"Smile, She Said - As If That Could Save me"

She told him, “Smile.”

Even the cigarette he had been about to wedge between his bluish lips paused mid-air. He stopped, fingers absently fiddling with the damp filter, and glanced at her with the weary disdain of an eagle battling against stormy winds—an eagle that knows any attempt to control its flight in such chaos is futile.

He looked at her in silence, eyes searching, trying to understand this absurd creature called “woman” and the way she thinks.

Smile?

As if a simple smile could undo everything.

Would smiling erase the mountain of unpaid bills waiting at home? Would it bring back his mother, gone after a long, slow war with a disease that showed no mercy? Would a smile take away the guilt that had clung to him like a second skin—guilt for standing by helplessly as she suffered, for failing to ease her pain, for watching her fade while he did nothing but exist?

Would a smile dissolve the heaviness that had wrapped itself around his ribs like barbed wire? Would it bring him perfect white teeth, to spare him the need to explain—again—why his were so dark and crumbling, why people flinched when he laughed? Would it make someone fall in love with his sunken face, hollow frame, and the breath that struggled just to rise and fall?

Would it free him from the inhaler that had become his shadow, stuck to him like regret?

Would it suddenly grant him the miracle of looking like George Clooney by the time he hits forty—the adolescent fantasy that now made him chuckle bitterly in private?

Would a smile land him a job—any job—that could finally pull him out of the gray limbo of questioning his own existence?

Would it buy him those sleek running shoes he saw through the glass storefront last week—the ones that made his heart ache not just from want, but from knowing he couldn't have them?

Would it fix everything?

Would it fix anything?

And yet… she said it so lightly, like it was the answer to all that plagued him. "Smile." Just that. Two syllables that made him want to scream, or cry, or disappear.

He considered explaining all of this to her—laying it all out in one long exhale of truth and exhaustion. He wanted to ask her why she thought a grin was the solution to a soul that was slowly unraveling. But then, he stopped himself. He remembered something: arguing with women, at least in his experience, was like pouring water into a broken jar. No matter how much you put in, it would always leak out in the end.

So he stayed quiet.

But he didn’t look away. He kept his eyes locked on hers, eyes that carried years of storms and losses and battles no one saw.

Then, slowly, he raised the cigarette to his lips, lit it, and took a deep drag—pulling the smoke into the hollow of his chest like it was the only thing he had any control over.

Before exhaling the first plume, giving the smoke free rein to roam his ribcage, he turned toward her and said calmly:

“Go drive the damn car.”

What do you think?

Was she naive to believe a smile could fix a man made of broken pieces?

Or was he too far gone to see the hope behind her words?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Drop a comment below—tell me how you felt reading this.

Did it hit you somewhere personal? Do you see yourself in him… or in her?

Maybe you’ve been the one who asked someone to smile, not knowing what storms they were carrying inside. Or maybe you've been the one holding back a thousand unspoken truths behind a single, tired stare.

Let’s talk in the comments—your perspective matters.