Title: Smile
Author: The Omniscient Bookseller
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Bend it Like Beckham
Disclaimer: I don't own anything that you recognize as belonging to someone else.
Warnings: depressingly disturbed/disturbingly depressed!Tony
Notes: This is my first Bend it Like Beckham fanfiction attempt. Which means I take my favorite character and torture him. If you haven't seen bilb, you really, really, really should. You also should not be reading this. ^_^
Thanks: Shadowed Memory, for betaing. Betaing. Funny word. Like Be-taing. *muses*
~*~
Why him? Why did you have to use Beckham? There were others, people you knew personally. Why did you pick him? Why did you have to pick her hero?
You can tell that it makes her uneasy. You see how she fidgets when she mentions him around you, how she rushes her sentences over the phone, how his name is always a little different than her other words in a letter, proof of how she labored to make it look normal.
What does it matter now, anyway? You are only another one of her faithful fans, one of the "lucky ones", with a first-hand account and a story to tell. Your friendship means nothing to her anymore. You mean nothing to her anymore. When she comes home, her first thoughts are for her coach, then for her family, then for her football friends. Your part in her life is over, she's moved on.
And you haven't, have you?
How can you let yourself believe her? How can you, the master of lying, be deceived by her words? She says it's okay, she says it doesn't bother her, but how can you believe that when she can't bring herself to touch you? Not a hug, not a hand on your shoulder. Perhaps she is trying to fool herself too, to pretend she doesn't shy away when you come near. Of course she's perfectly conformable, as long as you're not close enough to taint her.
You can be anything now. You can be the best friend anyone has ever had. You could laugh for her, you could help her with everything. You could constantly have a joke, a sympathetic ear, or the perfect advice. You could give your life for her. It wouldn't matter. The damage is done.
Why couldn't you have just smiled for her? Why couldn't you have smiled and left well enough alone? You have enough practice; you've deceived everyone you know for so long. If only you'd been content to leave things as they were, you might not be so completely alone. It isn't hard to just smile, is it? It isn't hard to laugh at their jokes, to affect good humor. If you try hard enough, you can laugh away the pain, at least for a little while. It doesn't matter if you know what you are, as long as they don't. It isn't really lying, just leaving out a bit of the truth. It's acting. Slipping into a character who doesn't share your impurities. It's surprising how easy it is to lock your heart for a day.
That's all it is, really. A day. A day where you can draw the false cheer of the sunlight into your own perfected imitation of a smile. Once it is dark, the faint light of the moon at its zenith creating white-gold tears and silver shadows, you can let everything go. Let the mask slip away. Let the pain surface. Let the loneliness take over everything. It is always at night when the sometimes and the nevers fight for dominance of your mind, and it is always at night when hopelessness wins out.
You can tell exactly how long she's been gone by glancing at the inside of your left arm. Each nearly unnoticeable mark stands for a period of time, like the notched sticks of the hero from your favorite adventure series. These small ones, high on your wrist, just tiny patches of slightly reddened skin, mark the first months. These longer ones here, the unnaturally shiny lines, mark every two weeks. These more recent ones, thin strips of scar, mark each week. They go on from there, longer and more frequent as they proceed down your arm, a self-inflicted, unchangeable record of how you have lost.
How would one more cut look? One long horizontal cut, creating a checkerboard pattern across your skin. Wouldn't one more cut look beautiful?
How would welling blood look? Stark, deep red against the pristine white tile. Wouldn't welling blood look beautiful?
How would peace seem? No more pain, no more loneliness, no more pretending. Doesn't peace seem beautiful?
Yes, beautiful. One more cut looks beautiful. It will only be a moment now until everything will be peaceful. In a moment, it won't matter that you forgot to lock the bathroom door. In a moment, you won't be able to see the horror etched on your mother's face, you won't be able to see her disgust. See how dim it is? Now you can't hear what she's screaming. You can't hear the names they call you, you can't hear the stinging words of shame and then of hatred, words from your own family. It doesn't matter who you are, what you are, now. They can't hurt you anymore.
Smile, Tony. Smile.
One last time.