The Secret To New York (Boyxboy)

1) Intro

There wasn't anything special about how we met. It was simple, really. In-complex in its entirety. His name was Shawn, and he was a very simple guy himself. We met at school. A largely populated school in a largely populated city. I wasn't expecting him. I wasn't expecting all of the things that came along with him. You see, I'm a pessimist. I don't look forward to things, but for some crazy reason, I looked forward to him. Ever since the day that I met him. It was like a magnetism that pulled us together so forcefully, nothing, not even common sense could pull is apart.

The humor in all of this? I wasn't looking for love. I wasn't even looking for friendship. The only thing I'd wanted was the sweet release of death and the guts enough to do something about it. This isn't a love story. It's a story about me. Me finding who and what I am, and what I stand for, and if I stand for anything at all. I'm not the type of person to tell a half-assed story, so I'm going to give you my full, unadulterated account of my life. At the end, you might ask yourself why you wasted your time but, give me a try. You might even enjoy my misfortune.

The story begins to pick up during the summer,  the month of June to be exact, but it began far before I was even born, but more on that later. I had just moved across the pond from London to New York because my mother was a writer and she thought if she could go to where the publishers were, they'd print her dread-awful romance novellas. I would never say it, but I think it was to get away from her obnoxiously judgemental and toxic family back in London.

I was 17 at the time. I tried telling my mother I was too old to go back to a college setting-- or as they like to call it in my new found home, high school. My mother was awfully pushy and insisted I go to high school and make friends and branch out instead of locking myself in my bedroom all day. She was absent, for the most part. She didn't want to be responsible for if anything were to happen to me.

So, thus began our move. We packed up our shit in our old home and sold it for a fair price. We hopped on a red eye and had four layovers, one being overnight, and once we'd finally touched down in New York we booked the first motel with vacancy and my mom got the newspaper and started calling around for available apartments.

She jumped at the opportunity to live somewhere and we landed in a shitty two bedroom with leaky faucets and a rat infestation. There was mold in my room and the carpet had been so stained with unknown substances, the first thing I did was dip into some of my savings and rent a rug doctor. Mom didn't seem concerned with it, said it was usual wear and tear, but I couldn't live like a white trash teen. Not if I could help it.

Mom had a few issues with cleanliness. She sometimes hoarded papers she didn't need and forgot to do the laundry and let the dishes pile up. She spent a lot of time writing, but not enough time getting published. I thought maybe she was just scatterbrained, in an endearing way. Back home she got paid out by her family because they felt bad for her.

She had a troubled past. She grew up here in New York, poor because her dad had disowned his family after falling in love with a drug addict who died young after having my mom. Mom was abused as a kid and internalized a lot of it, so when it came time for her to find a man, she fell in love with the shittiest one, the one that beat her and her kid, which was me. We got out and escaped to London when I was about 6, but I can still remember the torture that was my father. I would never forget.

I stood, looking out my dirt spotted window smoking a cigarette. The blinds were open, sending lines of silvery light from the moon to cast over the dimly lit bedroom I was standing in. The smoke from my cigarette stung my eyes and I had to close them, turning my back on the window and sat on one of the many boxes sitting against the far wall. The bed along with the dresser and desk were the only unpacked items in the room. I'd been tiptoeing around this apartment all week and still there was disinterest and to no avail, hatred.