The Damaged One's Circle

Introduction: The Beginning

The most incredible view is hidden on the second floor balcony on the corner of 30th and Willow Street. In this view is a city full of beauty, like a moving painting. Airplane's flying over a sorbet sunset, fools in love locked hand in hand, buildings with stories that the living could only dream of hearing. The city of Chicago is the essence of endless wonder and beauty when the right eyes are looking.

Most nights I hide behind the vines of over grown trees draped perfectly in front of the balcony acting as a mask, observing and hiding mostly. I work as a silent observer, sometimes yearning to be like those people on the streets, even the ones who are by themselves but happy.

My journey in this city started three years ago. My story is not a happy or nostalgic one; no it's more of a story of unfortunate circumstances. I reluctantly tell it as the scars still burn, emotionally that is.

While most children get to be just that; children, I lived a different in a different way. The family farm on the outskirts of Missouri was where I learned to shuck corn, build a fence, and milk cows. Since the time I could walk I wasn't a child, I was a free pair of hands meant to work and profit from like my sister before me.

No one ever tells you what's normal and not; not when you're a kid anyways. Fun was splashing my feet in the puddle of mud from the dog's bath or making bracelets out of corn husks. My world was flipped upside down when I met J.D.

John Denver Driver was a ticking time bomb and my first real love. The mysterious transfer student senior year, the only person in town with a fake i.d at twenty, a charismatic book work that kept to himself. I was Harper Baker, the town drunk's invisible daughter, someone that would never catch his eye, so I thought.

The plan was to put community college on hold for a year to help my father, my father whose decades of drinking had now taken a toll on his health. My sister, Lemon, had escaped to the city two years prior on a full scholarship for medical school. One year turned into two and my sanity began to peak.

My twentieth birthday, a day that seems so long ago but still fresh in my memory, was spent crying in the barn next to two cows and our dying dog, Guinness. That was my breaking point.

With mud still on my jeans and hay in my hair, I started off on a rebellions rampage. I needed to break free from constantly being a selfish man's work hand and the girl they called the walking vegetable, snickering behind my back because my clothes smelled of the barn I worked in before school. It was then I grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the cabinet, something I'd never even considered before, and set out down the side of the road to head to the river front.

"You look lost." The words came from behind me in the dark, monotone and unthreatening.

"I'm exactly where I want to be." The anger in my voice was undeniable, full of pain and longing for escape. My boots were kicked off and my feet splashed into the moving water.

"Those might be the first words I've ever heard you speak." The voice replied, now closer than before. With another lift of the bottle to my mouth I turned my head and found J.D clear as day smoking a cigarette. In that moment I remember how strikingly handsome he looked, greasy black hair and piercing dark eyes. Most importantly, his daring grin. Everything about him exuded rebellion and excitement, exactly what I was looking for.

I extended the bottle to him as a sign of welcoming and he sat next to me on the rock that had long been engulfed with moss. We passed the bottle back and forth for a while in silence until the silence was shattered with a kiss, and then him pulling off my clothes slowly, piece by piece. It was at that point the most daring thing I'd done.