"It took a really long time to come to the realization," he said, "that he wasn't the same person anymore. The guy I was taking to parties and introducing to my friends wasn't the same kid I went with to the National Boy Scout Jamboree. He wasn't the same kid that I pissed in gatorade bottles and shot m-80s and played nintendo and talked about our crazy moms and ate corn dogs with at 3am. He's just some strung out guy with nothing interesting to say. Unless, of course, you wanted to talk about heroin's interactions with anti-anxiety medications, then he'd light up like a fire."
"I wasn't really around to see the demise."
"Yeah, it wasn't pretty. And it was so gradual. That's the worst of it. Any kinship and affection was replaced by this pity and nostalgia. No one wants to become that."
***
"Think of yourself like a puzzle piece"
"Ok. I am a puzzle piece."
"No, you're like a puzzle piece. And my life is the puzzle. The picture on the puzzle is a swimming pool with a beach ball and a palm tree. I'm putting all the pieces togther, and..."
"Is there a place for me?"
"See, that's the thing. There's an empty space where most of the beach ball is. Your puzzle piece is white and red and blue stripes...."
"Like a beach ball! Perfect!"
"No, see the colors are right, but the piece that is needed has three inverted jigsaw pieces and one protruding one. Your piece has two inverted sides and two protruding ones."
"So I don't fit?"
"No, almost. I'd like to find a way to make you fit, but it just doesn't work."
***
"You can use the one last week when I cried a little."
"When last week? When I asked if you if you wanted to report your progress to me and you said you didn't want to answer to me because you thought I was disappointed in you?
"Yeah."
"You cried? How did I miss that?"
"It was on your shoulder, so you couldn't see me. I was sneaky about it."
"I'm not disapponted in you, you know."
"I know that now. I didn't a week ago."
"Bah. Why is there so much sadness? Remind me that life is still sweet. Convince me."
"It is."