The Best of Me

by David Sedaris

The woman had decided that I was a hard-ass, one of those guys who refuse under any circumstances to do anyone a favor. But it’s not true. I just prefer that the favor be my idea, and that it leaves me feeling kind rather than bullied and uncomfortable.

I shrank from it, dreaded it, feeling like someone forever trying to pass, someone who would eventually be found out, and expelled from polite society. Is this how a normal boy would swing his arms? I’d ask myself, standing before the full-length mirror in my parents’ bedroom. Is this how he’d laugh? Is this what he would find funny? It was like doing an English accent. The more concentrated the attempt, the more self-conscious and unconvincing I became.

I handed the rifle back to Shaun, and as he brushed the hair from his eyes and peered down the scope, I tried to see what I imagined he did: a life on the other side of this, something better, perhaps even majestic, waiting for us to grow into it.