A Boy I Used to Love
Author: London Casey
Prologue
A YEAR AGO (RIVER)
I climbed up on the rock and sat down. Behind me stood the finished cabin. The old man put me up to the job a few years back and I did it just to kill time. It was my little retreat, even though it involved countless hours of unpaid labor. The whole blood, sweat, and tears cliché fit the cabin perfectly, but I refused to even look back at the damn thing. I had a key to the place, too. There was one simple rule. As long as someone wasn't parked next to it, the cabin was mine to use.
I spent no nights there.
I built no fires in the fireplace I helped build.
I took no time or care to stand outside on a cool evening and stare up at the stars, wondering just how many there were or if we really were alone in the vastness of the universe.
Universe.
My universe was a little smaller, but it felt just as complicated as the unknown.
I told myself I'd sit there for an hour, but I knew I'd go until sunset. That had just become part of the tradition. Year after year, waiting for her to show up, then waiting for time to speed by to get to the next year. Looking from the outside of the glass, nobody would see me as that type of guy. But a promise was a promise, even if I didn't clearly remember everything about it.
As I sat there, I took all the time I had to really reflect on the previous year. The whirlwind of life. How I'd gone from a punk on the streets to a wild man behind bars to a forever in-demand tattoo artist. I gave up my own shop right on the beach to take a new job with those guys at St. Skin. That's what life and time was all about-change. Constant change.
Except for this one day each year. Ironically, it was the one day I wished there was a change.
I jumped down from the rock and walked to a tree. It was the same tree I walked to each year. Right there, just below eye level, was a mark. I made that mark with a spare key on my keyring a year ago. It was part of something bigger, something I seemed to keep adding to. It had no purpose-nobody would see it or care about it, but it was my thing. I took out my keyring and found the key to my old tattoo shop. It was a small silver key, used for an actual lock. I used to pull down a metal gate and lock it up. That's how I did business. Then I'd take my bag of cash to my apartment and sit there with a bottle of whiskey and a pen and paper and try to figure out how to actually run a business.
I never ran out of money and never went behind on my bills. And when I cashed out, I took just what I needed to get me to St. Skin. So I guess it wasn't a complete failure.
I jammed the key into the soft bark of the tree and twisted. I bit my tongue as I did so. I then pulled down, cutting the bark, making a fresh mark on the tree. Right then, for some damn reason, I wondered if the tree felt pain. Just another cut from one of my keys. The mark would be there like a scar, but did the tree feel it?
I took my key away and backed up. I looked up at the tall tree and shook my head.
Was this what it had come to? Debating whether a tree had feelings? Or could feel pain? Seriously considering hugging the tree and apologizing for hurting it?
"Shit," I whispered. I ran my hand through my hair and put my keys away.
I reached into my other pocket and took out a pack of smokes. I lit one up and enjoyed it. I had been gradually cutting back on the damn things, but today was the one day when they tasted too fucking delicious. That sandpaper burn down the back of my throat and into my lungs. My body groaning in instant protest. My mind reminding my body that I had done so much worse to it throughout my years.
I went back to the rock and leaned against it. I put my head back and made rings of smoke. Shit, there'd been a time when that was the coolest thing in the world to do. You mastered that, along with wearing a leather jacket and always be willing to throw the first punch, and you could get any woman you wanted. Then again, back then, they weren't really women. Stuck somewhere between girl and woman, but still … what a time.
And yet I had my eyes, heart, and soul locked onto just one person.
My crutch. My curse. My damn stubbornness.
I finished the first smoke and indulged in a second one.
I quit after that, squashing the pack in my hand and throwing it as hard as I could into the woods. Behind the cabin, there was a purple glow starting to kick up from the horizon. That meant the sun was setting. I had a good twenty-minute drive back to civilization, then another couple hours until I was in Hundred Falls Valley to my apartment. Back to the sick, twisted sense of reality that consumed me. I knew I'd wake up tomorrow and put my feet on the floor and demand that everything be new. But that newness would quickly wear off. Because time would push on. Days to a week. Weeks to a month. And then months to another fucking year.