To Keep You

Chapter One: Almost-

A/N: Gif of Parker on the side :) 

     The first thing I think about when I recall that part of my life, is standing over the gravestone and not quite being able to meet the name with my eyes. 

     The second is the single word: Almost.

     Before I get into that, however, let me start off where it all began; which was inside an old, beaten down city orphanage that stood decaying in the centre of a dried-up wasteland of town flats and apartment buildings. In England. 

     Inside that very orphanage, I sat cross-legged on a creaky wooden bed, opposite a friend. He wasn't just any ol' friend, no––Parker was my partner in crime; my superhero and my sidekick. He was every bit my equal, and yet every bit so much more. 

     He was what made that orphanage worth living in. He was also the reason why I left. 

     Anyway: Here we were at age eight, sitting opposite each other on our untidy bed that we topped and tailed every night. It was crammed in a room barely ten feet wide each way. It's previous use was simply for storage, but the orphanage had been pulling in more boys than it could room, and so we had to make do. 

     I didn't complain. Though windowless and cramped, I was sharing the room with the greatest friend I'd ever known, and at eight years old what was better than that? We liked the darkness and seclusion the room offered, because we'd always had the most fun when it was just the two of us. 

     I barely remember any of the other kids from the orphanage. I barely remember anything other than Parker Lewis and, unforgettably, the dank, musty smell of the storage closet we were told to call a bedroom. 

     Strangely, I've always remembered how, during the cold nights when we were both laying on our sides––his toes wiggling away in front of my face––watching the gap at the bottom of the door, where a yellow glow could only just sneak through from the reception hallway, trying to beat each other to whispering "Shadow!" when one would pass by. 

     We would do that for hours. The wait between shadows could get so boring, and so we'd find entertainment in kicking each other in the face or trying to push the other out of bed. It usually ended in uncontrollable giggles, and then one of the staff peeking round the door with a harsh, "Go to sleep!" 

     But I'm getting sidetracked. Back to sitting on the bed in the orange glow of the room, from the single light bulb that hung from the ceiling (looking about ready to burst), opposite Parker Lewis who was staring right back at me with a sneaky grin. 

     His blonde hair was a mess, having not been brushed in over a week. It was short, so thankfully it couldn't get too knotted. Mine practically mimicked his identically, except for being brunette. I wanted to be his twin at the time. I guess we pretty much were from the get-go. 

     We were playing a game that required nothing but ourselves. Many of our games were of this nature, as the orphanage only had board games with half their pieces missing. It was a game that Parker had made up on the spot, though he had given it some elaborate back-story of its apparent origins. He did that a lot; made things more than they were. I liked that about him. 

     "It's called..." he pondered. "It's called how many words can you say in one breath!" Eight-year-old Parker had been sticking his tongue out the corner of his mouth, as he mulled over the name.

    A moment before that, he had been telling me about how it had been invented by 'great giants of the sky'. We'd been reading Jack and the Beanstalk in school, the day before. At the time, I had believed him. Or at least, I went along with it anyway.