“About what?”
“How beautiful you are.”
He beamed at me, and leaned in to kiss me on the nose.
“You’re beautiful too.”
I shook my head, but he gently grabbed my chin to stop me.
“You are.”
“Thanks.”
“I wish you weren’t so down on yourself all the time.”
I looked down at Landon’s hands so I wouldn’t have to meet his eyes.
“I can’t help it sometimes.”
That’s what being depressed does. It’s like a supermassive black hole between your sense of self and your actual self, and all you can see is the way you look through the gravitational lensing of your own inadequacies.
“Hey. Don’t.”
“Sorry.”
“I wish you wouldn’t say sorry all the time.” Landon rested his hand on my cheek. “I wish I could reach in and scoop all that depression out of your brain. So you could be happy.”
I wrapped my fingers around his. “I am happy,” I said. “I’m just depressed too.”
My depression was part of me. Just like being gay was.
A part, but not the whole.
Landon bit his lip. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“I’m just...”
I thought about Dad, and his depressive episode.
And I thought about Sohrab, who was worried maybe he was depressed too.
And I thought about how sometimes, telling people I was depressed felt like its own kind of coming out.
“Being depressed doesn’t mean I’m not happy. It’s like, happy is one color. And depressed is another color. And you can paint happy, and then paint a little depression around the edges.”
Landon traced his index finger down the bridge of my nose. I shivered a little.
“If you say so.”
“I do.”
He traced his thumb along my bottom lip, and then down to my chin.
“Sorry I missed your game.”
“We lost anyway,” I said.
“Hey.”
