my world. No
one can. I don’t want to be his burden, his obligation just because we’re friends. I want him to have his childhood, unlike me and there are days that I worry I’m just drowning him with my problems.
That I’m harming him in the long run, because he will always have this fucked up best friend who just isn’t okay all the time. I understand that no one is always okay, but I have to try so hard to pretend I am. At the end of the day it’s exhausting.
I’m tired.
I lose myself within my thoughts, Anson playing brings me back to reality.
He’s actually playing something that resembles a song. It’s slow yet sad…It’s beautiful. His eyes are closed as he plays, his lips are held in a tight grim line and his body just sways.
“What is this?” I whisper.
He’s never played a song for me.
“It’s the melody of us,” he whispers back.
So, I close my eyes and sway with him.
It’s our song.
November 15th 2008
Age: Sixteen
Anson
She walks the hallways every day between classes. I pass her at least sixteen times and not once does she look at me or say hello. Nothing.
Eleven years of pretending she doesn’t know me when she passes by me. I don’t want to hide our friendship, but it’s always been her decision, and I’ve never attempted to second guess what she wanted.
Except today. Today I’m not going to ignore her like she wants me to do every day, I’m not going to pretend that she hasn’t been my best friend for the last eleven years. That I don’t know who she is, that we don’t live next to each other and sneak into one another’s bedrooms at least four times a week or that we don’t talk about the world and our problems while laying on her roof staring at the stars nightly.
