A Love With Limits

Chapter 1: Young Boy

This story is dedicated to my lovely friend, my sister from another mister, @denirosgirl. Her love for Robert De Niro is beautiful, so I decided to write a story for her. She wrote a beautiful fic for me as well, go check it out ;). I hope you enjoy it!

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From birth, Leonard Lowe was destined to be something special. Despite the absence of his father, his life was relatively great. He grew up in a nice neighbourhood, he often hung out with his two best friends, and he did well in school, earning top marks in almost every subject. Some might say he was gifted, a child prodigy - one thing, however, was for sure; Leonard was a unique boy, the kind of person you only meet a few times in your life. What nobody could have predicted at the time, when Leonard was merely 9 years old and full of life, was that his would soon change forever, and that he would not get the future that everyone believed he would have.

It was a cold, snowy day in the harsh winter of 1939, and yet Leonard was in school, sat at his designated chair. The same old wooden, squeaky chair in which he had sat for the past couple of years. You could always recognize the young boy - he almost never failed to wear the exact same outfit every day. A stylish button up plaid shirt, ironed with care by his loving single mother, and a neat bowtie that always sat at the perfect angle. His hair was always well-kempt, slicked to the side of his face in an orderly manner, and to many, he was a dream child, well-mannered and polite. Pencil in hand, Leonard concentrated on nothing but the paper in front of him. He never had any problems with writing, in fact it was one activity he could never get bored of, as it gave him something to focus on, something to distract him on a rainy day. As far back as Leo could remember, he had made up his own stories - he would often dissapear into his own world, feeling like he was on an adventure, running through tall meadow grass. He wanted to explore the world, be like Tarzan. But for now, he had to live an ordinary life. Today, the class was quiet, and the room was cold, almost too cold, and Leonard started to shiver...

Something was off. Leo had felt this before - weakness in his joints. He would often trip over his own feet, but he chalked it up to just being clumsy. He was at times bullied because of this quirk, but it wasn't something he spent much time thinking about, as his mother had taught him that bullies are not wirth your breath. It was, however, worse on this particular Wednesday afternoon. Usually, Leonard was the best at writing, the best amongst his male friends. But his hand felt strange today - his wrist almost couldn't move, like it was slowly freezing into place, something he had never experienced before, and it was safe to say that he was worried. He attempted to ignore it, but as he kept writing, it got worse, and at last, he was unable to control his writing. Leo scrunched his nose in frustration and confusion, muttering angry words under his breath, but not loud enough to bother the other students.

The letters, which were normally tidy, turned into jumbled doodles, unintelligible. It was like something had possessed his juvenile body, and although Leo did not believe in spirits, it was almost like something sinister was controlling him. Dubiously, he handed the notepad to the teacher after the lesson concluded, and she was dumbfounded. What had happened to Leo? The star student, the neat little boy that nobody noticed, why was this happening to him? Why was his writing so messed up?

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That day, Leo walked home with his friends. They were playing, kicking a rock around on the pavement, enjoying life like any child should. Leonard tried to keep up - he tried to keep a facade of happiness and joy, but it was only skin deep. Deep inside, he was still worried. He could not tell his friends about what had happened today - they would make fun of him, like they had before. The only person Leo knew he could trust was his mother at home - he had to tell her. He walked the same path every day - always past the same houses, the same river, the same people tending to their gardens, even in the freezing winter temperatures. On a particular bench, he had recently carved his name into the green-painted wood. Leonard. His mother had given him this name for a reason: Leonard means "lion-hearted" or "lion strength". His mother would always tell him that he was a strong boy, that he could be anything or anyone he wanted to be. Leo didn't know if this was true, but it made him feel good. For a while, he truly believed that he was indeed a lion cub, that would soon become a big, strong adult lion...

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Over the next couple of days, Leo's health deterioated. A week after his symtoms began to worsen, he was in bed, and his mother found him early in the morning, entirely unresponsive. He had not touched the homemade biscuits that his mother had put on his bedside table the night before, and he had not drank his glass of milk. His beautiful brown eyes were now invisible behind the curtain of his eyelids, his hands retracted to his chest like a small dinosaur, and his legs stiff like two branches. He didn't seem to be in pain, in fact, he did not show any emotions at all - he was catatonic. Nevertheless, his mother rushed the boy to the hospital, fully believing that he was going to come home again soon, and be the same little boy he was before. Leonard's mother knew this was naive to believe, but hope was all she had. With Leo's stiff body in her arms, Mrs. Lowe pushed open the hospital doors, tears in her eyes.