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          He had lived the life we had lived. He was tormented everyday, isolated every afternoon and cried to sleep many a night. So I held his head in my lap and mourned with him, the losses of an innocent childhood. Had he grown up with us, my group that is, things could have been better. Perhaps. But even though he had lived our life and could just as well been one of us, we two, were not alike. I love him dearly and I know he loves me in return, but there will always be division in our understanding, because he was not him.
          No, the boy-man I love was not the one who had started my heart beating. The him who I idolized. The him who I secretly kept on a pedestal, even after he had fallen from grace. The him who saved me from lonely desperation on the hot blacktop. I was visible to him, for the first time I was something of value. Him, the one who had unknowingly taught me courage, dignity and confidence and then lost his own. God I missed him. If my eyes cried for my love, my heart bled for him.
          When he was getting weak-kneed, he started coming to me. Always in the evening. Always under a deep blanket of stars, to absorb the fear, and the pain... and the hate. He brought his dog, and I brought the soda. We would stand outside and look at the sky, and talk about what we thought everything was about. Trying to explain away our world. Trying to make our suffering seem logical.
          I know now, there was no explanation. There was no excuse for the way people treated us at school. And there is no excuse for the way we(that is, we who remain) are treated now. Only now our eyes and skin are damaged. Our eyes see only what is mandatory to complete the day and no longer can our bodies breath, save in the tradition manner, because our skins are hidden far below calloused and dead shells.
          But before all this, he had been a writer. From the first time I had ever laid eyes on him, notebook in hand, he had been a writer. He could make people cry, or laugh. With the addition of a word, he would make a character that pulled at the heart strings or immediately induced illness. It was his passion, and his forte and nobody could ever stand between him and this obsession. Somehow he managed to pass some of this skill to me, and ever since I have inked a decent story when it has pleased me to do so.
          When he fell, maybe it was more of a trip, or a push, either way- there wasn't time to save him. There was a stampede crushing all of us, and it had been started by a shooting in Colorado. Like always, I had slipped through the cracks. No one saw the tiny girl within the crowd of "at-risk" children. I was invisible again. What started as a curse became my savior in the end.
          I reached out from the shadows and fortunately, I caught someone's hand. Unfortunately, it was not his. I knew I couldn't leave another of our group for him specifically, it was not our way. So I pulled the boy out from under the thundering masses to the safety of my ledge where we healed and waited. When the herds passed I looked for our fearless leader, my hero, but he had been trampled. Twisted and deranged from what he once was. There never was time to cry, we had to move on.
          And so time passed, rather quickly actually. Soon a new horizon appeared and I realized I had almost made it. But first I had to meet somebody, to confront them face to face and approve of them. And that somebody was myself.
          For some days I contemplated myself. Who was I? I had long since forgotten.
          Last night I held my love's head in my hands, and brushed away tears that remain only in his memories, and I remembered who I was. Suddenly, I knew why I had pushed myself away. Today I thought only of the most outer layers of myself, trying to forget myself again. Until dusk came. Then I had to go for a walk. I was not allowed to be out in the neighborhood after dark, but my mother was at work and I had to walk. I tried to pretend I didn't know where I was going, as I frantically pulled on my jacket and put a leash on my dog, but of course I knew what I was doing. The stars popped into sight as I crossed over an unlit yet busy road. I felt like I was being dragged by the bottom of my feet. Soon I was passing his house. His father was washing the family car as I walked by. I was determined not to stop. Of course, I didn't get further than ten feet away. I backtracked and called out his father if his son was home.
          "I'm sorry, I don't know. I'll ask, one minute..." He disappeared and reappeared quickly, "sorry, he's at work." I never knew whether to believe he was really at work or not, but it didn't matter anymore.
          "No problem." I said, and slowly I slunk away. The blackness was shallowing me fast and I felt heat behind my eyes, but I didn't have time to cry. I was walking. All I was going to do was walk. The glow of a street lamp blinded me painfully. No, I wasn't just going to walk. I was going to think.
          When I was needed I had only done what needed to be done, but that was long ago. In these days, my life and the lives of my own group existed only in our memories, but there were little children living the same lives. After all, that's what we had been. And there was still no excuse. Those who didn't live our lives were icy to our pains and so they were to the younger ones. I was needed again, and this time I realized that I would be needed over and over throughout my life. And the only way I could get the job done was to remember who I was and what I came from and to show what I knew to anyone willing to listen. So now I knew what I had to do.
          I stepped inside my door and closed it behind me. Unleashing my dog, I allowed the memories to come back and one lonely, real tear escaped from my eye.
          My fingers sang words that would make the heart bleed, as a pianist's spells a melody off the ivories.