Creative Nonfiction: High School Boy

A piece in which I try to advise my younger self.

High school boy: you always run around and say no one ever really understands you. You run around and say no one’s ever really been through what you’ve been through. You run around and want to be some champion of pity.

You selfish high school boy–too scared to do anything about the girl suffering next door. All you do is run around and try to pretend that she’s not hurting, that she’s not begging for a safer place to sleep. You might as well pray that someday you’ll forget her and, indeed, one day you will.

Then you’ll be a college boy and run around with a girl who’s just like you. You’ll run around and drink and cry and scream and laugh and walk and kiss and fight and ignore and write and confess and drive and hug together. She’ll tell you of things she’s never told anyone and you’ll carry those secrets like a sort of unpronounceable cancer yet you know that as long as she hands those burdens to you, she’ll wake up the next morning and be a little better tomorrow.

You’ll know that her boyfriends are never good to her, or good for her, but all you can do is just stand and watch and wait for the next time she wants to go to have lunch with you.

And you’ll know then–once she calls you lover boy–that you’ll never forget her.