I was thankfully saved from the efforts of entering the hospital since I found Sam outside in his natural habitat, surreptitiously smoking a joint behind a parked car. I sneaked up behind him, tapping on his shoulder. He perceptibly flinched, startled as he hastily concealed the joint behind his leg. I giggled like a child seeing an adult make a mistake, holding the hood of the car for support.

"Jesus, Mariana." He sighed in relief, placing the joint back in between his dark lips. "I thought one of the hospital authorities came."

"Even a kid can suspect that you smoke all day," I said, gesticulating vaguely at his face and took the joint from him.

Before I could inhale the smoke, he plucked it from my hand. "Woah, what happened to you? I used to offer you this only out of politeness, knowing you would refuse." 

"Ah, come on, let me try it," I insisted which greatly puzzled him. "Mariana Martin has become fun now." He raised his eyebrows questioningly and I whispered, "I have a boyfriend."

He stared steadfastly at me and noticing that I wasn't joking, he took a quick drag and then crushed it beneath the heel of his boots. His bomber jacket hung loosely around his thin shoulders and his hair was devoid of its usual gel, now dry and dishevelled. Without meeting my curious eyes, he asked quietly, "Who is it?"

"Isaac," I said smilingly. "I have told you about him, remember? My childhood best friend turned co-worker presently turned boyfriend."

He was still lightly stomping his feet even though ashes and fragments of the joint were scattered all over. "Is it serious?"

"Yeah, or else I wouldn't be telling you this. I'm pretty sure from the amount of time I spend foolishly thinking about him, I'm in love with him." An embarrassed laugh escaped my lips, wanting to see the expression on Sam's face who was gazing down at the ground. I didn't want him to think of me differently because all my life I had dismissed any possibilities of dating anyone. I simply couldn't fathom how I could willingly let anyone invade my life and get intimate with me. Until I met Isaac after all these years. With him, it didn't feel like an invasion, intimacy came as naturally as a leaf falling from a tree due to gravity.

He nodded indifferently, finally looking up with a grin that didn't reach his red-rimmed eyes. "He sounded like a nice dude."

I felt it best to not respond in agreement, considering how silent he had become. He grinned again, this time effortlessly and put his arm around my shoulder. He smelled of smoke and I couldn't quite lay my finger on whether it was pleasant or unpleasant. So much like Sam. Nobody could distinctly define him to be good or bad. To me, he was the finest man equal to Isaac and dad.

We walked leisurely like that to the diner where my dad was excitedly waiting for us and Sam with his arm around me replied wearily, yet without any hint of irritation to all my prying questions about his father and him.

"Let me stay with you at the hospital. Please," I said imploringly. "You look like you could use some help and company. I feel useless just texting you and asking how you are while sitting all cosy at home."

"It's not that terrible, really, for you to be there. Although my face says the opposite," he stated, aware of how he was presenting himself to the world. "I'm doing nothing, just thinking all day beside my father's bed, what next? That bitch of a mother has been reported to the police, my weakling father---"

"Sam, no, your father is not---"

"---If it wasn't for your father, Mariana, the police wouldn't have believed that a woman did this to my father. His own, petite wife. And he couldn't defend himself one bit. I was so sick of the police interrogation, them repeatedly asking the same things as if telling the daily accounts of abuse over and over will make them soon believe in what was already the truth. I was zoned out most of the time, bugged by this one, tiny question, what next?" he reiterated, almost to himself. "I have barely been thinking of the future until I saw my father bleed and balancing on the edge of death. That exact moment when I saw her throwing those glass bottles at him and him crying out in pain and her running away like an animal, I knew, I knew, that life wasn't going to be the same. Even then I didn't intervene, only thought, what next?" He took a deep breath, calming himself. We were walking sedately, him measuring his steps as if taking one, longer stride could end in the annihilation of all future hopes and dreams. "What next?"

I merrily pushed open the glass door of the diner where we had arrived just then. "Next is- you turn a year older." Immediately, the waitresses in their white aprons and caps popped open confetti and my father loudly clapped his hands, a broad smile plastered on his face. I said softly at my bewildered friend. "Happy birthday, Sam."

He slowly removed his arm from around me, rubbing his face like he was sobering himself to deal with this spontaneous explosion of energy and warmth. Up close, I could see wetness in his eyes as he strenuously tried to pull himself together. From the amount that he rubbed his face and shook his hair, it was like he wanted to morph his woeful countenance to that of a cheerful one. I felt his unstable emotions seep in me and churn in my stomach and I tightly gave him a side hug. I could only feel bones and I had to expertly disguise my worries with an unwavering, mirthful look.

There was a courteous silence as my father and the waitresses waited patiently for him.

"This is next," I said firmly to him, surprised at my own hint of optimism.

He wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his over-sized jacket. "I had almost forgotten today."

"In worries of the next . . . "

There was no smile on his face, but serenity that no smile could convey. A balloon suddenly went flying up and down, rapidly losing its air and everyone laughed at the noise except for Sam. His hand impulsively reached to catch it, but then he held back. We watched the balloon deflate and soon settle on the floor. Taking no notice of it, Sam happily headed towards the large pink-frosted cake on the table.

On one of the framed pictures on the old walls of this diner was written in cursive, nearly illegible font- one bite at a time.

We clapped enthusiastically when Sam cut the cake, stuffing me a with a large piece and then smearing a tiny blob of cream on my dad's nose who laughingly tried to stop him. My dad and I exchanged a secret smile at how Sam despite saying that he wasn't hungry began eating like a man starved for days when all the food was ordered. He comfortably told us of his latest dates and fails with girls, something I wouldn't be able to do with my father who listened attentively, even amusingly.

"Wouldn't you eat, Mariana?" Sam said, chewing on an entire waffle.

"I had finger sandwiches and lemonade."

"Where?" my dad asked inquisitively.

Caught off-guard, I stammered, "J-Just . . . "

"She went to her friend Allison's place before this and was late in picking me up," Sam lied, covering for me and smugly smiled.

"Oh yeah, her mum was not letting me go without eating . . . "

My dad disapprovingly shook his head in the way parents often do at their children, having no clue of my splendid dating life.