How I made The Smile Disappear

     After loading Allen up with beer, I was conflicted. He was finally acting happy, and I really didn't want to ruin that. However, I had started the evening with a plan, so I decided to follow through. People used to tell me that I never followed through on things, so I had become set on finishing what I had started. I picked Allen up, set him against one arm of the couch, and he looked at me sadly. I think he knew what I was going to ask.

"What's next, Allen?"

     His grimace returned, and he was quiet again for a long time. It wasn't the comfortable silence we had been sharing for the past two weeks, it felt more like the room was filling with hot water, heat and pressure making every second more uncomfortable. Then Allen spoke, and pulled the drain, and the water rushed out.

"I can't go back. There's no point. I lost everything I had. I can't even face them now. I left Mike, I shot at him, for god's sake. He probably thinks I've turned against him. I just can't do it anymore"

     He had started to cry, and I didn't know what to do. I'm normally pretty good at handling emotional people, my friends always say that I am, anyway. But Allen, this, all of it was so different than any of that stuff. I couldn't get him to call Silas. He was ashamed. He had looked up to silas, and when he allowed himself to get captured like that, and abandoned Mike, he couldn't bear it. He couldn't tell Silas that he had escaped that train station. He cried on me for hours. The facade of the strong man melted away, and I realized what that package had done to him. He had been a kind, normal man, and finding that heart had broken all of that. He was covered in scars, and hid inside himself. I didn't push anymore. I left him alone, and when I woke in the morning, his wheelchair was still sitting next to the couch. He was nowhere to be found.