That night, after making dinner and leaving it on the table for his brother and parents, Matthew sat in his room. He was staring at the drawing from earlier that day. Usually, if he killed time by sketching something, he just crumpled it up and threw it away. He knew that he wasn't anywhere near what could be called an artist, and since nobody would even notice if he put up a drawing in the house, he had no real reason to keep them.
But for some reason he wanted to hang on to this one.
"Dieu protège notre pays libre et glorieux." He whispered to himself, reading the words under the bear.
Gilbert thought they were a secret language. He remembered, smiling slightly. There were times when that's exactly what Matthew thought about his french. He didn't know of anyone else in town who could speak it, so it might as well have been something he made up.
"Papa, tu me manques tellement." He cried softly. Through his tears, he watched as he tore the drawing in half. He suddenly didn't want it anymore. It hurt him too much to look at the drawing, and he didn't need to be hurt anymore.
"Dad!" Matthew heard Alfred yelling from the hallway outside his room. His brother's voice sounded higher in pitch and like he was afraid. "There are strange noises coming from this room!"
Matthew cried harder. He got up from where he was sitting, stumbling over to the Canadian flag that he had hanging on his wall. He had no need for sight as he reached and hand behind it and found the small object that he had taped to the wall back there.
Pulling out the razor, he pushed up his sleeve. Then he bit his lip and ran the razor across his arm.
"Good morning, Mattie!" Gilbert called loudly, slinging an arm around Matthew's shoulders.
Matthew flinched away and turned to face Gilbert with a look of surprise on his face. His shoulder hurt from that morning, when Alfred had knocked him down the stairs running to the door so that he wouldn't be late. Matthew had been focusing on the pain as he walked, but now he all but forgot about it.
He remembered me? He thought it disbelief, staring at Gilbert.
"Hey, didn't mean to scare you." Gilbert laughed, clapping a hand on Matthew's shoulder. When Matthew flinched again, he withdrew the hand. "Hey, what's with all the flinching?"
"Uh...um..." Matthew didn't know what to say. He looked at his feet. "Rien." He whispered.
Gilbert started laughing again. "'Rien.'" He mimicked. "You have to teach me your language. The awesome me needs a new way to annoy the unawesomeness out of my brother."
Matthew looked up at him in surprise. "You want to learn French?" His eyes grew wide. He wants to learn French... from me?
"French." Gilbert repeated. "Is that what you call it?" He shrugged slightly. "Sure. Yeah. Just as long as it's not too hard."
Matthew shook his head rapidly. "It's not!" For the first time in a long time, he felt his spirits starting to lift.
"Awesome." Gilbert nodded. Then they started walking down the hall together. "You can come over to my place after school." He plucked slightly at his black and white t-shirt. "I have a pool, so there's some relief from this heat."
Then Gilbert looked at Matthew and laughed. "Why are you wearing a sweatshirt in this weather anyway?"
Matthew put a hand over the cut on his wrist he had made that morning. "Uh... no reason." He muttered.