Chapter 18: Chapter 18: The Battle of the Smiles

It’s been quite some time since I left Harmony in the dust. Did I feel bad about it? Yeah, but she doesn’t deserve to see me like this. She deserves better. I also deserve some peace and quiet to go through all my thoughts, but sadly, I am not getting that treatment. A certain someone’s been on my tail for the past minute.

“Are you going to look at me?” Karina asks.

“No.” I replied.

She came up to me and began asking why I looked so down. When I refused to give her an answer, she began trying to do everything in her power to get me to at least look at her. Poking, prodding, and saying some very interesting things, both hurtful and suggestive, in order to get me to at least glance at her. 

Then she began moaning very suggestively out of nowhere. One moment she’s poking my shoulder, each time progressively harder, the next she’s making moans that wouldn’t be out of place in one of my games. She didn’t get a look out of it, but she did make something else react.

“Do you have ADHD or something?” I ask.

“I do, actually. Got a problem with that?” 

Well shit, now I can’t actually make fun of her. However, I don’t know the validity of that since I’ve met people with ADHD before, and none were even close to her level of energy. I pity Miranda. She has to deal with her constant talking all the time out of work. Maybe. I don’t know what the fuck they do outside of work. 

“Look over here and I’ll flash myself.” 

That sounds like something she’d do, but I’m not going to look at her. At this point it’s become some sort of game. If I look, she wins, and she knows that. She’ll hold it over me forever. Or at least the times when we see each other, which I hope is as little as possible. It’s not just because I can’t keep up with her energy either, but because I would rather be anywhere else rather than a place that’s full of people. 

Suddenly, I heard something crash against the fence close to me. It wasn’t on purpose or anything, but as soon as I heard it, my neck instinctively twisted my head to look in her direction. I didn’t expect to see anything spectacular, but I sure as hell didn’t expect what I saw. Or I guess I did, but just not in this way.

Karina used her hand to pull her shirt up over her braless chest. Her nipples stuck out for everyone in a certain radius to see. Normally, I would be fine with this since I’d witness something great with little consequences. Not to mention its exhibitionism, which is easily top five of my fetishes. The difference here is that there’s a children’s playground just near us and within eyesight. Even worse being that it’s full of children. 

I reached my hand out and grabbed her shirt, pulling it down instantly. I grazed against her nipple as I did and it took everything in me to not pull it back up for a little peek. Have some standards man. There're children here.

“You want to show your tits to Timothy?” I ask.

“Who’s Timothy?”

“I heard one of the mothers over there shout their child’s name. I don’t think it was Timothy, but it started with a T.”

When I pointed that out, Karina looked at the playground and her face flushed a bright red. She hugged her chest and planted her face against the fence. The steel shook with her weight and, despite that, she continued to press her head into the fence. 

“I forgot where we were. Sorry about that.”

“No problem.” Actually, it was a big problem, but I just couldn’t say that when she looks like this. “Okay, I’m over it.” Now I can make a big deal out of it.

“You nearly flashed little Timothy and you’re over it in a second?”

Karina nodded. “It’s not like I can sulk forever. Why should I stop smiling?” She looked at me. “Which brings me to you.” 

She held her hands to my lips, and I thought she was going to bring me down for a kiss. I closed my eyes and prepared everything for it. That was, until I felt my lips moving around without any assistance of my own. 

I opened my eyes and saw Karina trying to force my mouth into a smile. She would let go and I would return to frowning, then she’d repeat it. She looked so focused on this that I couldn’t but imagine if she were like this at work, then there might be more customers. It was funny at first, then it quickly became annoying. 

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to get you to smile. Remember your masterpiece, Loving Gates? Lucas always tried to make people smile despite his mischief. So I’m doing the same with you.”

Right, I nearly forgot she was a fan of my books. Which now that I think about it, she only ever said I wrote one masterpiece? Does that mean that she doesn’t consider my second one a masterpiece? I agree with her, but it’s strange seeing someone actually not saying that about that book unless they were in a hate club about me.

In the end, she couldn’t get me to smile and only looked at me with frustration. I think it was frustration, but it was hard to tell because she was smiling as well. 

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“Why won’t you smile?”

I took a deep breath and looked out over the city. It was much closer up this time, and I didn’t know if I liked that. 

“My motto is to make others smile. In order to do that, there are some points when I’m going to have to hurt myself to make others feel better. I told myself that I’ll keep on smiling through the pain, but I don’t think that’s possible anymore.”

I waited for her response. To build tension in a scene like this in a novel or movie, the writer will normally make the opposing party stay silent for a period of time, even the more wild characters. However, this isn’t a movie. So, Karina gave her thoughts right away.

“That’s bullshit and you know it.” 

“What do you mean?”

She looked at me like I was genuinely stupid and if it’s coming from her, it must be true. 

“Think about it for a second. You want to make people smile, right? You’ll gain a following of people joyously laughing and joking because of you. They’ll see you as someone that saved them from boredom, depression, or even themselves.”

“It’s because of that you need to be the one smiling the widest. The people you put joy and love into will be looking to you for guidance on how to keep that smile. You made them smile, so they’ll think that you have the knowledge on how to keep it. So when they see you frown, it only makes them frown harder.”

“So keep smiling. If you’re not happy, then that unhappiness will spread to the people you tried to keep smiling. And once they frown again, it’ll be harder to turn it upside down.”

She quieted down after that, waiting for my response. Unlike her, however, I don’t just spout out the first thing that came to mind. That thing being how that sounded incredibly stupid. All I would need to do is hide that frown and everything will be fine. 

I kept it hidden from Harmony and I separated from her so she wouldn’t have to see it. All I have to do is fake a smile. When I fake smile, others will be able to smile for real. Only when everyone else is laughing, joking, and living in harmony I can finally bless the world with a genuine smile. I’ve realized that now. 

But what she said makes a lick of sense. It’s because of that I want to keep my sadness hidden from the world. So I’m going to speak. I’ll make a joke, telling her that she’s a dumb idiot dingleberry, and we’ll laugh it off and leave for their restaurant or whatever. That was the original plan anyway. 

As I turn around, I can see her pouting her lips and looking up at me. I hesitated, which gave her time to talk before I could.

“You didn’t actually hear me, did you?” Karina asks.

“Yeah, I did.”

“What did I say?”

“That I should smile to make sure everyone keeps their smiles.”

She placed her hands on her hips. For the first time since I met her in the grocery store, she seemed like an actual adult. Her posture was straight, and she looked at me straight in my eyes as seriously as possible.

“Why are you still frowning then?”

I sighed. “I think it’s your turn to listen to me. I’ve seen tragedy before. I’ve lived through things I would like to forget. I’m not the naive child from when I thought I could have people smile without taking pain of my own. If I’m going to let people show off their bright colors, I have to absorb their blackness and wallow in my own bleakness. Understand me?”

Karina shook her head. Of course she doesn’t understand. “That sounded so edgy I want to crawl in a hole for you. I don’t get you at all.”

“I guess we’ll never understand each other then.” I walk away from her and head back to the stairs. I can feel her gaze on my back as I walk away.

I turn back, and I expected to see her writhing in frustration. If she is, then I’ll take the opportunity to use it and make her smile again. That’s how I win against the world, after all.

Instead, when I turned around, I could see that bright smile on her face. When I saw it, my heart jumped and I could feel my lips twitch into a smile of its own. It wasn’t on purpose either. It was a weird reaction to seeing her still being so peppy despite what I had said to her. I’ve always believed the saying of smiles being contagious, but I didn’t expect it to be this powerful. 

I turned back around and walked down the stairs. I guess she succeeded in her mission, after all.

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