"You're listening to Z102, the best of the old and the new. Here is a song to take you back almost twenty years! Remember where you were the summer this song was all over the radio? Here it is, Roger Davis' only hit, "Your Eyes".
I automatically change the station. There is no need for me to hear that song, and no need for me to remember.
"Dad! Put that back! That's a classic!" Samantha yells to me from the back seat.
"Sweetie, your father really hates that song." My wife, Natalie tells her.
"I don't hate it… I just don't like to hear it."
"Why not, Dad?"
"He used to know the singer." Natalie reaches over to the radio and turns back to the song.
I know the notes so well, every infliction in his voice, every word and syllable. I even know the part where he hit the wrong note, but didn't have enough time in the studio to fix it, so they left it in.
"You knew Roger Davis?" My daughter shrieks. "He was soooo hot!"
I roll my eyes, "Yeah Sam, Roger and I were roommates for a long time."
"More than roommates…" my wife mumbles.
"Shh… she doesn't need to know."
"What?" Sam leans into the front seat. "What don't I need to know?"
"He and I were best friends, that's all."
Best friends, yeah, that was all. Except I loved him, and he loved me. And we tried to make it work, but it just wouldn't. I was always giving so much more, and he just took and took and took. Always out with his band, always keeping us closeted, always taking me for granted.
Then one day, one awful day, we had a fight. About what, I couldn't tell you. Maybe it was about him taking his meds, or him staying out late, or the fact that I was nagging him, or that we didn't have enough money to buy food… I don't remember. But for once, I was reactionary. I was the one who went out to a bar. I was the one who met a girl and somehow charmed her in my drunken state. It was me who went back to her apartment. It was me who cheated on him.
And it was him who threw me out.
The last note of the song plays and the deep-voiced DJ returns. "That of course was Roger Davis' glorious song, "Your Eyes". Today marks the ten year anniversary of his death from the AIDS virus."