Untitled Piece

They say a person is shaped by their past – nurture over nature – the way they are brought up. That a person's actions are only caused by a slow progression of what they learn and witness throughout their childhood and adolescence. But I had a friend once who convinced me that, without a doubt, this theory was wrong.

***

December 21st was the day I met him. I still remember the way the wind whistled in my ear, whispering secrets of cold intent, as I sat alone on the little red swing. The swing had been a part of the woods for many years, since before I could remember, and it was where I went when I needed to think. At the tender age of thirteen, the only fear that had crossed my mind was the idea that my brother would get a bigger, better present this Christmas, that I would be forgotten. Forgotten like the goldfish that never got fed. I was swinging on that little red swing was when I fist saw him. A shadow hiding in the woods. Too afraid of what I would say to him if he asked for a turn, yet I gestured him over. I saw the friend in the stranger. From that very first day I knew there was a connection between us that couldn't be broken.

***

Although my parents were what could be described as “helicopter parents”, at fifteen I still managed to sneak out to see the one person they hated. Black jeans and a red top – finished with a leather jacket was how I left the house when their eyes were averted. Otherwise it was pretty pinks and pastel blues. But he liked my leather jacket, and I liked his. We would drive to all sorts of hidden locations, speeding on every winding road that could be found, drinking whatever we could get our hands on – cider, vodka, sourz. Just for the thrill of it. Under the stars we would have the deepest conversations about life and death and what it would be like to fly. He would talk about his past and I would talk about my future. I wanted to graduate and start my own film, documenting all of the things I did as I travelled the world, meet some guy and be married before I was 30. No kids though. He didn't know what he wanted to do, but he knew what he didn't want to go back to. Home means many things for many people, but for him it meant pain, it meant hell, it was not where his heart was, he wanted to fly away, be the free eagle he knew he could be. We had already planned what we would do, the two bestest friends hitting the world with whatever we could find.

***

Constant rows with my parents about where I had been and where I was going and who I was going to be with and what I was doing was how I lived my seventeenth year. Refusing to let me see him was their way of telling me they thought he was a danger to society, one of those people who should be avoided at all times, but I didn't care. They couldn't stop me. By now they knew about the alcohol and the speeding and the leather jackets. I was to be my own person and no matter what they thought about it, how many sins they thought I was committing, I couldn't stop. I couldn't stay away from him because although I was completely unwilling to admit to any of it – I was completely in love with him. Dating other guys was a thing I had tried, the jock, the goth, the guitarist, the skater, but it wasn't right. None of it was. Not when I constantly had his voice, his face, his touch in the back of my mind. Trouble was what followed him, and I liked it, I liked the adrenaline rush that came with spending time with him. The terror that swallowed me when he announced he had stolen the bottle of rum we'd been downing in the park, or the bike he'd picked me up on. Something about it was exciting. Terrifying, but exciting, and I loved it. Every moment spent with him was a rush, the opposite to boring, exactly what I had been looking for in life. And we were never caught – he would make sure of that.

***

Heading back to the place the swing used to be, I noted the splinters, still left behind from when it was destroyed, smashed up. The little red swing that had meant so much to my past, gone. Constantly trying to protect me was what ended up pushing him away. He knew the stealing and the drugs and the alcohol would end up coming back and smacking us in the face, but I wouldn't listen, I loved defying the ones that once held power to us, fighting off our superiors. But he was right. I last saw him eight years ago. Just his face glancing at mine, filled with both sorrow and disappointment as I was pushed into the car that took me to my temporary home. Locked away from the world. I had been out a year now and hadn't had the courage to see if he was still around. Heartbroken was the last look he gave me when I left, and I couldn't face the guy that knew I was such a disappointment. We could never have been together, and maybe that was for the best, saves him getting in the same trouble as I did, saves my parents blaming him for how I turned out, saves him. Standing where the little red swing once was, I saw a shadow, dimly lit in the flickering streetlight. I saw the stranger in my old friend.