Desire and Despair

Chapter 8

As Nathan sat in front of the TV, reflecting just like always, he realized he'd been here once, before coming to stay forever. He'd been in grade school, back when he and Teddy were just best friends, in the simplest sense of the words. Nothing had been complicated then, back in the days of his blissful ignorance. His class had gone on a field trip down to the county prison, partly to do community service, and partly to give the noisy, misbehaving kids a threat of what their future would look like if they didn't start getting serious. Nathan didn't quite care about all that though, what mattered was that he was on a field trip, no school for the whole day, with his best friend. It was a golden opportunity, however strangely motivated it was, because all that was irrelevant if it meant no homework. So he rode to the prison with a light heart and was even pretty amazed when he saw it because everything's cool and interesting until all of a sudden it's your everyday, inescapable indefinitely. The unknown is always beautiful, merely for being different, for a little while, until it becomes your reality. And he couldn't have known then that he wasn't just wasting a few hours that he still managed to have some good fun in, he was getting some kind of dark glimpse of the future he'd never wanted, some peek into the life he'd never thought he'd have, some preview of the horror waiting for him once he caught up to it. Because as he and Teddy heard the conventional message of how they should try not to end up in jail, not do drugs, be responsible and all that, they weren't afraid. They both had their own solution in mind, Nathan figured he could just keep the rules, and Teddy figured he could just avoid getting caught. Of course, they left out extenuating circumstances, like finding out your best friend's a psychopath, and getting pulled over to the dark side from your perfectly planned path, or falling for pretty girls named Heather who'd accidentally lure you into traps. So Nathan had only half paid attention to the lecture, vaguely grateful to not be in class at the moment, with no idea he might as well listen now instead of having to catch up someday. He should've cared, it was his future after all, but he'd figure that out in good time. For the moment, the half of him that was paying attention thought briefly it must be kind of awful to be in prison, locked away from everything you care about. It was heartbreaking now how naive he'd been, how the pain he'd imagined had come to him in full force, stronger than even his wandering imagination. He'd thought he was lucky then, even though that was so ironic now. since he'd had such a fun, normal life while so many people were stuck here. He certainly wasn't wrong, he had been lucky, to be on the other side of the bars once upon a time. But from his new point of view, behind the cold steel, it was laughable how little he'd known of just what was coming to him. It had even become something he thought of rather often, the idea of it haunted him a little, he had every goodbye prepared years before he had to say them, out of some kind of intuition that he couldn't run from his crimes forever. But in an even deeper irony than all the rest he'd tried to push the thoughts away, laughing at himself in his more put-together moments, telling himself it was ridiculous to worry away his life on unfounded fears. He'd even found a sort of confidence in how often he'd thought of it, truly believing since he'd recognized it might happen so often now it never would, that if anything terrible happened it would be something new he'd never dreamed of, as if he'd thwarted the looming reality of prison merely by realizing its possibility. He hadn't taken it seriously anymore, freedom had become one of his things to be grateful for, just another blessing to count when the skies were cloudy, dinner was burnt, and one of the kids had a tantrum. And it was a truly dark, ironic day when the rock bottom he'd always been so proud to avoid, that had used to motivate him so much, was his current reality. When he left that day on the field trip he even took a picture outside, just to show off that he'd been somewhere new, somewhere different. Back then he'd thought it was a cool place to have visited. He might've taken the visiting a little too far, he never left these days, and he wondered now how he could've ever found the place cool. He'd gotten to skip out on all his responsibilities for the day and he'd felt kind of special once, at such a faraway place, until see you tomorrow though turned into a vague see you around that never came true, until one day turned into the rest of his life.