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Sea Of Memories I'm a bit camera shy. Funny thing for a guy like me, someone who likes to have attention focused purely on him, someone with an ego the size of fucking James Van Der Beek's head. It always seemed that, whenever someone snapped a photo of me, they'd catch me in some unflattering position. Like, I'd have my mouth open or I'd be looking off to the side, which would make me look all scitzo, usually I don't like pictures of me because my eyes are always so bloodshot and my hair is a bit ornery, doesn't like to stay in place, especially after a long set. Pictures when I'm by myself are utter shit. However, all the pictures I have with me and Oz together, I look fucking great in. Don't get me wrong, it's totally not because standing next to Oz makes me look good on pure principal, Oz is sexy. I don't know why it is, it's just one of those things. Since we got the new guitarist, I've been convinced that the band is doomed to fail. Not because the guy is bad or anything. All truth be known, he's a better player than Oz, although his lyrics suck shit through a straw. What really gets me is that, a band's got to have a certain image to make it in the biz, so how do you make it if the lead singer always looks like he's just come off a two week bender in every picture that he takes? Course, the band isn't what I'm really thinking of right now. Sitting on my bed, a sea of memorandum surrounding me, pictures forming a small pool in the gap between my crooked legs. When I pulled out my junk box tonight, I was looking for the best picture I have of Oz, but I can't find it. I remember it perfectly in my mind. It was taken when we just started our freshmen year of high school together and it was consequently the first time he'd ever dyed his hair. His hair has always been a pretty, natural red, but in the picture, it's a freaky flame orange. He's got on a pair of cut-off khaki shorts and a Nirvana t-shirt, the collar tinted a darker shade of black from the sweat. It had been one of those stiflingly hot Indian summer days and Oz was actually the only male in a twenty mile radius that hadn't got shirtless that day. His eyes were squinted and the glare of the sun had made his face scrunch up a bit, just enough to where it looked like he had a big smile on his face. I think that's why I love that picture so much, because it's the only one I have of him where it looks like he's smiling. My sister, Selena, took that picture. Matter of fact, she took most of the pictures that I'm wading through right now. She was only eleven months older than me, a pretty brown haired girl with the inspiration to become a professional photographer, the proof of that strewn over my bed at the moment. She didn't have the patience to make her dreams come true though and she ran off with some scum bag to the big city. Did well at first, got a job working at an Olan Mills, calling me on the phone every Friday to relate that people in LA didn't care how old you were just as long as you had "The Eye". But her boyfriend had a bit of a drug habit that was hard to keep under control. One night, he came home demanding money for a short fix, and when she denied it to him, he hit her over the head with a heavy, glass ashtray. I don't think he'd actually meant to kill her with the blow, but it was made of an incredibly thick glass, the kind that just don't shatter that easily. After Selena died, who did I really have? My mom was always a workaholic and when Selena died, she threw herself into it with a new fervor. I understand her reasons, but she just forgot that she still had another kid, one who was also trying to cope with the death of his older sister. Never knew my dad, my grandparents were both dead. So, I had Oz. He was the shoulder that I cried on. He never tried to tell me that things would be okay or try to pull me out of it when I got depressed, he just sat there all quiet-like......Oz-like. I can actually pinpoint the moment that my feelings for Oz changed. Halfway through our sophomore year, on a night that my mom was at the office late, working on an important case. It was just him and me and things were really light-hearted. We'd just had a B-rated horror movie marathon with two large pepperoni pizzas laid out before us on the floor, he'd made some smart-ass comment, which he's naturally prone to do, so we started to wrassle in the guy-way. Suddenly, it wasn't the guy-way anymore and I had him pinned to the floor and my lips pressed against his. Afterwards, when we were both pulling on our clothes and giving each other nervous glances, I did the only thing that I knew how to do. I laughed it off and told him that it was a teen male, sexual tension type thing. What really got me was the look on his face when I said that, sort of a cross between relief and an I-just-fell-into-a-pile-of-sharp-thingies look. But, things continued and I don't think I ever felt more comfortable with my life than I did when I was laying pressed up against Oz's naked back. That's not the story of my life though. The story of my life is that I'm a fuck-up. Pure, unadulterated, no holds barred fuck-up. Just like school, just like my relationship with my mother and my sorry attempt to deal with the death of my sister, I fucked up the thing that I had with Oz. I blew it off as some teen fling and as a result lost him to someone that he had a chance at a normal relationship with. Not that his relationship with Willow was all that normal. Why am I doing this? Why am I sitting in a pile of pictures of me and Oz that my dead sister took and feeling sorry for myself? Because a little more than five hours ago, he left here. He showed up at my doorstep after being gone for three months and mere minutes after he showed up, he went off in search for someone else. Someone that can make him feel complete? Someone who doesn't appreciate him the way that I do? Someone who isn't afraid to tell him that they love him? I'm just waiting, preparing myself for when he'll come back to collect his things and leave again. Maybe this time for good. It occurs to me finally now, where that picture is. I remember, a couple of years ago when Oz came to me and asked me if he could have it. He never told me what he wanted with it, but I was so full of bitterness towards him at the moment, that I didn't even care. I was so bitter in fact, that I handed it to him without so much as a blink of my eye, knowing fully well that it was going to end up framed and placed on the night table of someone that he loves more than me. Even with the stack of pictures I have of him, I'll never have one that shows that Oz I remember the most fondly. The Oz that was mine and belonged to me and only me. I'm a selfish bastard in the end. I couldn't share him with anyone then and I won't give myself the pleasure of sharing him now. He belongs to her now and I.......well, I'll always belong to someone that doesn't love me. |
