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  12 Years Ago

  I ran down the street, Ned trailing close behind him as we raced towards my house. I’d waited all week for this, for Mom to have an afternoon off so that I could have a friend over after school. And it was finally the day! And I wasn’t gonna lose this race, either- Ned was keeping pace, but I ramped it up, my legs pushing harder and harder against the sidewalk and propelling me towards the end of the block. Finally, I passed my mailbox and skidded to a halt. “I win!” I said, pumping my fists into the air.

  “No fair!” Ned said, closing the gap and stopping right in front of me.

  “How’s it not fair?” I asked, crinkling my brow. “We started at the same time and pce-”

  “My mom says that when someone is a guest, you’re supposed to let them have whatever they want. And I’m your guest, and I wanted to win!”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” I said. “I won, fair and square. That’s stupid.”

  “Did you just call me stupid?”

  “No, I didn’t!”

  “Yeah, you did!” Ned screamed, his face turning red.

  “Well now you’re being stupid,” I said.

  He grinded his teeth together, eyes bulging wide and screaming. He threw the first punch. It connected with my nose, a bright burst of pain shocking through my face as I heard something crunch. I cried out, but managed to duck before he hooked a second blow. I kicked him in the stomach and toppled him over, my shoulders going up and down while I heaved deep breaths. Fear and pain surged through every fiber of me, barely able to process what was happening.

  Ned was my friend, but he’d gone apeshit on me over nothing.

  And then he got back up and tackled me, reigning blows down until I managed to knee him in the balls and shove him away. I made a mad dash for my house and opened the door and smmed it shut.

  I found Mom waiting on the other side, standing in front of the window with a gss of wine that she swirled about inside a cylindrical gss. “Hello, son.”

  “Mom!” I said. “Did you see all that?”

  “I did, yeah.”

  “But why didn’t you stop it, then?”

  “Because you needed to handle it yourself,” Mom shrugged before taking a sip of wine. “What kind of mother would I be if I didn’t let you fight your own battles? Take your own hits?”

  “But it hurt! And he… He was supposed to be my friend, but he attacked me just because I wouldn’t let him win.”

  “It was good that he did that. Now you know he’s not really your friend. Now you know he’s the wrong type of person.”

  “What do you mean the wrong type of person?”

  “Someone who you don’t want to associate with. Someone who will drag you down.”

  “That… That seems kinda wrong, though,” I said.

  Mom ran her hand through my hair, then patted me on the back as she nudged me deeper into our house. “You’ll learn eventually. For now, just be gd you’ve started.”

  “... Okay,” I said.

  “Do you have any homework?” Mom said.

  “Just reading for a half hour,” I said.

  “Why don’t you go do that? Mommy has to make dinner. I’ll call you when it’s ready,” she said, gesturing me towards my room.

  “Okay,” I said once more, passing the threshold into my bedroom.

  She closed the door behind me, leaving me alone inside. I dropped my backpack on the floor, then flopped on my bed and grabbed an unread comic off my shelf. I opened to the first page, greeted by the sight of a super-speedster punching a giant, psychic goril through a wall while prociming that he would save everyone, no matter what.

  I stared at it for a while, wondering what my mom would say to that.

  By the time I was halfway through the issue, I had my answer: Mom came in and snatched the comic out of my hands. “Read a real book,” she said, “You’re getting too old for these, anyway.”

  6 Years Ago

  I ran and ran and ran over the track, pulling in breaths at a steady clip as my legs began to carry me from the back of the pack towards the middle. A dozen other boys still pulled ahead of me, but I reached deep within me for a surge of speed and strength. I found it, ignited it in my heart and my lungs and dashed forward as we began the final p of the mile race. My school’s track club let in everyone who wanted to join, but if I wanted to compete with other schools in meets, then I needed to pce in the top ten today.

  I cleared another guy in front of me, my legs growing sore as I pushed against the red, grainy rubber beneath my sneakers on the warm spring day. The sun shone above me, unobstructed by clouds, while the air was dry and clean behind the long brick building that was my middle school.

  The number ten guy, Ned (because of course it was fucking Ned), loomed ahead of me, and I poured on the gas and went for it as the final hundred meters of the race came upon us. He picked up speed, but I’d paced myself better than him and had more left in the tank as I closed the gap and then inched ahead just as the finish line was crossed.

  Ned gred at me with unobstructed hatred as I colpsed onto the track, ying on my back and ughing with joy. He loomed over me, looking ready to throw a punch or a kick, but the presence of Coach Atler dissuaded him at the st second.

  “Good work today boys,” the lean, wispy middle-aged man in the track suit said as I pulled myself back onto my aching legs. “Be sure to get your parents to sign your permission slips. The meet is next Friday after school, so be ready.”

  “Yes sir!” all ten of us said in time.

  Everyone started making their ways off the track after that, heading away with friends or towards their parents in the stands. I scanned the bleachers for any sign of Mom or Dad- they’d both offered completely noncommittal ‘maybes’ when I’d asked them if they could make it to my try-out. Nothing. I wasn’t surprised, but…

  But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t sting a little.

  Guess I’d just hoped I’d be used to it by this point.

  I grabbed my backpack and started walking away from the track, down the sidewalk towards my house. It was only a mile, and Mom and Dad had always trusted me to make it home on my own. I made it half a block before I realized I was being followed.

  I looked behind me and saw Ned giving chase, death in his eyes. “Crap!” I shouted as I broke into a sprint, my backpack bouncing about as I pushed against the hard cement. The residential neighborhood my school was in gave way to a commercial area, all shops and restaurants. Not many people were out in mid-afternoon, and when they saw me, saw us, they probably just saw two kids having a friendly race.

  I searched for an open store, something other than a restaurant or a bar where I could hide more easily, or find an adult who might actually do something about this shit. It would be a first, but still, it’d be something.

  I found something to my liking, at long st, something that wouldn’t throw me out for being an unaccompanied minor.

  The interior of Kendrick’s Comics was well air-conditioned and sparsely patronized. It was a single, wide, long room on the ground floor of a two-story building. A middle-aged man, built like a bear, with short bck hair sparkling with silver and friendly hazel eyes, stood behind the counter. “Hello there, young man,” he said. “How are you today?”

  “I, uh… Hi,” I said awkwardly. I looked behind me and saw Ned outside, gring at me.

  The big man looked past me, at Ned, then back at me. “Is that boy chasing you?”

  I nodded.

  “I see,” he said. “Why don’t you pick out something to read and go hang in the back with my nephew. He’s about your age, maybe you’ll get along.”

  “I… I don’t have any money.”

  “Have you been here before?”

  I shook my head ‘no.’

  “Do you like comics?”

  “I love comics, sir,” I said, mustering up a smile. “I just don’t read them as much anymore.”

  “Whyever not, d?”

  “Mom says I’m too old.”

  “Nonsense, you’re never too old for comics,” the man said with a dismissive wave of his hand and a friendly chuckle. “Also, you’re what? Twelve?”

  I nodded.

  “I see,” he repeated. “First time here, loves the art form… Yeah, first one is on the house. Whatever you want. Go take it in the back while I have a word with the young man who’s been giving you trouble. Sound good?”

  “Yes, sir!” I said.

  “Don’t call me sir, I’m begging you,” he ughed from deep in his chest “My name’s Paul.”

  “Okay, Mr. Paul. I’m Eli.” “Heh. Nice to meet you, Eli.”

  And with that, Paul stepped out from behind the counter and walked through his front door. I heard him say “young man, if you’re not here to patronize my shop, I’ll have to call the police and report you for loitering.”

  I grabbed a GL off the shelf and went into the back room Paul had pointed me towards, and found a boy about my age, maybe a year older, sitting at a white pstic table nestled between the door and a refrigerator. He was big and pasty like his uncle, with shaggy bck hair and a nervous expression on his face. He was reading an old collection of horror comics, the ones from the fifties with bck and white art of endless gore and monsters and nightmare fuel.

  I sat at the table across from him and said, “Hi, I’m Eli.”

  He didn’t look up from his comic.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  He turned a page.

  After a second, I exhaled. “Yeah, that’s about par for the course,” I said, opening my comic and starting on the first page: an emerald knight ramming a glowing green chainsaw through a gigantic yellow space cockroach. Ohhhh, how I’d missed this. It was like coming home to an old friend.

  Mom and Dad did give me a monthly allowance of about thirty bucks so long as I did all my chores. And this pce was on my way home from school. Maybe I could pop in once or twice a month, grab a comic or two to get me through things. Track was helping fill my time, but I still wasn’t exactly Mr. Popur and I probably never would be. But here, I could at least… I could at least be me.

  The other boy didn’t say anything to me the whole time I was there. Didn’t even tell me his name. But he also didn’t offer any objections to my presence, and in that moment, it was more than enough.

  Eventually, I finished my book and went to put it back on the shelf. “Keep it,” Paul said.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I think it’s in good hands with you,” Paul smiled. “You heading out?”

  “I should get home, yeah,” I said.

  “Well, come back soon,” Paul said warmly.

  “I will,” I said, putting the comic in my backpack and looking back one st time at Paul’s nephew in the breakroom. “Is he okay?”

  “Hm?”

  “Your nephew. He seemed… Well, he seemed kinda sad.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about him, he’s just like that,” Paul ughed. “Good kid, though. I hope you two will get along.”

  I smiled and waved good-bye as I left, finally completing the walk back home.

  I kept the comic hidden in my bag, not mentioning to Mom or Dad over dinner about the stop I’d had to make on the way home. They’d be disappointed to hear that I hadn’t done anything about Ned, that he was still giving me trouble. They’d say what they always said, that I wasn’t assertive enough, that I was too avoidant. It had been a long day, and I wasn’t in the mood to get a lecture from them.

  I thought about the boy, about Paul’s nephew, as I went to bed that night. Maybe he wasn’t sad. Maybe he was just lonely. If he was… Well, we already had that much in common.

  1 Year Ago

  “You’re way too old to be reading those, you know,” Sarah said as she looked over at me. Her boyfriend Ethan sat next to her on my living room couch while our respective parents drunkenly ughed together at the dining table one room over. The rest of my mom’s side was absent that night for Mom’s birthday, a fact that she would no-doubt be reminding them off at Christmas that year.

  “What can I say, I like to keep in touch with my inner child in the waning days of my youth,” I rolled my eyes, barely looking up from the illustration of a star-spangled Amazon engaged in aerial combat with an evil bat-clown from an parallel universe, wielding an invisible chainsaw meant for smiting evil while he chucked dead universes at her.

  Ethan snort-ughed.

  Sarah’s head snapped around to look at Ethan.

  “What?” he said sheepishly.

  “Don’t ugh at me,” Sarah said with mock-indignation.

  He gave an exaggerated sigh. “Ugh, yes ma’am.”

  “And don’t give me that attitude, either,” she giggled.

  “Fine, you cruel task-mistress,” he said while putting his arm around her. “Just maybe y off the guy a little. He’s just sitting there enjoying a comic. Nothing wrong with that.”

  “He’ll get his nerd on me, though!”

  I exhaled through my nose, loudly.

  “What are you gonna do about it?” Sarah said. “What will you do to defend my honor?” “This,” Ethan said, initiating an uncomfortably aggressive makeout session.

  “Yeah,” I said, closing my comic and leaving the room.

  “See?” Ethan said, “There are much easier and much more fun ways to get some privacy than being a bully.”

  “Oh shut up and kiss me,” Sarah said.

  I walked by the dining room, Mom and Dad and Aunt Nancy and Uncle Frank ughing in slurred tones as I tried to quietly make for the front exit.

  “Where are you going, Eli?” Dad called out.

  “I was just gonna go for walk, get some air,” I said, mustering my friendliest smile. I learned it from watching Paul at the shop, always grinning widely and ughing at whatever jokes his customers made and generally seeming friendly and open all the time.

  “You’re supposed to be keeping Ethan and Sarah company,” Dad chastised me.

  “Yeah, I’m, uh, pretty sure they’ve got more than enough to keep each other occupied,” I said, ughing slightly at my own terrible joke.

  Aunt Nancy’s eyes narrowed. “Oh for God’s sake,” she said as she got up from the table.

  “This is what you get, letting your daughter cavort with a boy like that,” Mom said, taking another sip of wine.

  “Don’t you start with me tonight!” Aunt Nancy gred back at her sister.

  “It’s my house on my birthday, I can do as I please,” Mom rolled her eyes while polishing off her wine… And then immediately refilling it.

  I slipped out the door and entered the cool August night as chaos erupted inside my house. It was always like this when the extended family came over, and yet Mom and Dad or both of them still insisted on having them in our lives all the time. It made sense: staying in the family’s good graces made it easier to get them to babysit me growing up, and they seemed like Mom and Dad’s main circle of friends when they weren’t working. Just wished it was Tio Miguel and Tia Bianca a bit more often than any of the others.

  I sighed as I walked down the block and past another row of identical Spanish-style houses. The sky was clear but I couldn’t make out any stars. A crescent moon, waning, hung in the bckness, a meager defense against the onsught of light pollution offered up by the City of Angels. I walked and walked until eventually I broke into a run, not sure where I was going or how long I would go. It just felt good. Freeing. Moving without direction was scary, but at least I was moving instead of just sitting around and stewing in it.

  I ran and ran and ran, as far as my legs could carry me, until a sharp pain in my stomach reminded me I’d eaten less than an hour ago. By some coincidence, I’d wound up at Kendrick’s. Unfortunately for me, the store was already closed, locked up and dark for the evening.

  Dammit. I’d been hoping to talk to Paul. I was starting my senior year of high school in two weeks and… Fuck, I just wanted someone to talk to.

  “Nice pce, isn’t it?” a man said from behind me.

  “AAH!” I yelped, jumping a half-foot into the air as I spun around and faced the suit-cd middle-aged man who’d snuck up on me. He was skinny, with white hair and whiter skin and blue eyes, and his suit and wristwatch combined probably cost more than my parents’ car.

  “Sorry about that, kid,” the man said, ughing.

  “Uh, if you’re here to rob me, you should probably know I’m broke,” I said, walking around him, trying to avoid being backed into a wall.

  “Hah! I’m not a criminal, kid. You know many criminals who dress this nice?”

  I gave him a ft look.

  “Okay, fair enough,” he ughed once again. “I walked into that one.”

  “So you’re not gonna rob me?” I said, awkwardly putting up my fists.

  “Jesus, no, I’m not gonna rob you,” he said. “Young people today are so jaded, I swear. Are you even eighteen yet?”

  “Not until January.”

  “I see, I see. Well, maybe you’ll vote for me next year then-”

  “You’re a politician?” I said, groaning.

  “I am, but that’s not why I’m here.”

  “Then why are you here? Because I wound up here by accident, even if I come here a lot.”

  “I come here a lot too,” he said. “This is a very special pce.”

  “I agree.”

  “Let me guess: the owner, Paul, he always makes you feel welcome, like you’re his favorite customer? Asks you how you’ve been, cares about what you’re feeling?”

  “Yeah. You know him?”

  “I used to,” the politician said. “And I will know him again one day. Once I work up the courage to face him.”

  I stood in the mplight, trying to size up this bizarre, dapper fellow. “What’s stopping you?”

  “Guilt and shame.”

  “You really hurt him, huh?”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “How bad?”

  “The kind of bad you have to spend a lot of time in Church to atone for.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “What about you, young man? You said you came here by accident? How’s that work?”

  “Needed to get away from my family,” I said. “I love them, but they’re just so damn MUCH sometimes.”

  “Yeah, I can certainly rete to that,” the politician said. “Can I offer some advice?”

  I squinted at him. “I mean, we just met, and no offense but you seem kinda shady-”

  “Keep them close,” he said.

  “Okay, I guess we’re doing this-”

  “Even when they drive you bonkers, even when they don’t understand you and the things you love and the things you do and why you do them and why you love them, keep them close. Even when you don’t agree with them, keep them close. Because if you push them away… It’s real difficult to close the gap again.”

  My hands jammed in my pockets, I looked the politician dead in the eyes. He smiled a smile that looked rehearsed, but his eyes were surprisingly kind and genuine. “Thank you,” I said, meaning it.

  “No problem,” the politician said, turning around and waving me good-bye. “Good talking to you, kid. Keep an eye out for me- I’m going for the mayor’s office next year.”

  I suppressed a groan and called after him, “Best of luck!”

  When he was out of sight, I finally turned back towards my house and started making my way home. I ran, and ran, and ran, out of breath by the time I made it back. I got myself inside to find Aunt Nancy and her family had already left, while Mom was asleep on the living room couch.

  Dad stood in the kitchen doing the dishes. “Hey there.”

  “Hi.”

  “You wanna help me with these?”

  I nodded, grabbing a dish towel and drying ptes and silverware after he’d scrubbed them. “I’m sorry for running off,” I said.

  He shrugged. “I don’t really bme you for that. Not crazy about you stirring up trouble like that, though. Don’t do that again. Especially not on an important occasion like today.”

  I opened my mouth, but the words of the politician echoed inside my mind. Dad’s words stung like a hornet, and I felt some of that guilt and shame the politician had mentioned. “Sorry.”

  “I forgive you. This time.”

  I gulped, and we did the dishes in silence. I repyed the conversation the politician and I had had over and over again while we worked, and by the end of the night, I’d convinced myself that maybe he had a point. If I lost my family, I’d have nothing. Because c’mon, it’s not like I had anything else.

  NOW

  Samantha stared at me, sck-jawed and wide-eyed, as we finished taking the nightly inventory. “What?” I asked.

  “I thought you said you were gonna tell me some cute stories about your childhood,” my girlfriend replied.

  “I did. Those were cute stories. I learned important things from all those incidents.”

  “But does that make them cute? A lot of those were kinda depressing.”

  “I dunno, that middle one was pretty cute.”

  “Eli, that story was about you getting chased away from school by a psychotic bully with a grudge spanning a quarter of his childhood.”

  “Yeah, but it’s also the story of how you and I met,” I smiled.

  In spite of herself, she cracked a smile, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Hm. Okay. Fair enough. Those other two, though… Those made me sad. They don’t make you sad?”

  “No,” I said simply.

  “Why not?” she said, putting down her clipboard.

  I put my cardboard box full of extra comics down on the ground, and I walked over and cupped her face between my hands. “Because I’ve got something, now. I’ve got something- someone- fucking amazing. Because it worked out.”

  Her pale face reddened as the smile overtook it, and I held her, and I kissed her, and I knew then I’d never let her go. And as she held me close and kissed me back with all her heart and soul, I knew she’d never let me go either. I knew that all those times I hadn’t been sure where I was running or what I was doing it all for, they made sense now. I’d been running towards her, running for her. Every step on the path, every hurt and every bad day, had led me here, to this moment. To Samantha Kendrick. The most beautiful woman in the world.

  The woman I loved.