𝐁𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐞 𝐁𝐨𝐲𝐬

Chapter I | The Stranger

4.

𝐀𝐮𝐠𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝟏𝟐, 𝟏𝟗𝟖𝟒

𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐲'𝐬 𝐏𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭 𝐎𝐟 𝐕𝐢𝐞𝐰

Summer '84 was a summer like no other. I spent my warm days with my buds at Carnavaville, an old amusement park that had long been abandoned since the nineteen fifties. I also over the summer on July twelfth, reached the ripe age of seventeen. My mother once told me that seventeen marked the threshold of manhood. She prayed for the day of seeing me as a man, but unfortunately my mother and father both died in a tragic car accident when I was just thirteen years old. I was the only child, and they had been the epitome of nurturing parents, providing me with a wholesome and joyous upbringing when they were alive. On the gloomy days, I'd often longed to have join them on their final ride, as I was left all alone. After their death, I was uprooted from my abode in Bedrock, South Dakota and relocated to Redfield.

I was given up to foster parents, the dreadful McCanns. They were a middle-aged couple both in their fifties who congregated a group of eight foster children including myself, I was the eldest amongst the clan. However, their intentions weren't of genuine reasons, the money involved was the true motive. Also, their treatment was quite cruel, but I vowed that upon reaching the age of eighteen I'd leave. Yet, now I didn't know if I could accommodate for that long, I wanted desperately to end the daily agony that life inflicted. A year prior, I slit my wrists in the shower, losing a lot of blood. The foster youth social workers, who regularly did a wellness check weren't too pleased, the McCanns weren't pleased either. It caused me badly beatings for which I was later to blame for as self-inflicted. I was then admitted to the Children's Mental Hospital on suicide watch, where I was detained for a month. However, if I ever exposed the McCanns, an insufferable fate would be what I face.

I yearned for an escape, a place beyond where my very name held no sway. I'd be the voyager, known for knowing melancholy, and maybe along the way I'd meet someone who'd fulfill my grief-stricken heart. But that was only boyhood dreams of my boyhood world that would never come true. Gradually, I learned over time that the world wasn't something made for a broken boy like me. So, I stood up tall on the high Greenway Bridge, overlooking the depth of water which contained over one hundred feet deep abyss, beneath. It would be quite a precipitous fall, I'd most likely hit my head on a large rock at the bottom of the river. Luckily the late hours brought very few cars, no one would be around to save me. As I was prepared to link my life up with whatever awaited me on the other side, I stood up on the ledge staring down at the fast-moving waters below.

"Hey, what are you doing up there?" a stranger, a female's voice said.

Not caring to turn around to see who was talking to me, I replied, "I'm going to jump."

"Now why would you wanna do something foolish like that? You know that's probably like, I don't know- fifty feet down," she said.

I only ignored the girl, not caring to reply. I was too close, I couldn't be stopped by anything or anyone now.

"Look, sir, whatever you're going through can't be too bad to wanna jump off a bridge," she said.

What did she know, whoever she was she didn't know anything about me, or what I was capable of.

"Want a bet? You don't know me lady," I said, still not turning around to face and see whoever it was I was talking to.

"I know I don't know you but I know that you don't wanna jump, if so you would've been done it without hesitation," she said.

So, she may have had a point, I was too chicken but I wasn't going to admit it to her.

"Listen, sometimes in life we think that we want to die because of all that we've been through, but really we just be so hurt, all we really want is just for the pain to stop," she said.

I hated the way her words touched me, my cheeks were beginning to warm and my vision began to blur.

"What's your name?" she asked.

I hesitated before asking, "Why?"

"Because I'd like to know," she replied.

I took a deep breath slowly before answering her.

"Gray," I said lowly.

"Well, Gray, please don't, you have so much life ahead of you," she said.

"How do you know?" I asked, with a tear beginning to roll down my cheek.

"You seem young from what I see," she said.

"I'm seventeen," I replied.

The girl didn't say anything afterwards and neither did I, there was a silence. I remained quiet while still looking down at the water, never not once taking a look at her.

"Hey, you didn't make it all the way to seventeen just to depart this life. Now isn't your time," she said.

I wanted to scream, cry, shout, and yell but I knew it would only be useless. Seemingly that the stranger girl won this argument I decided that tonight wouldn't be of my last. I took a deep breath before stepping down off of the ledge. I prepared myself for the embarrassment, turning around to face the girl who kept me company for the past few minutes, but when I looked there was no one there. Not a soul in sight.

𝐓𝐨 𝐁𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐞𝐝