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In this world, there are such things that we learn and never unlearn. Like knowing how to ride a bike after years of never touching the one your grandfather bought you as a kid. Or how you can still swim after being away from the sea for so long. Or the way I can still climb out of my bedroom window with my eyes closed. The way I can still picture him standing there, waiting in our driveway with messy red hair and a smirk. It is all too much to unlearn.
But tonight, the small ping! of a stone against my window is almost too real.
I feel my blood both freeze and quicken. It is one thing to remember a memory and another to relive it. I don’t exactly think the human mind could be so advanced to mimic sound and deceive its own senses, so I count to ten in my head and take a peek outside.
It is midnight. The streetlights cast a light yellow glow over everything it touches. It makes the houses look faded and old, as though I’m looking at it through a film strip; Dark and sepia toned. This town was great once. These streets used to be littered with laughter and the hope of our childhood dreams. Now, they are just houses. Just cement, wood and paint. Mundane. All of us have grown into our own two feet and life has taken whatever it is that life always takes when you age.
The empty road shines back at me in the present. I slump onto the windowsill, just a little bit disappointed, then I remember this old tale us kids used to draw on the pavement with sidewalk chalk. The only audience being the dust on our fingers and the sun on our skin.
It was a story of a boy who never aged and brought all the wonder to wherever he went. They used to say that if you were lucky, he would come to your house late at night, knocking on your window. That he would hold out his hand for you and then sweep you off your feet with nothing more than a promise for an adventure. As kids, we were all intrigued by the prospect of magic taking the form of a boy and we would always wish for him to visit. But of course, tales are just tales.
Soon enough, we were all too busy to be so caught up with silly things like make-believe. Soon, some people had to move and some had to get part-time jobs and some passed me by the hallway with barely anything more than a nod. No one tells you that your childhood dissolves like words written on sand, that the waves are quick and that it’ll leave no traces of anything. As though none of it ever existed at all.
So why am I still here?
There’s only one answer to that. I turn away from the glass.
He arrived into my life at the same time the wonder was close to running out. One would say that it was perfect.
It was July. He moved into the house next to mine. It used to have green shutters, the kind that wasn’t bright but more like a dark olive. He said they bought it because it was his favorite color. That, I remember clearly.
But I don’t exactly know when all of it started. All I’m sure of is one moment I was rolling my eyes from him across the room while my mother said “This is our new neighbor.” and the next my hand was clasped inside his, our feet coming down hard on the pavement and the cool night air blowing past my hair. I never recalled saying yes, but I never recalled saying no either.
In an instant, I would find that he was a force to be reckoned with, an impulse that demanded excitement. And I was someone who had never known what thrill meant before I met him.
We would spend every summer evening on the run, eagerness on two pairs of feet. Making a spectacle of one place to the next: the playground, the town’s center plaza, the burned down house at the end of the street, the abandoned chapel from across the lake.
“Why are we always running?” I asked him once, breathless but brimming with excitement.
“So that nothing can catch up to us,” he said too easily, brushing it off like you’re normally supposed to sound so philosophical at such a young age. “So we’re invincible.”
I remember looking up at him with a sort of regard. Thinking that maybe it took a special person to make miracles real.
When we each got our driver’s license, our travels improved drastically. Covering more ground. Experiencing more sights. The mural of a revolution splayed across a massive wall. The zoo of rescued animals. The museum of art in the city. I could remember that one all too clearly. The sight of him and his doe eyes against the backdrop of art from a different time.
“Stay there.”
The words were out of my mouth before I could think clearly, mind foggy with awe. An indescribable amazement. Of the canvas. Of him.
He raised his brows, amused. As though he was surprised by my urgency, as though it was something comical to him. But to my surprise, he did listen. This would be the first time. And the last.
The camera in my hands suddenly felt as heavy as the ivory sculptures that surround us. Nevertheless, I raised it to my eyes.
There was a millisecond there; between me looking into his eyes through the shutter glass and me taking his picture. There was a millisecond there, but I could swear to you it was longer. I could swear to you that I was standing there for years. Simply watching him with my heart in my throat.
Maybe it was true that you fall in love for an instant and spend a whole century trying to be rid of it. Maybe this moment was the beginning.
But he was the kind of person to leave you no room for thinking. He did not, and will not wait. The instant I let go of the camera, he was already seizing my hand. There was no second-guessing with him. He was so sure, so decidedly impulsive. Some days I wonder if the world was just made for him.
To silence my raging thoughts, I take another chance to look outside.
Nothing. I take a breath and consider the prospect of my growing insanity, considering if I should go back to bed.
Then a boy the shape of adoration comes through the clearing, his hands carrying more rocks.
For the amount of talk I put in to describe him, and what I see him as, you would expect there to be at least some fireworks, or an explosion, when our eyes finally meet again. But there’s nothing like that. He sees me and I see him. Something in the world, unseen and silent as the wind, clicks.
I open my window with a start. The grooves of the roof are as familiar as the black hoodie he’s wearing and the half grin plastered on his face.
I jump off the last step with as much nimbleness my fuzzy slippers can allow. “Why are you-
“-here? That’s simple.” He cuts me off, throwing the pebbles over his shoulder. “I’m here to see you.”
I scoff at his remark and cross my arms. “Where have you been?”
“I was just looking for more rocks.” he shrugs, lips pulled into a pout.
That’s clearly not what I mean but I let him have it. I don’t tell him I’ve been waiting for weeks. Or at all. It’s been almost a year now since I saw him last graduation night.
Instead, I let him bury me in his arms. All of it is so familiar. The way my head fits gingerly against his neck, the slight scent of tobacco, the ends of his hair that tickle my cheeks. How can I let go of any of this? Any of him?
He pulls away and like a bee to a rose, I instinctively trail after him. It comes off as a groggy response of my sleep-ridden body, at least I hope it does, and he pats my head fondly. My arms stay linked around his neck, on his shoulders, and I resist the urge of closing the space between us once again. Now even more so, as the night air is settling through my thin pajamas.
Everything about him is so– comforting, so inviting.
He is summer in the worst way— all the thrill of free escape and the blistering warmth.
He grins down at me, perhaps liking all the attention I’m offering. “Missed me huh?”
“Of course, you dummy.” I let go immediately, feeling suddenly lightheaded when I do.
He gives me a look as though he’s surprised that I didn’t refuse him, but it’s gone before I could even mention it. In its place, is a smirk.
“How’s university?” he asks, almost sheepishly, after a while of us standing in silence. He trains his eyes towards his black boots like it’s the most interesting thing on this planet. It strikes me that he’s asking me about it because he’s genuinely curious. Because he doesn’t actually know what it’s like. I never did see him to be the type for higher academia, but there’s still an ache in my chest from how I’m just finding out about it right now.
From knowing what he dreamed of, to whatever you could call this is, it’s funny how so much could be lost in a year.
“Good,” I reply, unsure if I should go off on a tangent, if he would want it. “As busy as we’d thought.”
He smiles a bit at that, shifting his weight from the right leg to the left. He’s fidgeting. The way he does when he’s been standing still for too long.
“God, you really are doing it huh?” he turns to me, and our eyes meet. He looks away mere seconds after. I try not to think too deeply about it at the given moment. “Soon enough, you’ll be taking over the world.”
The pride in his voice is real, I’ll give him that. It makes my heart fill with whatever it fills with when you’re complete and utterly flattered. For some reason, it’s as though all the nice words only matter when it comes from his mouth. As though whatever makes them good is good because he’s the one who says it.
He’s balancing on the sides of the curb, his arms both spread away from him, making him look like a bird. Like a boy. And he is. He’s the same boy I’ve known for the last ten years.
The connection burns a match inside my head.
“Did I ever tell you about the story of the boy who never aged?” I ask him, the giddiness of the realization slipping into my tone. “You remind me of him.”
The last of what I said seems to make him stop whatever it is he was doing. Though he doesn’t verbally pay mind to any of my words, like he suddenly doesn’t even hear me, instead he jumps onto the pavement and turns to walk across the road. I’m hardly surprised. This, I think, is a more natural sight of him.
I am quick to follow.
We wind up at the old playground. I sit on one of the swings and he sits right next to me. We sway slowly in an unsynchronized succession, but it works.
I think it’s an unspoken rule how when you see someone you haven’t seen in a long time, all you can do is talk about your old memories together. We’ve never been apart for this long, so maybe that’s why the earliest ones are the closest to mind.
“Remember when you refused to throw back my ball that went to your yard?”
I think for a moment. “Was it the red one?”
“Yes, the red basketball! I was asking you to return it but you just stared at me,” he recalls it so animatedly that I can’t help but laugh. “You and your little pigtails.”
“Yuck,” I say. “For the record, I was a shy kid.”
He’s quick to hop on that thought. “Shy is an understatement! You used to ask me to buy the ice cream for you because you said the seller scared you.”
“Okay, enough,” I feel my cheeks grow warm at the memory. “Remember when you held my hand here?”
“When have I not been holding your hand should be the question asked,” he jokes, chuckling.
“No, I meant the first time! When it started to rain and I was too scared to get out of the playhouse because of the thunder,” I recall it all with a small smile on my lips. “We didn’t even know each other’s names but you took my hand and held it all the way home.”
“My mother thought you were adorable, I remember she was ready to adopt you at first glance if she could have,” I continue, the memories rushing out eagerly. “Remember? And you stayed until like 11 pm because your mom still wasn’t home, so I got to skip bedtime. It was the best day ever.”
I turn to him, expectant. Of what, I’m not sure. But the only thing he’s doing is looking at the ground, wordless. There’s a shine in his eyes that is new to me.
“Why do I remind you of Peter Pan? That’s his name right?” he asks out of nowhere. There’s something bordering his tone, that makes me wary of it. “Is it because he’s lonely?”
“Wh-what? What do you mean?” I stammer, taken aback. “I meant you were as exciting as he was, as- I don’t know- brave as he was. Maybe even impulsive. Not lonely.”
He scoffs now. “A boy who never grows old? Do you think that would be fun?”
“Okay, cut the attitude, I was just saying you were like him. What is this about?” I stand from the swing.
He follows suit, moving closer to me.
“Don’t you think being stuck in a never-ending adventure would be terrifying? Hell, downright insane.” His voice doesn’t try to hide the severity he means. I take a step back from him. “The lost boys don’t want to be fucking lost forever.”
“Calm down,” I say in the most composed way I can manage with him screaming at my face. “What would you know about being lost?” The him I knew always knew where to go, always had a place in his head that he was sure would welcome him.
“Well, that’s the me you knew,” he stares at me, eyes narrowed. And only then do I realize that I said those last words out loud. “He’s long gone. I guess the magic ran out.”
“What changed?” I ask wildly, dumbfounded.
“Everything!” he bellows, as though all the anger is only just then surfacing. “When will you get out of your fucking bubble to realize that nothing is the same way it was and it never will be?”
This is different from any of the fights the two of us had. Back then, I had always matched his ferocity with my own and vice versa. We were like two flames that ate at one another until we reached the same burning point. Now I wait for his anger to ignite my own, the way it used to, but it doesn’t.
“Where have you really been?”
He’s shocked to stillness. The fury that was on his tongue vanishes at the sound of my soft tone.
“You know– around,” he tries to play it off, as something unimportant. Like he just wants to get up from this conversation and disappear.
For a second, panic seizes my chest. I don’t know where he would go when he does that exact thing. How would I follow? Then, it hits me. “Where do you go?”
“Where do I go?” he echoes like he doesn’t know the answer himself.
Suddenly all at once, the pieces fit together. His disappearance for a year, his refusal about going to university, his family who has since then cut ties with me.
It’s crazy. How you get so used to putting someone atop a pedestal, that you forget that they’re up there alone.
“They kicked you out.” I say, almost like it’s a plea. As though I’m begging him to say differently.
His silence that follows is deafening. I blink hard, unable to keep the indignation from bubbling up inside me. It’s an outrage for him, for me. How could I not have thought— how could he not have asked me?
Here I was, thinking he was on some grand adventure when in reality he was– nowhere.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“And what? Make a burden of myself?” he laughs sarcastically, like it disgusts him. “No, thank you.”
“You would never be a burden,” I shoot back incredulously. “Not when–
“But I would! And you know how embarrassing that would be?” he exhales harshly. “I’d rather die starving before I become a charity case.”
Something about the way he said those words, struck me so hard it was as though I had been slapped across the face.
“The lack of food wouldn’t kill you as much as your rotten pride would.” I am careful to say it as calmly as I can.
This seems to sober him up. “That’s not fair,” He blinks. I’ve hit a nerve.
I feel the moment die down like the rise and fall of an inferno to mere embers. I turn away from him to sit at the edge of the sandbox. He joins me after a beat.
We sit there in silence, with nothing but the sound of cicadas and the rustle of trees filling the empty space.
I find my voice after a while.
“You should have ran to me for help. Isn’t this what we’re for?”
“I couldn’t ask you to do that,” he shakes his head.
“What? Take care of you?”
He barely nods. “As you said, it’s rotten work. All of it is.”
“No– Not if it’s you.”
I think of the boy who bravely told me the reason why their shutters were green, the boy who held my hand through the storm, the boy who showed me how wonderful this world could be. I think of the boy sitting in front of me right now, and I offer him my upturned palm.
“Stop running.” I tell him.
He stares at it for what seems to be eons.
Then when I least expect it, I feel his fingers intertwine against mine.