The response

“Why are you always running your mouth. You always talk about how that woman next to us in the store is a bitch and doesn’t know any better when she just saying her opinions on matters I know damn well you think the same. But when I ask you things I need to know you always keep it shut. Like your zipper is broken. I know there is no zipper on that thing or lid,'' she huffs out her words in annoyance. The woman's feet are heavy against the wood floor. Her thin hands fly around her golden hair pulling at it and twisting it. “Like yesterday for example when I ask you why you always get stone-cold with strangers and just freeze up when someone asks you about your dad. You get this yucky face like a child who accidentally a vegetable. Like seriously what’s your problem?” she sounds frantic with her words like if she doesn’t get them out now she will be interrupted. Her hands surround her eyes, rubbing aggressively at them. She quickly stands straight up asserting dominance. “ You never gonna tell me are you,” despite her friendly attitude moments ago she slowly morph into the greatest enemy of the tall man. Turning him into a small fragile child. "Why are you always running your mouth? You always talk about how that woman next to us in the store is a bitch and doesn’t know any better when she just saying her opinions on matters I know damn well you think the same. But when I ask you things I need to know you always keep it shut. Like your zipper is broken. I know there is no zipper on that thing or lid,'' she huffs out her words in annoyance. The woman's feet are heavy against the wood floor. Her thin hands fly around her golden hair pulling at it and twisting it. “Like yesterday for example when I ask you why you always get stone-cold with strangers and just freeze up when someone asks you about your dad. You get this yucky face like a child who accidentally a vegetable. Like seriously what’s your problem?” she sounds frantic with her words like if she doesn’t get them out now she will be interrupted. Her hands surround her eyes, rubbing aggressively at them. She quickly stands straight up asserting

“Veronica it’s not like that,'' the man's voice trembles like a child in trouble. He wrapped his long arms across his lean torso as if they were his shield from her words.

“You are doing it right now,” the man quickly tries to argue with no’s,” Don’t you dare interrupt me. I am telling you about a problem you have. And that you need to fix it. Don’t try to deny it. I don’t care what happened with your father, but you do and it’s eating you up from the inside,” her voice is deadly calm despite her words burning and cutting through the wall the man has been building for centuries.

“Veronica,” the man whimpers like a lonely puppy. “I don’t know what is wrong with me. Every time I face my father or even think about him I just get all frozen and stuff. If I told you why you think it is silly or you might even side with my father,” the man says this all with fear. Fear of rejection. Fear of being laughed at because of his darn feelings.

“I know that nothing is wrong with you. You just have a hard time opening up with people. I will never judge you no matter what you do, Michael. I know it is hard, it is hard for me to, but if you don’t it's going to kill you.”, she puts her hands up in the air,” dear friends and family we all gather here today to say goodbye to the one and only Michael.” She grabs his hands and holds him close to her,” Michael do you think your family wants you to die because you could not simply open up to everyone around you. If you ask me that is a silly reason to have to say goodbye to anyone,” she whispers all this into his ear even though it sounds like she is screaming.

Michael tries to pull away from her, but she just grips him harder. He looks at her with absolute hate in his eyes. Tears pool at his brown eyes. His cheeks are red with anger and his eyebrows slump near his eyes. He puts his hands into a fist motion and starts punching Veronica in the chest but she keeps holding him close.

“Let go of me. Let go of me. Let go of me”, at first his voice is laced with anger, but slowly, in the end, he sounds tired. His shoulders shake with sobs. His breath comes heavy and infrequent.

He lets the woman next to him hug him. 

“Veronica can I tell you what happened with my father,” the man question surprises the woman, but she doesn’t let it show on her pale face.

“Sure honey”, her voice comes out affectionately like a mother who says yes to kissing her kid’s boo-boo.

“You see when I was younger I was not a very happy child”, he laughs quietly, “surprise right,” he jokes. “Well you see my parents, but especially my father always thought that if your life was not as bad as the kids you hear about in school that doesn’t have water or food. Then there wasn’t a reason to be sad. Because other people had it worse. That if you have two “loving” parents and a roof over your head then it wasn’t fair to be sad. You see the idea of telling me father or mother that I’m sad. I’m not happy. I don’t want to live in this “perfect world”. That they will just tell me to stop it. That I shouldn’t be sad. That I’m faking these emotions. As if I like being sad.” he says this all with a heavy voice.

The man runs his hands through his hair getting suck on a knot. “And for a little while, I believed them. It tormented me. I thought I would choose to be this way because I wanted someone to that and that I shouldn’t hate my parents because of this silly mishap.”

“Your parents shouldn’t have told you this. It is not true.” the statement comes out as stern as if said right Michael would snap out of this.

“Just because it is not true doesn’t mean that it stops anyone from saying it. Because politicians say untrue stuff all the time, so if they stopped they wouldn’t exist anymore. It is their thing.” he says the joke but it just seems like he is trying to avoid this whole conservation.

“I’m being honest here Michael. Parents who say those kinds of things don't deserve a beautiful person like you to call you their son”, it like this was the most sincere thing that came out of her mouth. “You need to learn that you have to talk to people about these types of things and you can’t avoid them. When you go all stone-cold it’s the opposite effect you want to happen. When you go stone-cold you want people to stop questioning you, but it makes people want to question you more.”

“I know,'' he says quietly.

“No, you don’t know because if you did we wouldn’t have this conservation,'' she answers back like she had rehearsed this phrase a million times before. “So listen to me, you need to be more vulnerable with people. And if you can’t do this then you might have to face your parents. You can’t avoid the problem because it’s gonna keep chasing you until you let it eat you up”, she walks away with this conversation on her mind. She almost closes the door when she stops,” You can always talk to me”, she says this with one last huff.

She leaves before she can hear the man's response. If she stayed a moment longer she would have heard,” No, I can't.''