The Hardest Thing To Ask

August was tired. That was the only way to describe what he felt through his monotonous daily trudge through his monotonous daily life. He wasn’t depressed anymore, he wasn’t angry at the lack of progress or the inevitability of his failure at any goal, he was just tired. Ironically, he couldn’t sleep. He was supposed to be someone reliable and dependable, a relative genius who outshone all of the small people from his small town that he wanted to be nothing like. He was destined for bigger and better things, yes he was. Until he realized he wasn’t. He was just like everyone else, and all the hopes and beliefs his family wanted him to shoulder were ill-placed.

He should’ve made it by now, whatever that meant. He shouldn’t be stuck in a dead-end job, with no prospects upwards. He shouldn’t be apathetic towards everything around him, yet he was. He was supposed to become the breadwinner for his family, finance their comfort and security. He still wanted to fulfill those promises, but he was just… so… tired.

Crawling through every day was becoming something of a game to him. He tried to keep count of how often he thought of just walking away. The urge to simply abandon everything was stronger some days than it was others, but it was a sentiment he didn’t seem to ever abandon. The amount of coffee he drank was a little concerning, but he needed to wade through the exhaustion somehow. Perhaps the weight he had gained was really weighing him down and the existential dread and disappointment was just a byproduct. Maybe he wasn’t discontent with the reality of his life, maybe he was just going through a phase. Grim smiles of self-deprecating amusement adorned his face often. He used to be handsome, and the people who loved him still gave him sweet words about his looks, but they were like ash in his mouth. Painful lumps he had to swallow and be thankful for.

Inside he wanted to scream and rage, he wanted to yell his truths from the rooftops, he wanted to grab those same people and shout his insecurities until they saw them, too.

That all sounded like far too much of a hassle, though.

August would settle for a month going by where he didn’t have to worry about whether his indulgences would set him back financially for months. Getting a reliable car would be nice. Not having to work terrible hours would be far nicer. Nicest of all would be some assurances of a more pleasant future. Something nice and solid, tangible, something he could apply immediately to his festering wounds. Something to pique his interest. Even thinking about these kinds of things was tiring. God, he just wanted to sleep.

Instead, he would often look at the empty notebooks his mother would give him. He was a writer, when he was younger. He had liked writing poetry most of all, and it was probably the best outlet he ever had. He hated writing now, though. She had given him a little black notebook recently, the fanciest one she had ever given, for his birthday. Inside the cover, she wrote three words that struck his empty core every time he saw them. “Don’t Give Up.” Some days he would stare at those words, written in his mother’s elegant handwriting, and cry. These were the only times he truly expressed himself. Crying tears of sorrow, of regret, of self-pity, he desperately wished she had written something else.

In asking August to not give up, his mother was condemning him to suffer. What choice did he have, though? This was her only real request, and it pulled him forward like a leash.

So even though his thoughts screamed and begged to curl up and shrivel away, even though every aching muscle and shrieking joint wanted him to give in to the exhaustion and just stop, August marched on. He dragged himself through every day for three words from his mother. Through the pounding pain in his brain, his eyes that burned in the sunlight, his perpetual weakness, he took the most important step of his life every day.

The next.

He still doesn’t know how it happened. He was too tired to notice when things started turning around. He was so caught up in the flow of moving forward he never once paused to take a look at where he had made it to. Two years after he had received that damning notebook, he was partway through law school, with $20,000 sitting in his checking account. He vaguely remembered the scholarship he had won as a result of his writing prowess and the recurring payments he would receive as he made his way towards becoming… someone. He called his mom, tears in his eyes, trying his best not to sound as though they were, and asked her to dinner.

They went somewhere fancy. His mom always liked the rare occasions she got to visit the dining realms of the upscale. They talked, about little things. How school or work was going, how the dogs she kept were, family drama, all the things you’d expect. Eventually, as August settled the bill, she looked at him seriously and asked “How are you doing, really?”

At first, he didn’t know what to say. Does anyone really know what to say the moment they’re asked a question like that?

Then he grinned, an actual smile of some amusement, and spoke the truth.

“Oh, I dunno, to be honest. All I know is that I’m not giving up yet.”

For once in his life, telling the truth was less tiring than lying about how he felt.