feeling fucking sick. I can’t even visit him, family only.
He turned twenty yesterday; I could never forget the significance of June 1st. On December 1st of the first year we met, he remarked, with that all too familiar self-satisfied smile, that the only beauty of the day was that he was exactly half a year older. I might just have dismissed this, as I had with so many of his gratuitous proclamations, except for the fact that it was my birthday.
I guess he was lucky. Three days passed June 1st and he would be celebrating his birthday with his fellow orange jumpsuit roommate, Lenny, who really could not give a flying fuck. To Lenny, the only significance of each day was in its ending. But no, he would tell no one of his birthday. Maybe his parents would visit, but he’d rather that they just forgot. June 1st was the cruelest reminder to his mother that great SAT scores, neatly folded acceptance letters to prestigious schools in the north east, and shelves of engraved cross country trophies, could mean nothing.
He turned twenty yesterday; I forget sometimes how young he is. In the course of a lifetime, three months is a open-mouthed nap taken on a train ride to somewhere- anywhere else. Three months is the best-case scenario, nine months the worst-case; the expensive city lawyer could only promise so much.
