It only took me five years to forget his name, surprisingly enough. I thought it would be longer. That boy was crazy, with the motley colors he insisted on wearing, the way he spoke his mind without thinking, the way he could convince anyone to do anything, no matter how insane it sounded. I participated in his schemes for ten years of my life, ten long, troublesome years that always left someone disappointed in me.
That one boy. Everyone knew him, everyone loved him, nobody understood why. We mentioned ‘that kid’ and everyone knew who we were talking about. Everyone knew we were talking about the guy frozen at sixteen, the age we all said goodbye, the age he went far away and went for good.
But what was his name? I remember his eyes, as multicolored as his clothes, his laugh, contagious even to strangers, his smile, suspicious but endearing, his hands, rough and calloused and always caked with dirt. He had a name, I used to tell myself, but I’m becoming less and less sure. Maybe he didn’t have one; maybe he didn’t need one.
In any case. I remember his voice, how it rang across the room, travelled through my ears and left little room for anything else. I remember how some mocked him and I stood by, flushed but silent, not daring to oppose them. I remember how we all would’ve died for him, he was a leader, he was ours, no one else’s, no one else’s until he turned sixteen and disappeared forever.
I remember his hand on my shoulder, his chapped lips on my cheek, his whispering somehow louder than the noisy crowd. I remember when I found out he was leaving, how I convinced myself everyone else was only pretending not to care, how I knew, just knew, that no one could possibly care the way I did. But there had to be some heartbreak that wasn’t mine. There had to be some other goodbye that wasn’t easy, some other person that felt the sting when he only smiled and waved them away before leaving.
It took me five years to forget his name, and I wonder how long it will take me to forget the rest.
