Eight Years Ago

“This is boring.” I complained, lying flat on my back in his front yard. Even the sky bored me, gray and overcast with the unfulfilled threat of rain. “There’s nothing to do.” 

“Yeah.” He sighed, chin pressed against his crossed arms as he laid beside me on his stomach.

“I wish we could go to the park.” I sighed, and he sighed again as well.

“Me too.”

“What are we supposed to do while they’re replacing it? We’re going to die of boredom all because someone broke the slide.” I groaned, throwing my arm across my forehead dramatically. A week ago the park by our houses was closed down- or rather, the playground was- because some older kids had been jumping around on the big slide and it broke. So they wrapped the whole thing with caution tape and deemed it a hazard that the city would soon replace. 

But since then we were forced to hang out solely at our houses, which was about the most boring thing ever somehow. Nothing was as fun as the park. Nothing.

“I think they’re replacing it because it’s been there since before my dad was born.” Sebastian commented, flicking a stray strand of grass in front of him.

That was also true. I’d seen names carved into the bottom of that slide with dates from forty years ago, or somewhere around there. Also swear words. A lot of swear words carved into the slides. Maybe it was better they were being replaced.

“That too.” I frowned. “Ugh, I wish we had a fun place to go and hang out where no adults will bother us.”

Sebastian didn’t reply though, and I glanced over at him to see him lost in thought, pursing his lips and staring out in the direction of the fence.

“What?” I rolled over onto my stomach to face him. He met my gaze for a moment before looking away, hesitating before he spoke. He looked kind of conflicted, as if not sure whether to tell me or dismiss it.

“…I think I might know a place.” 

We were quiet as he took me by the hand and led me down the long street between our houses. 

I knew our parents wouldn’t ask after us, as they didn’t really care where we went when we were together, so I didn’t have to worry.

Come to think of it, they didn’t really care where we went when we were apart either.

I mean, they cared about us, I…uh…I think. They probably just trusted us to be alone. Yeah, that’s what it was. We were just good, trustworthy kids. 

Either way I was burning up inside with curiosity, wondering what place in our little town he could know of that I hadn’t yet seen, what place he hadn’t yet shown me.

And then he turned to enter the forest beside our houses, and I stopped dead.

He tugged on my hand and paused to look back at me, confused.

“What’s wrong?” He tilted his head.

“I’ve never been in the forest before.” I whispered, heart suddenly pounding.

“Oh, it’s really cool.” He said, smiling innocently.

I was still unsure, meeting his gaze nervously. The trees looked menacingly tall, the shadows seemed to reach out in my direction as if they intended to grab me…

“Are you…sure?” I squeaked, and he nodded.

“Trust me, okay?”

With those three simple words my worries dissipated, and I let him lead me into the one place I’d never been before. 

I trusted him more than I feared this place.

And he was right! 

It was really cool.

The trees seemed endless when I stared up at them in that moment. The bark crunched beneath our shoes as we walked, and I could hear birds singing from nearly every direction.

And as we kept going, I began to hear the sound of water.

“What’s that?” I whispered to him.

“Just wait, you’ll see.” He whispered back, grinning.

And then finally a river came into view. 

“Woah, I didn’t even know this was here!” I gasped, eyes wide in awe.

“Yeah, it’s so cool!” He smiled, dropping my hand and rushing towards the water.

“Wait up!” I said as I dashed after him.

I skidded to a stop at the riverbank, very nearly stumbling straight into the water and getting my shoes all wet. 

And I finally got a good look at everything.

There was a huge tunnel with metal bars in front of it reaching into the hill, and water spilled out of it. The bars were rusted and some were even broken. The gap was large enough I thought even my dad would’ve been able to fit through.

The river spilled from the tunnel and through the forest, vanishing into the trees far ahead of us. The water wasn’t deep, and I could see the many rocks shining just beneath its surface.

As I gazed through the tunnel, I could see a bright light on the other side where the river likely started, separated only by this hill.

“How’d you find this place?” I asked, glancing over at Sebastian as he walked through the water, shoes thoroughly soaked.

“Dad told me to be careful by the forest, so I wanted to see what in here was so dangerous.” He said, kneeling to pick up a long stick. “Found this place instead.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. It was just like him to do that.

“What’s so funny?” He asked, turning to me with a light smile on his lips.

“Nothing, nothing. Don’t worry about it.” I shrugged, turning towards the tunnel again.

I wondered if I could climb to the top of it.

It was so big, so I’d have to be careful not to fall off when I got up there.

Slowly I climbed back up the hill and towards the concrete tunnel. I crept towards the edge cautiously before lowering myself down and letting my legs dangle off of it.

This was really nice actually.

“I like this place. I like it a lot.” I smiled, gazing around.

“I do too. This should be our spot from now on. At least until the playground is fixed.” Sebastian said, staring up at me from the water. He looked so short from up here, it was hard not to laugh.

“Yeah! It’s like our own little secret hideout. Just for us.”

“Yeah. Just for us.”

A few months later the playground was replaced with a better, newer, and probably safer model. It was nice to play on, sure, but there were always so many other people there that Sebastian and I tended to avoid it.

We didn’t need anyone else. 

We had everything we needed between the river, the forest, and the two of us.

At least, we did back then.

-

‘Now’

On Tuesday morning I woke up in so much pain I wondered if I had gotten hit by a car the previous night and somehow forgotten.

I could barely get myself up to pee it hurt so bad, but I pushed through. 

My heart pounded the moment I sat up and the room spun as I walked. The floor below me was solid but I feared that at any moment it would rush up to meet me. My head throbbed so I lifted my hand to press my cold fingers against my forehead, but even that only offered temporary relief. The pain cascading through my entire body felt like the worlds most evil blanket wrapped around me, sending shocks of pain and ache through the parts of me I tried to move and even some parts I didn’t. 

When I stumbled back to my bed and collapsed onto it, I sat up only slightly to have my usual breakfast: painkillers.

As I rolled over, I winced again as another wave of ache and that weird, hard-to-describe-but-takes-your-breath-away-pain crashed over me. This sucked, everything sucked, I hate this so much.

“RORY!” I called out, voice rough and grating from sleep, unable to even drag myself back under the blankets I ached so deeply.

The morning light hurt my head, so I closed my eyes and listened for the sound of my uncles approaching footsteps.

The door was flung open, and he rushed in. “What? What’s wrong?” He gasped out, looking around and then down at me where I was splayed out on my bed like a starfish with broken limbs and seven billion things wrong with it.

“I can’t go to school today.” I groaned. “My body wants me dead.” 

“Aw, buddy.” He said, and I could almost hear him frown sympathetically. “Do you need anything? Water? Painkillers? Gatorade? Uh….a snack? I can make you some waffles.”

I shook my head, keeping my eyes closed. “No, I’m alright. I just wanted to let you know. I already took painkillers and I have water. I’m going…I’m going to go back to sleep. Maybe when I wake up I’ll feel better.” I sighed. 

I hoped I’d feel better when I woke up, but I figured this might just be another one of those days.

One of the days where everything sucks forever simply because I pushed myself a little too hard yesterday. 

They weren’t particularly uncommon. My pain got a lot worse on many occasions. When I pushed myself too hard, when the weather was weird, when I didn’t drink enough water, when the wind blew in the wrong direction, or just when the universe itself decided to conspire against me. 

Some days I could push myself and I’d be fine the next day. Other days I did what I did every day and found myself struck down for my hubris, sometimes for several days after.

My uncle had suggested I use a cane while at school, or at least while walking there, to mitigate the effects of exertion on my dumb body but I refused. 

I couldn’t help but imagine the way everyone would look at me if they saw that. 

I knew I was….sick, but I didn’t need everyone else to know.

Then I wouldn’t be me anymore.

They’d see the cane, the illness, the pain first, and they’d see me second.

Another part of me was just angry I needed it. Once upon a time I walked for hours in the middle of the night to a bus station to travel across the country all alone and I was fine.

But now I couldn’t even walk to school, much less get out of bed without feeling like I was going to pass out.

Ridiculous. It infuriated me. 

It was like I was constantly at war with myself, fighting to be more than what I was because I remembered a time when I was more than this.

Times change, people change, sure.

Abilities change, and just because I could do something four years ago doesn’t mean I can do it now, sure.

I know that. 

But why?

I didn’t hear my uncle leave. I was too busy holding on for dear life as the storm inside my mind raged on.

It didn’t matter if it died down, because the chaos in my mind was just loud enough to tear me away from the pain in my body.

Eventually I fell back asleep, and when I woke up hours later, the pain wasn’t nearly as intense as it had been when I woke up. Clearly my painkillers were doing their job for once.

But it was still there, just…at a significantly more tolerable amount. 

I slowly walked over to the bathroom, legs aching, heart pounding and room spinning yet again.

And….fuck, I wanted to cry.

I wanted to be free of this.

It hurt so badly, and yet I knew I had felt so much worse. 

My own body was a prison, and it was a life sentence.

Is there any chance of parole? I’m innocent, I swear! I didn’t even do anything! 

When I collapsed back on my bed I could still feel my heart pounding. It felt like it was trying to escape my chest. Not that I’d blame it for wanting to leave…

My legs ached, my head throbbed, and…I’m not even sure how to describe the everything else. The malaise…

It didn’t matter how it felt though. It didn’t matter how much or how little it hurt.

I just needed it gone.

-

Dealing with your internal issues is hard.

It just gets so complicated!

Because tell me why I could feel like if I never got better and had to be cared for by my Uncle for the rest of my life I’d be a burden, but if it were anyone else I wouldn’t think that way.

I didn’t want to use a cane in public- or any mobility aid for that matter- because the idea of it made me feel gross. But whenever anyone else used them it was fine and even made me feel a little less apprehensive about using one myself.

I hated myself for what has happened, but it wasn’t my fault. 

I hated myself for being the way I am, because what else could I do?

It was nobody’s fault. Sometimes bad things happen to people who don’t deserve them. Sometimes bad things just happen.

But that’s not right. I couldn’t accept that.

I couldn’t accept that my entire life could be changed forever simply because of a cruel twist of fate.

What else could I do but blame myself?

Admit that things just happen, and there was nothing I could do about it?

No. At least blaming myself made me feel like I had some sort of say in any of this. 

Being sick like I am…it’s really hard to deal with.

I was barely 15 when it started. My life was just beginning and suddenly it wasn’t beginning, it was ending. What a great birthday present, right? Happy Birthday, it’s the end of your world! Or it at least felt that way.

My entire life was over before it had even begun, yet here I am, still alive to see the aftermath.

And still, over two years later and nobody even knew what was wrong with me.

I wondered sometimes if there was an answer to be found.

I wondered other times if maybe I was dying, and whatever it was would be caught too late.

Other times I wondered if maybe living was the worse option…

My Uncle tried to keep me hopeful. He sometimes talked about what I’d do when I was better, and he acted like it was a genuine possibility rather than the unlikely eventuality it actually was. When he wasn’t talking about what I’d do in that slim possible future, he talked about work arounds and ways we could maybe try to accommodate me, sickness and all.

So when I had no hope for my future, I just borrowed a bit of his so I could keep going.

But god it hurts. Not just the pain, but the everything.

To have people talk about what you’d do ‘when you’re better’ knowing that you’d probably never get better.

What kind of life could I have the way I am?

Did I even want one?

I couldn’t see myself having a future really.

Maybe I just needed to stay hopeful.

Maybe there was a light at the end of this tunnel, I just needed to open my eyes wider to see it.

Or maybe…maybe I should just go back to sleep, and when I wake up I’ll decide where to go from there.

Yeah. That sounds okay.

-