1 Ryan Nelson

"When people say life gets worse before it gets better, then that means they don't know anything. They don't know the pain you feel, they don't know the dangerous thoughts that enter your mind as you stand at the edge, they don't know what you're going through. They just want to say something positive to 'try' and help you. But the people that tell you, yeah life sucks, but there is something out there that you haven't found. When you find it life will still suck, because people will still leave you, people will still hurt you and life will go on, but at the end of it all you still have what you found and that is the only thing that will make you smile through the tears, through the pain. If no one has told you that then I'll be the first. Things don't get better until you make it better, so stop waiting for it to, chase after the one thing that will make you smile."-Ryan Nelson

The trees pass by the back seat window in a blur, not one stays in my line of veiw for more then a second before it disappears like the rest. The same for people, for other cars, for anything outside this suffocating car. It's almost as if I'm watching time fly by, one second there the next gone.

1...2...3...Nothing.

Time didn't stop, cars still drove, the trees still swayed time still seemed to continue without me, leaving me still stuck in the past. So, again, I will count, hoping when I'm done things will get better, I'll hope that life will be on my side and fix things. Fix me.

1...2...3...Nothing.

"Ryan! Are you even listening to me?!" I hear my mom yell at me from the passenger seat and she gives a questioning look to dad who glances back from the drivers seat. I look away from the window and stare at her blankly. I stare at her with the same blank stare as when she told me I was moving to another school.

"You weren't listening to me were you? This is senior year! Your last year! This is important!" She says and I resist the urge to sigh. "Plus," she continues, "Your father and I have agreed this new school is best for you" She says and I resist the urge to sigh.

"This school will put a stop to all those weird thoughts that were brainwashed into your head. You can't go wrong with a Christian boarding school! " My dad says, glancing at me through the review mirror. I feel myself go sour, they didn't understand that I wasn't brainwashed, these were all my own thoughts and feelings. It hurt to know they didn't accept the real me, they believed something was wrong with me and it needed to be fixed. They were right about needing to be fixed but what they think and what I think are different. They had it in their minds that they were going to turn me on a straight path 'again'. But I don't say anything, I stay silent because it's all I can do. I've given up on defending myself, my words just fall to def ears.

"Really, none of this would have happened if it weren't for that boy." Mom says, spiting out the word 'boy' like it was dirty on her tongue. He wasn't just some boy, he was more then that. He was my best friend, my companion, my fist love, and I'm still torn from how our story ended.

"Anyways! No need for the past to be brought up! Ryan, what are you doing for a sport? Or are you doing a club?" She asks and I shrug. My mothers face tightens and then her face lights up again. "You like soccer right? You have been playing since you were nine!" She says and I look out the window.

"I was ten and I was forced to play." I mutter and she looks back at me.

"What was that? You want to play? Great!" She exclaims and dad nods his head in approval.

"Good pick son." He says and I slump in my seat. Once dad agrees it's final, I'm doing soccer and I have no say. Just like in the past, I wasn't allowed to stand up for myself.

It was a Sunday, eight years ago when I didn't understand anything and when I was still friends with Issac. The boy I will never forget...

We were young, I was nine and he was ten, we wanted to be like the big kids who could go out places. So, one night we slipped out of our comfy beds and went on what Issac had called an adventure.

"Issac! Where are we going? We're supposed to be home sleeping." I had wined.

"Shh! Ryan, if you don't want to get into trouble then stay quiet, we're here." He says and my nine year-old self looks up at a sign that says, The Skating Rink, then I looked next to it at a sign that read, CLOSED, in bright red letters. I frown.

"It's closed! Well! Time to go home!" I say with a shrug and turn around and begin to walk back the way we came, only to be grabbed by my hoodie and yanked back.

"Wait! I know a way in." He says.

Then we went in and at first it was dark, but once the lights came on my breath was taken by what I saw before me. I saw a dream, a new world beyond what I knew, I fell in love without realizing it. So, when Issac reappeared with a pair of skates I took them. We played on the ice, falling and laughing. Around us was dark, the only light was from the lights around the rink. I was in wonderland and I didn't want to wake up. Then, the lights went on and we were caught mid-fall and slide on the ice. A man had appeared with a stern look.

"I'm sure the sign outside said closed." The man had said and next thing I know Issac is begging the man not to call our parents or the police for the break in, but I was too busy staring at the ice, I had this deep feeling to return to it and when I looked back at the man his eyes were already on me.

"How about this, kids. I won't tell and you have to come back here every afternoon to help me clean around here for a month." He offers and Issac was already nodding his head. I remember thinking, the afternoon was for Issac and I to play together. We both agreed.

"But," He had said "I want to teach you guys some real skating for a month as well. Then after you can leave." He says with a smile and never in my life did I think I would hear anything better. A week went by and we went everyday, we fell on the ice and cleaned when we were told. Two weeks went by and I could skate around without falling and even spin a little, while I helped around with a smile. The rest of the month went by and Issac and I didn't want to stop learning to skate, so we came back and continued. Skating became our life, it became my happiness and my parents didn't know. How could I tell them, they would take it away. So Issac and I both kept our afternoons a secret and as far as we knew it would stay that way.

Then we turned ten and eleven and we took skating onto the next level. We practiced our flexibility and we practiced anything we could on the ice and off the ice. Issac and I practiced our hardest and I remember laying on the ice, completely out of breath when he grabbed my hand and locked our pinkies.

"Promise me, promise me we will do the triple axel one day together." He said and at the time I only just found out how hard that was, I thought it was impossible.

"Please just promise me, we will do it together and we won't leave each other behind." He had said it so desperately that I couldn't pull away and tell him my thoughts, so I griped his pinky and nodded.

"Together, no leaving anyone behind." We had said and after that we practiced our hearts out, becoming better and better and better.

Then we were turning thirteen and fourteen. And we were in middle school. I had begun to see Issac in a different light, I didn't know what the feeling was so I just made sure to stay close to him and make sure our secret was safe from our families. We only got better and better while our dreams grew. By high school Issac and I were inseparable, we did everything together and we liked it that way. Things shifted between us and we both found we saw one another in a different light, not as friends, not a brothers. We had fallen in love with the ice and we had fallen in love with each other. The more we skated the more our feelings seemed to grow, and before I knew it he was my first and I had planned for him to be my last. But then things took a turn for the worse, we were found out our secret was revealed. Deep down I knew someone told, it wasn't me and it wasn't Issac, but it was someone, and that someone ruined my life. Our parents came and my world shattered, they yelled at the man who gave us big dreams and tried to break the ice beneath my feet. I cried as they dragged Issac away from the ice and hit his face until his lip bled. I was blinded by love and I made a stupid move. I pulled away from my mom and rushed towards Issac and I stepped in front, taking his next hit. I felt the hard impact and that's when Issac stepped back in front and defended me. They tried to pull him away from me and I was so desperate, I clung to him as he did me. We yelled at them, we let our secrets spill, we told them our love for the ice and our love for each other, and they took both away. I was dragged away and locked in my room, phone gone and I wasn't allowed to look in Issac's direction at school. But every chance we could, we would pass notes when teachers weren't looking and hide in the bathroom to spend time with one another. Then one day my mom had given me a chance to take back the words I had said that day, and I refused. I was in love with Issac and they couldn't change that. I was slapped in the face and when I looked up through teary eyes I saw my mother crying with the look of disgust at me. Later I found out the same had happened to Issac and he made the same mistake as me. He wouldn't take it back, but he wasn't so lucky as me, he was taken away to facility to fix people who weren't 'normal'. I never saw him after that for the rest of the year I was shoved and bullied for who I was... and then one day he came back, but not as the same boy I remember. He acted different, he didn't even glance at me, I had become invisible to him, he had become like everyone else. When I was shoved around he just laughed with the rest. When I took the hits he just watched. He became a part of the football team, he got all the girls, he made friends. He was happy...without me. I couldn't take it anymore, I was always hiding from people, I was forced to study so I could make up for how big of a mistake I was to my parents. I was internally dying. So, I went back to the skating rink one Sunday and when I stepped through the door and my eyes landed on the man who had once given me hope, I broke down.

With soft eyes and a sad smile he looked at me, "Come here," he had said, opening his arms for me and I rushed into his embrace. It felt weird being able to hug someone who didn't look at me with disgust, I cried until I had no tears left. "Where is your friend?" He had asked and I looked at the ground.

"He lost his flame," I had said, "He's not coming back." I said. It sounded as though I was saying Issac was dead, but this man understood. Issac hadn't died, but his spirit did. The man became like a second father to me, he accepted every flaw and taught me to use my flaws to my advantage in skating. I practiced harder then I thought possible, I wasn't just skating for me now but I was doing this for the boy who lost his flame. I was going to skate for the both of us. My grades dropped, I was yelled at on and on about how I was useless. Kids still shoved me and called me names but I still had skating and that became my life. Parents found out about me and they called the principle saying they didn't want their kids being influenced. I was forced to transfer for my junior year of high school. I moved away from Issac, and part of me wanted to believe it was for the best.

I still made it everyday to the skating rink, I would always make time for it. I then met a new boy at this school and he became my friend. I had bad luck with me ever since things began so I wasn't surprised when it spread around the school I was, different. The bullying started once again. And for some reason my friend still stayed, I was shocked when he sat next to me and smiled. I was happy and I remember him telling me,

"Don't looked so shocked I just want to steal your food at lunch." He had said playfully, and I was grateful. I never told anyone about my skating not even him, I couldn't trust anyone with my deepest secret. This boy and I grew close, really close, and on one day after school he admitted that he was like me. I let him try things with me, I wanted to feel wanted by someone so I didn't think twice when he placed his mouth on mine. Then things went bad just like everything in my life. We were found out, and when I thought I could trust him he turned on me, he lied about what happened between us. He had changed the story, saying I was the one who started it, I had thrown myself at him, it was all my fault. I was once again broken.

I kept skating day, after day, after day, drowning in my self pity and despair, I started having panic attacks and fear so painful clouded my mind, I was becoming lost so I just took pills to numb the pain. When I was attacked for who I was I blanked out while I took the beatings, and when I came back to reality I was left on the ground alone. Rumors started about me, they grew out of control and just like before it reached the parents. I woke up one morning and I was told by my mother I was going to be going to another school. It was no surprise, when I was told it was a "Christian Boarding School". I would be sharing a dorm with one roommate and I would be attending school everyday until weekends for free time....but I was determined to keep skating. Before I was forced to transfer to yet another school, my skating teacher to me known as a father but to everyone else known as, Xander, introduced me to a boy named Edwin. He would be working here, I found out a little about him and was surprised he was like me, just his life was easier, his family loved him for who he was. We got along well and he became a friend I knew I could depend on, with him I felt a little brighter, but the one thing I never let him do was watch me skate. I don't know why I didn't want him to watch me, maybe it was because I felt guilty inside, maybe it was the pain so deep in me that couldn't allow him to see all of me, or maybe it was just deep down I felt only Issac was supposed to see me fly on the ice....

"Ryan!" I hear loudly and I look at my mom who is staring at me from the passenger seat. "Stop zoning out, we have arrived." She says and I look out the window to see the huge new school before me. It was rich looking, it had many glass windows and the stone that made up the school was a spotless gray. I felt my stomach twist, for I knew deep down this school would be no different from the rest. I had a lot ahead of me, and I'm not sure I'm ready.

Ryan stepped out of the car with pure dread for he knew nothing good would come out of this school, but he ignored the part of him that felt something else, the part of him that felt something different from all the times in his dark past. Maybe, just maybe things will finally change, and this time for the better.