speak easy

...and there was that godawful silence. some people fear it i guess: that silence over the telephone, the awkwardness of not being able to see the other person's face, reaction, or eyes. i don't really mind it, though, since i've grown accustomed to listening for the slightest change in tone. sometimes i think i can hear people's expressions better than i can read them on their faces.
it's hard to explain.
but there it was, that silence that everyone hates.
i just kind of welcome it.
it doesn't really mean one thing or another.
i was sitting on my bed... actually i was lying on my stomach and my blinds were half open so i could see the outside from where i was. he had asked how everything was, and since i don't know him that well i gave the obligatory "everything's fine, going great, just doing homework" response. it was true enough, i was doing homework, and my grades are better than they've been since march 2009. everything on paper is fine.
and that's when the pause happened.
i figured i'd bored him since he's horribly intellectual, but the pause lasted longer than what would say that.
he was thinking.
shit.
i'm the only person that's allowed to think things over.
shit.shit.shit. he was thinking. about me. foreign thoughts...
why was he thinking? the pause felt like eternity. he was about to call me out. i could smell it.
i am the master of "everything's fine." i could write a book on everything being fine.
"you know," he said, "you can tell me what's really on your mind."

there it was.

actually, i couldn't, because that's what's managed to get me in trouble my entire life. this last year, actually: not being able to tell the right kind of things. the acceptable things. maybe it's been longer than a year... maybe two...three....or an eternity of not being able to call the right shots, since this problem manifests itself in all sorts of different ways. my days of pleasing for the sake of pleasing have run short. thus spoke zarathustra.
then again, maybe i could give up my stubbornness.

"everything's fine. just doing homework."

pause.
this must be why people avoid phone conversations like the plague.
i don't know. listening isn't terrible: you can pick up on the person on the other end. you can pick up on what they're thinking with their tones and the way they breath... all without them seeing the looks you make when you wrinkle your face closer to the receiver.

"you really can tell me what's going on."
i'd barely known him two weeks, although technically i'd been hearing stories about him since i was fifteen. he was actually a legend as far as i could tell.

"really." i stated. it was not a question. that sharp tone of sarcasm always slides in when i don't believe what someone's saying.

"yeah, really, i'd like to know what's going on with you."

it's such a foreign feeling....
maybe there are good people out there.