Lost In My Mind And Can Only Find My Way Through One Person

~~~~THE BEGINNING~~~~

“Jaydon!” She calls after the figure running through the dark. He’s running away, away from everything. And the worst part is he’s running away from her. She stands in an abandoned alleyway, rusted iron gate behind her, staring after a boy who is lost inside and out. She shakes her head to clear her steaming thoughts and starts running after him. “Jaydon! Don’t go! Please! You’re only running from yourself!” she screams. He seems to keep getting farther and farther away but for some reason she keeps running, even when she can’t see a glimpse left of the boy she once knew.

She sees a light coming up and decides to slow her pace, trying to figure out if Jaydon might’ve turned down an alleyway and jumped a gate. As she keeps sprinting down the long midnight road, she passes street lamp after street lamp with no sight of a teenage boy. She starts to worry. What if he got hit by a late-night car?? Maybe he got shot by someone or maybe he ran over to the train tracks and got hit by a train?? She knows she has to stop thinking this way, and pushes the nightmarish thoughts out of her head. She keeps running until, she spots something in the distance. She stops and squints as if that would help her see what lies ahead. She can just barely make out the shape of a person leaning on the street light trying to catch their breath. “Jaydon??!” she questions her own eyes. The figure turns around and looks back at her. Stunned that she found him, she runs the rest of the way to meet up with him.

As soon as she gets under the glowing light she hugs Jaydon as hard as she possibly can. He lets out a squeak and she lets go. She puts her hands on his shoulders and observes him. She observes the lost look in his eyes, growing deeper and deeper with each tear streaming down his flushed cheeks. She looks over the sweat-stained shirt and ripped--although tight--black jeans. Even looks down at his red Converse, making sure to notice the checkers on the tips smearing off from too many days spent outside in the rain. She pushes his shaggy pitch black hair out of his glistening wet eyes.
“I know it seems your world is falling apart, but please, you need to understand that you can’t just run away. And you know I will always be there. Always.”

“Yeah, I know. But why is this all happening to me?? Why??! Am I cursed or something??!” Jaydon tries to suck up his tears but that just makes more of them seep out of his emerald eyes.

“Jaydon, you are not cursed. It is not your fault your dad cheated on your mom with that whore we call a teacher, and it’s not your fault your mom had a heart attack and died. None of that is your fault. You can’t blame yourself, you just can’t. Do you get what I’m saying??”

“Yeah, but I still feel like I’m to blame for everything. If it weren’t for me maybe….maybe….” He chokes on his words.

“Maybe what??”

“Maybe Mom would still be alive and maybe Dad wouldn’t have cheated. If I wasn’t born Dad wouldn’t even know about Ms. Forman.” He can’t bear to meet her eyes when he says this.

“Jaydon! Don’t you dare say that! Even if you weren’t born your Dad still would’ve found Ms. Forman. Probably anyways. And if you weren’t born who would I have?? No one. Jay, you are my friend and I will always need you. I always have and always will. And you know that. So why are you wishing you weren’t alive??!”

“I’m lost Audrey! I don’t know what to do! I’m always confused, always struggling to make the right choices and do the best thing for me, but everything I do is wrong. I always cause pain and hurt to other people without ever wanting to. I--” She cuts him off.

“But don’t you see?? If you were to run away, be gone forever, you would be hurting and causing me pain.” He stays silent and still. He looks down and she can tell he’s thinking hard about something, but she doesn’t ask what’s on his mind. She lifts his head up so his green eyes are connected with her steal blue. “Jaydon, I’m not going to let you run away. So, I’m telling you this once and only once: you are going to go into your house, pack some clothes and everything else you might need, and then you are going to come back to my house and stay there for however long you need. I don’t care what my parents think about it. You are staying with me.”

“I can't do that t--”

“Shhh!" I put a finger to his lips,"Yes you can. Now go. I’ll walk you home and wait for you outside. Just tell your dad you’re going over to a friends house. Now come on, we have to get you to my house so we can talk without being in soaking wet clothes.”

Jaydon stops sniffling and says, “Wait. Soaking wet clothes?? What are you talking a--” And then the rain poured down on the darkened city.