I can't eat.
Of course, it's not through a lack of trying. These past couple of days have done a number on my insides, and I really don't need that on top of everything else that's going on in my life. For the nth time in these past few years, I wished that I could be normal. But here I was, stuck with a plate of food in front of me, and like the past few days before, all I could do was casually push it around my plate with the fork. The smells had penetrated me, and made me want to savor something besides my own depressing thoughts. Even the usual dry chicken that my dad had tried to serve up was starting to smell appetizing.
Ever since everything, my dad has tried in every regard to fill the holes of his broken family. He thinks he can do everything that she could, so that we might forget she was ever here. But he had never been a good cook; a good look at our kitchen drawer full of take-out menus would have shown anybody that. At least he made attempts though, that was certainly something.
As I continued to push my food around my plate, looking down in abject hunger, Katy, my younger sister, droned on about her day, swinging her legs in an almost pendulum like manner. She was talking to no end about some boy who she thought was cute, and who she wanted to ask out. Even between scoops of food from fork to mouth she still managed to speak with the clarity and diction of a veteran thespian. My dad wore this face that looked like he was enthralled with her story, but we all knew better. It was the expression he wore when he wanted us to think he was listening, but where his mind was elsewhere. His head always seemed to be somewhere quite far from home these days.
Glory, my older sister, was paying attention as much as someone could when they were using one hand to eat, and the other to text. Dad had long given up on trying to get Glory away from her phone at the dinner table, mostly because Glory never seemed to listen to him.
"So he's dating Toni DeLuca right now, but I heard a rumour that she's just using him," Katy continued, her manic speaking filling up the silence in the room. "Y'know, because she's totally gay. I know because she'd been making eyes with me all freshman year."
And it was at this point that the room suddenly sprang to life just a little more. Instead of looking at her with that vacant expression, a glint lit in my father's eyes as his brows furrowed ever so slightly. Glory, on noticing that the room had changed, set down her phone for a moment, ignoring it as it buzzed on the table some. Me, I just looked up ever so slightly, head on rested arm and eyes trained on my dad to watch what he would say next. He seemed so stiff right now and it was such an odd sight to see in the first place.
Sensing that maybe she may have said something off-kilter, Katy held her tongue. She suddenly stopped eating, as if she were a deer that had been caught in the headlights of an eighteen-wheeler.
My father set down his fork, and intertwined his fingers, resting his head atop precariously. "I thought you were friends with Toni... hasn't she been over here a few times?" he asked in his proper tone; a voice he reserved for when he was confronted with something that he didn't know how to deal with. This was certainly going to be one of those situations. "What happened between you two?"
"I dunno," she said, idly shrugging her shoulders, and trying to hide behind her curly black locks. "We just stopped being friends I guess."
"Because she liked girls?" my dad shot back with an eyebrow raised.
And like that, the atmosphere in the room changed ever so slightly again. It was enough to make me sit up straight in my chair, and for Glory to set down her fork. His expression was unwavering, looking like he had just took in a bad smell and was wondering how to digest it.
"No," Katy said after a moment. "Well, I mean yeah, but only because she was making things weird."
And before I knew it, I was crashing into this conversation. "Did you ever ask her about it? Like did she ever tell you."
"Not in so many words."
An annoyed grunt came from my father, as he pushed his chair back. The aggressive sound of the scraping of chair legs against floor was enough to make all three of us flinch. Before either of us had the chance to register it, he was standing, face still poised with an abundant amount of annoyance.
I wanted to ask if he was alright, but that would have been breaking the pattern of behavior that was supposed to exist between us.
Instead, he just heaved a heavy sigh, and made his way out to the kitchen. His steps seemed heavy and sluggish, as if worn down by the years that had been brought his way. I wanted to know what he was thinking, and I wished that he would just talk to us like he had done before anything had happened. His voice in this house only seemed to be a fraction of what it had been, and I knew I wasn't the only one that noticed this. But we'd be damned if we were ready to stand up and just talk about it. The Sutton's did not talk about what was on their minds to anyone, including each other apparently.
My eyes dragged themselves to Glory, who had turned to face me. Without saying a word, she propped herself up from the table, ready to get up.
"Where are you going?" I asked.
"Out," she replied so monotone. "Tell dad I'll be back before curfew."
As much as I wanted to stop her right now, I knew there wasn't really going to be any point to that. Regardless of who got in her way, Glory would always find her way out. There were times where everyone's eyes glazed over for a second, and the next minute you gained focus, you realized she was already out the door. Maybe it was time for me to pick up on some of those professional skills of my own.
*****
This scene was starting to get a little familiar; feet crunching on the grass and dried, dead leaves, brisk air trying to batter my skin into submission. The gentle lull of wind that whisked everything up only seemed to intensify as I made it into the clearing which held the small playground.
There was no doubt in my mind that Garth would be here.
Despite how much he liked to pretend to not give a shit about what people thought about him, there was some truth in the actions he carried through. Like most people, he was a creature of habit, always going to be drawn back to this place; the creaking of the swing chains almost being like a siren call too him. It seemed to be an extension of him. No matter where he was, there was always a part of his presence that lingered here. And as much as I wanted to find it infuriating and cliché, I understood. This was Garth's safe-space; a place where he could go to think and just be himself without the pressure of being someone else looming over his head.
Not that Garth would ever be something he wasn't.
Sure enough, there he was, legs dangling off the edge of the merry-go-round again, eyes trained skyward. For a moment I remained motionless, just taking him in for a moment.
Since that day, almost a week ago, we hadn't really talked all that much. Garth seemed to have no interest in talking to me, and there was only so long I could bang my head against a brick wall before I gave up. He made it clear that he wanted some space. I couldn't really understand why though. The more I thought about it, the more it brought a pulsing, shooting pain to my head.
But now I had him; backed into a corner with no chance to escape. If he needed room to breathe, then that was fine. All I wanted was an answer to how one day he was hot, and the next day he was cold.
Taking a few tentative steps forward, I reached out for one of the bars of the round platform. Almost instantly, his eyes caught mine, and then again, almost instantly, his eyes fleeted away with a small roll. With one foot on, and one foot off, I push against the ground, causing the platform to spin. It was enough force to keep us going for a few moments, and in that time neither of us uttered a word nor sound to each other.
It was only when the merry-go-round was coming to a cease, that I looked back at him.
"You can't ignore me forever you know," I said, hoping that these words would be enough to lull him from whatever mood he was in.
His eyes remained fixed at a point in the sky, but it became abundantly clear that he at least heard me. Shifting his body slightly, he rested his arms behind his head, providing a small cushion of comfort.
"Who says I am?" he responded after a few moments of silence. Now his eyes trained themselves to me, and I could see in the hues, a glint of something. His entire body was totally dismissive, wanting this conversation to be over as quickly as possible.
The words mulled through my head for a moment, with my foot once again planting itself in and pushing off, sending us spinning. "Isn't it obvious Garth?" The words fell from my mouth in almost a hushed whisper. I couldn't even bring myself to look at him right now. "One day your laughing and joking with me, and the next day you just decide to freeze me out," I responded, keeping my eyes trained forward. His eyes were boring into the back of my skull, and I wished so much that he would just stop looking at me. "If you've got a problem with me, I really wish you'd say something."
"I don't have a problem with you..."
The air is stiff, and quiet. For a moment, it looked like he was about to get up, but he just adjusts himself so he can look further back and see me. My eyes make the long journey to meet his own, a sheepish smile planting itself on my face for just a moment before disappearing once again.
I want things to be okay, but it's clear he's hiding something from me. As much as I know I don't have the right to ask him what he is hiding, it's this thing that's making me agitated. There's an anger in me, and it's brewing and I'm trying so damn hard just to push it all back down again. But no matter how much I try to fight it, it continues to bubble away, making me something that I really don't want to be.
"Why do you do that?" I ask.
"Do what?"
"Act all dismissive when I'm trying to talk to you." The words come out a little barbed and jaded. "You talk down to me like I could never really understand your problems."
"Who say's I've got pro-"
"We've all got problems Garth," I cut in, resisting the urge to call him an idiot. My face crumples under the stress of wanting to lose it right now. I get that he has things he doesn't want to talk about, but that didn't give him a right to cut people out who were trying to help. "The only difference between other people's problems and yours is that other people can actually be honest and open about their shit. Other people admit that there are problems to fix."
"Not sure you got the memo," he said, starting to sit up, "but I am not like most other people."
"Don't I know it."
These were words that seemed to buck the tide of the conversation. Before I even had the chance to do anything else, he snapped right back towards me, glaring with a look of rage in his eyes. I could tell that maybe I'd pissed him off, but right now I didn't really care. If he wanted to hate me, that was fine; it wasn't like he was giving me anything but animosity right now.
"You don't get to do that," he said, standing, and turning to face me. The platform almost came to a halt immediately. "You don't get to treat me like the rest of the mouth-breathing assholes in this town," he continued, pointing a finger at me. With every syllable that left his lips, his cheeks seemed to turn more violently red. But at the same time, you could tell that he was still holding back, on the verge of losing himself but too scared to show himself to the real world in fear of what they might make of him.
It was enough to throw me off balance for a second. I'd never seen him like this. I'd seen him afraid, and happy, and sad, and complacent. But I've never seen Garth get angry.
His anger was enough to cause a lull in everything. The space between us felt like infinity in that moment, but I could still make out the features on his face; dark, sullen, and a tad aggressive. Neither of us made any sudden movements, expecting the other to go first. The only real sound flowing was the rustling of the wind, and the faint sound of breath leaving Garth's flared nostrils.
Taking my cue, I stepped off the merry-go-round onto stable solid ground.
"Talk to me Garth," I tried. "Be pissed at me. Throw punches at me. Kick me in the shins. I don't care. But please, just fucking talk to me like a human being."
Garth stood expectant, as if waiting for the next words to come to him. But eventually after a while he realized that there was nothing for him here right now. There was nothing I could offer him and as much as I wanted to make him stay and talk to me, there was something in his posture that slid away from me.
"I can't do this right now," he finally said. "I... I have to go."
"Garth..."
He turned from me. "Please Xavier, if you respect me at all, you'll drop this."
There was so much I wanted to say to him right now, but I could tell where he was at. If I tried, he'd only shut me out again. He wanted me to trust that he'd still be there and that he just needed space. But how could I do that when he barely put the same trust in me.