Daze

She was a nice enough woman -- decently attractive, had a good job, lots of gossiping friends. Her hair hadn't been her natural color since 1989, and there were rumors that she had plastic surgery, but nothing was ever in stone. She smoked, she drank, weekends saw alcohol and laughter and nameless, faceless people. Divorced her second husband three years ago, the first long gone, and was currently dating a weathly man who was four years younger than she.

I, personally, was more interested in her son.

He was of an indistinguishable age, somewhere between 16 and 20, drove a midnight blue convertable, and played the five-string bass.  He smoked when he thought no one was looking, and sometimes he smoked when he knew someone was looking. He could have done well in school, had he tried. His ears were pierced and he wore black converse, every day I ever saw him. Daze was what we all called him, and he never ever talked about his mother.

I used to go with him when he told me he wanted to run away. We'd pack our backpacks and climb in his car, and we'd leave. The top we'd leave down, no matter the weather, and I would lean my back against his shoulder, his arm around me, and I'd play with the rings on his fingers. And we would drive, and we never said anything.

It was always the moment that we'd stop for gas. The air would be cold by then, and we would sit in the empty gas station at one in the morning, wrapped in the ugly plaid blanket he kept in the back. I always got colder than he did, and he would hold me almost absently until I stopped shivering.

"I can't do it," he'd mumble into my hair.

"I know," I'd whisper, my voice crisp in the loneliness.

He'd pay for gas, and we'd go home.

There were dozens of girls who were up to their painted eyes in love with him. Dozens upon dozens, most of them far prettier than I could ever hope to be. They flaunted their bodies and flashed their glittering heads, but he never looked at them. I never understood why it was me over them, and I never asked. It didn't matter.

When his mother had her parties, he and I would go and sit on my front porch together and watch the lights. She lived across the street from me, in a perfect world of her own. It was a world where Daze didn't quite fit into his box, and he wasn't welcome to. Daze had his own place, and somewhere along the line he let me in. I never came back out.

We would sit on my front porch, on the swinging bench. I'd lean up against him and he'd wrap his arms around me and hold me. Sometimes I'd fall asleep like that, and he would never wake me up. We didn't speak often. It wasn't necessary. His needs were unspoken, and yet I had never known anything to be so entirely true. He needed someone to hold. Someone to care for. Someone who wasn't his mother, and someone who didn't expect him to be his mother's son.

When I turned 18, I bought a motorcycle for myself. He and I raced it against his convertable on the old empty highways, and that was the first time I heard him laugh. We got out of it with scrapes and cuts, and we didn't come home until three in the morning. I saw the look on his face when his mother wasn't waiting for him, and when he smelled the alcohol. But he gave me one of his fake smiles and went inside.

The day he told me he was dropping out of high school, we wrote suicide notes and plastered them all over his mother's shiny new car.  The backpacks were already packed from our previous trips, and so we threw them in his car and left. I leaned against his shoulder and closed my eyes and he talked to me about where he would go, what he would do. He had plenty of money. Money was never a problem for him.

We stopped for gas. I pulled the ugly plaid blanket from the back seat and draped it over both of us. His hands were cold against my shoulder and this time, he was shivering just as much as I was.

"I'm not going back," he said quietly.

"I know."

I knew. I always knew.

He rested his cheek against the top of my head. I was afraid to close my eyes for fear of sleeping, and I stared up at the stars as if maybe their eyes would tell me I was making the right decision. It was silly. Somehow I already knew that the argument was over a long time ago.

"She didn't love me," he murmured.

"I know."

He held me tighter for a moment, and I thought of the girls back at school. For a second I felt insignificant, just another face in the crowd, a forgettable smile, a fading voice of laughter. And then I remembered that I was the one here with him.

"Are you ready?" His eyes found mine.

I saw his mother there for a moment, that statue of a woman hiding behind his black eyes. The woman with the two husbands, with the plastic surgery, the drinks, the friends. Somewhere inside I felt relieved. He still had enough of her in him to be different. Just enough to be different.

I slid my fingers through his cold hand and closed my eyes.