The City of Dreaming Spires

Becoming JP

The 16-year-old got off the plane after a long 10-hour journey. He looked around him as one of the flight hostesses walked him out the door. Though short, his curly black hair was disheveled from tossing and turning in his seat, as he had unsuccessfully tried to get some sleep in the aircraft.

As he walked down the corridor, Juan Pablo finally realized just how different things were from what he'd always known. The signs, the language, people's clothing, the shops at the airport, everything. He knew the year ahead of him would change his life. He had longed for that day to arrive for years. However, for the first time since he'd left his home a couple of days before, the tiredness caught up with him and the fear of what was to come creeped in.

Applying for a scholarship to study in the city of dreaming spires for a year had never been a plan of his up until 3rd grade. He had a loving family that always supported him and the best friends he could have asked for, but then tragedy striked and everything changed. Juan Pablo was only a little boy when his mum died. He had seen the light leave her eyes, shattering his heart into a million pieces when she spoke her last words.

Flashback

An 8-year-old Juan Pablo was playing in his room when a loud thud was heard accross the house. He ran towards the kitchen, the source of the noise. He saw his mother laying on the ground, drifting in and out of counsciesness. As he kneeled next to her he realized blood had started pooling on the floor. Nita was bleeding from a head injury.

He started crying and praying for her to be okay until she weakly asked him to call for help. Within a fraction of a second, he had called 9-1-1. He described where they lived and what had happened. The man across the line told him not to hang up until an ambulance got there and to keep his mum from falling asleep.

"I love you, Juanpi" his mother said as she breathed in heavily. "I am so proud of the young man you're growing into. Please live a happy and fulfilling life. Travel the world and don't let anyone stop you. I will always be there for you". Her voice was full of emotion, and it cracked as she uttered the last few words.

The boy wanted to convince his mum that everything would be okay, that she would get to the hospital in time and that the doctors would help her. He knew it was a lie, though. He had realized it as soon as she closed her eyes and whispered she loved him one more time. The woman whom he had always known to be strong and invincible was already gone. Her long and wavy hair still shone as the rays of sunshine shied through the blinds, but her chest had stopped raising and falling at the rythm of her breaths and he couldn't feel her heart beating.

An absurd accident took Nita Rosado's life at the age of 37 when she slipped in her kitchen the 25 April 2013. Things at the Cruz-Rosado household radically changed after she was gone. Antonio Cruz, Juan Pablo's father, was a businessman. Ever since his wife's death, he buried himself in work and took up every project he could in the hopes of ignoring that he was a widower. In the hopes of ignoring that she had been taken from him so young.

Knowing he was a shadow of the man he used to be when the love of his life was by his side, Juan Pablo didn't blame his dad for not spending time with him. All their close relatives had moved to Europe decades ago and Juanpi was an only child, thus he had no family left to lean on when worse came to worse. That was the reason why he forced himself to mourn his mum in silence. 

It was no fault of his that Nita was not alive, yet he couldn't help but feel like it was, because he had been right next to her when her heart beat one last time. "What if I had been in the kitchen when she slipped? I could have caught her and she'd be alive and well", he stammered in uncontrollable sobs before falling asleep every night.

The boy who had once been the most extroverted kid in class, became closed off and shut all of his friends out when they tried to talk to him. He knew it wasn't the best coping mechanism. He did it anyway, because his dad's reaction hadn't been much different. That was the moment he promised himself that, one day, he would leave the small town in Puebla where everyone pitied him.

A tear slid down his cheek at the memory of his loving mother. Wiping it off and shaking his head, he tried to convince himself that everything would be okay and took in his surroundings. He had been planning this for years, trying to find the option that fit him best. In Oxford, he wouldn't be Juanpi anymore, a nickname he despised after his mother passed because of the painful memories that came along with it. No, in Oxford he could become JP.

It was his chance at a fresh start.