How Green Becomes Wood

"Well, then--" Milo began, presuming he knew what would happen if he asked, and when he realized he had to actually think about it, he fell silent. "Then... I'd have to reconcile with how much in my life could've been better... if I wasn't too damn cowardly to ask."
 
"I dunno if it's cowardly, and for a lot of it, you were just trying to survive. There's no shame in that. We can spend a lot of time wishing things were different and being ashamed of the past, but shame gets us nowhere. Regret, maybe, but only if you use it as a tool to move forward. We can't change the past or how others react." He tipped the cooler toward Milo, offering him a drink. "But we can change the future and how we act."
 
Taking a drink just so he had something to do with his hand, Milo thought about what Xander was saying for a few minutes. A few times he attempted to say something, but every time the words died on his lips until at last he admitted, "I don't know how to. I mean, objectively, I know how to. If this were a story, I'd know what I'd want the character to do. But I don't know how to."
 
Xander nodded and took a drink for himself. He opened the lid and held it for a minute before answering. "It takes practice. I find it easy to say stuff, but it's too easy for me. I say a lot of crap that doesn't need to be said. If it's hard for you to speak up, that means you'll say stuff that needs to be said. Maybe you'll say stuff wrong sometimes. Maybe you'll mess up. That's okay. You always mess up when you're learning to do something for the first time. Compose what you want to say in your head, take a deep breath, and breathe the words out. Or maybe write a letter and read it out."
 
"I just don't know how to start." Milo told him, taking a sorry sip of lemonade as he watched the cars go by below them. "It doesn't feel right to say, 'Grandma, find somewhere else to put your scrapbooking stuff.' I don't even know where she'd put it all, but if I'm going to live there, I should have my own space, because if nothing else about this is fair, that should be, at least. Right?"
 
Xander snickered lightly. "Yeah, that might not be the right way to say it, and, yeah, you're absolutely right. Maybe... oh, how about if you said something like, 'Since you asked that I stay here, it's only fair that I get my own room that feels like a room.' Something like that. How's that sound?" He dug into his bag and picked out another sack before taking a drink.
 
"That is better..." Milo agreed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Do you really think it would work? That they'd listen? Because I just... I feel like I don't have anything. Like there isn't space for me anywhere I go."
 
"I think you won't know until you try, and that if they really do love you and want to take care of you, then they should know how you feel," Xander replied. "It's not a great answer, but it's the truth."
 
"I guess you're right..." Milo admitted, although he was still anxious about it. "I hate that it's not fair, you know? Because anytime you try to complain about something not being fair, you get told, 'life's not fair,' and it just makes me so frustrated, because I know that. Of course I know that! But that doesn't mean we have to keep letting it be unfair, I should still get to complain about the fact it's not fair without being treated like I'm stupid for wanting things to be different."
 
"Damn straight!" Xander agreed with him. "Life's not fair, but that doesn't mean people get to treat each other unfairly, and that's half the reason why life is unfair! Life sucks. We should get to say it sucks."
 
"I just want to..." He clenched his fist as he struggled to think up what it was specifically he wanted to do, but couldn't find anything, "I want to just get to live without being told what to do or how to feel all the damn time. And I want credit for the fact I've been dealing with it for all of this time, they talk to me like I'm a little kid who doesn't know anything about anything."
 
"You've been dealing with hell, and you've been doing a damn good job," Xander stated fervently. "No one should ever get to tell you how you should feel about anything. That's not cool. Not cool at all! You feel however the hell you want to feel about whatever you want to."
 
"I don't know why I'm given the choices of, like, an eight year old, but I'm expected to accept it all with the grace of a forty-year old. Do you get that? They talk to you like you're still a little kid, but they want you to react and cope with everything like you're a grown adult, and if you don't do it perfectly, it's like you did everything wrong." Milo huffed, ruffling his own hair, "I'm only a young adult when it's convenient."
 
"It's a full-on do as I say, not as I do," Xander grumbled. "Why are you treated like you're going to be king of the world one second and like a toddler the next? It makes no sense! In two years, we'll be old enough to join the army, but we're not capable of making rational decisions now."
 
"Nah, but teachers have been," Xander replied, "and sometimes my mum or her boyfriends. Loads of other adults. Mostly, though, they treated me like you say your mum got treated. Like they were just waiting for me to mess up. Sometimes teachers would look at me like they were pre-disappointed. Anticipatory disappointment. I was going to mess up, so I might as well do it and get it over with and stop wasting their time." He fell quiet a moment, watching the cars. "I disappointed my mum a lot, but she never looked at me like that. Guess I should have returned the favor more than I did." He shook off the thought. "It's gotten better - I've gotten better in the last year. One of Mum's boyfriends asked if we wanted a lollipop not long after he met us. We were fourteen, and he was offering us candy like we were babies!"
 
Last edited:
Milo nodded, resting his chin on his knees, "I don't like when people look at me. I don't like being... seen. I guess. And when people see you, opens you up to people knowing you, and I don't like that either. I don't like feeling exposed. But sometimes, sometimes I wish my teachers would look at me anyway. Even if I hated it. Sometimes I wish I'd get really sick, like a patient in Grey's Anatomy or Scrubs, or even House, I guess--my mom watches a lot of medical shows--so that there would be people who had to care. When my dad was sick, the nurses were really nice to me. And when you're going through chemo, they give you popsicles, and my dad always had an orange one, because it was his least favourite flavour, and if he had lived, he knew that whatever flavour he had during treatments he'd end up hating for the rest of his life, so he didn't want to ruin a good one. The nurses always let me have one, too, when I was there with him." He shrugged, looking from the horizon down at his shoes, "I don't know people well enough to disappoint them. Which I guess is the idea."
 
Xander turned his bottle of soda around in his hand. "If you keep people away, at arms length, you can't disappoint them, or even if you do disappoint them, it's not as bad as when they know you. But, if you do that, you don't give them the opportunity to care about you, or you them. Goes both ways, you know. Caring about people and knowing them, it hurts. It's like getting burned in a fire. But it makes you feel alive, too, like you're somehow a part of the world in a different way. Doesn't matter if it's one person or twenty, just caring and being cared about, it feels real, real good and is worth the pain. Usually. Takes time. Practice. But when you get it right, it's good."
 
Milo watched him, not really knowing what to say to that, and he tore off the label on his drink as he considered how to respond. Once the label was fully off, he looked down at in his hands and frowned, wanting to rip it up but not wanting the breeze to take the pieces away and litter them. "It's really hard... moving around like I do... Or have done... because even though I try to keep myself isolated, every so often I do meet someone I bond with. Then I need to say goodbye."

All at once, the worst outcome for 'what if they say yes' came to him, "What if they let me have that room all to myself, and I let myself get really, actually settled, and then they all agree it is safe enough for my mom to take me?"
 
Xander thought about that question for a little bit, fiddling with his own label but not tearing it off. He knew the quick answer, but Milo deserved more than that. Finally, he said, "Then you'll have a chance to enjoy yourself here and now. Why does now have to suffer for the sake of later? Why can't you allow yourself to enjoy now even if you know it won't last? And besides, when your mum is ready to take you, that means she'll be settled, right? You'll be going from one settled place to the next. If you want to. You could technically choose to stay here. I know, I know, you want to go, I'm just saying it's technically a choice. Or... you could ask her to come here." He shrugged. "You've given up a lot. Maybe it's time to enjoy yourself even if it's just a couple of months. It's still a couple of months. Why waste them? We could all die tomorrow in a freak accident or win the lottery. Might as well enjoy now."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top