The Boy

When I was 15 years old I met a boy.  He was 16, tall  (6’3, which towered over my rather short 5’3 frame), had long hair, wore a lot of black and … we hated each other.   From the minute we met we did nothing but bicker and fight.  I thought he was a sarcastic jerk and I’m pretty sure he thought I was a mouthy bitch.

Still though, for some reason we kept running in the same circles.  Purposely seeing to it that our paths would continue to cross.   We were complete opposites, we knew it and somehow our feelings for each other changed.

As teenagers do, I told my friend Aaron that I liked this Boy, knowing full well that Aaron would pass it on to him.  I was 15, that’s how we rolled back then.   Eventually word got back to me that he felt the same way.   Before long, we were a couple.

He lived with his grandparents.  A quiet grandfather with a very humorous and outlandish grandmother, who never minced words.   His mother lived not too far away with her boyfriend and daughter.  They had a good relationship.  His father traveled a lot but whenever he was home The Boy would visit him every Sunday, where they’d order pizza and sit around chatting while his father smoked his pipe.

I got to know The Boy and all of these people quite well over the 5 years we were together.

He was my high school sweetheart, even though we went to different schools in different towns.   He was my best friend.  He was my first love, my greatest frustration, and my biggest education in relationships.   We’d fight like cats and dogs even when we were together, but it fueled the fire. It was just who we were, we were different and we’d disagree… but in the end we always stuck by each other.

Being with someone for such a long time at that age is not that common.  Between the ages of 15-20 you grow up, learn about life and figure out what kind of person you want to be.   I admit, The Boy struggled with becoming The Man.  He got into trouble here and there, and at one point I had to beg and plead with my father to let me continue seeing him.   He was young, he was stupid… it was a mistake.

We were a lot of firsts for each other.
He took me to my prom.
My father taught him how to drive.
We went to the beach, the drive-in, school dances, and all the other things normal teenagers do together.

Even after we broke up he was ‘that guy’ that was always there when I needed him.   When I was dating someone after we broke up, who turned out to be rather mean, it was The Boy that I called to come and rescue me.

I loved him… and yesterday I found out that he is in prison.

We broke up when we were in college.  Not uncommon for high school sweethearts once they reach party central.   We knew it was coming, we were growing apart and had somehow formed completely separate groups of friends.   I had my friends that I’d hang out with, get drunk and go to campus parties with and do the usual college experience things with.

He made a totally different group of friends.   People I probably would have urged him not to associate with when we were together.  He was still The Boy I knew at his core, but things about him were changing and our paths were taking drastic turns away from each other.

Regardless, we continued to be friends.   The last time we spoke was before I moved to Holland.  He told me that he had gotten in trouble with the police, that they had caught him in a park in Halifax with weed on him and were going to charge him with intent to sell.   He was nervous, worried that he was going to be sent to jail, and asked me to keep it to myself as he didn’t want his family back home to find out.

We lost touch after that.   In 1999 I moved to Holland, where I had my own struggles and was trying to cope.  I lost touch with a lot of people I knew and he was one of them, unfortunately.   Over the years I’ve wondered where he was, what he was doing and what had ever happened with the situation he had told me about.

At one point my mother said she had ran into his mother in the supermarket and she said The Boy was doing great.  He had a nice Greek girlfriend who loved to cook and was fattening him up, and that they were even going to Greece on holiday soon.   I was really happy for him, not fake happy like you often are with ex-boyfriends, when inside you are really seething with jealousy… but honestly and truly happy because I knew he had someone else who loved him who would keep him on track.

Last year when I joined Facebook I looked for him.  I always looked for him.  He was never anywhere I looked, but I got lucky on Facebook and found some of his friends.   I was happy to have found them not only because of The Boy, but because it was just great to have contact with old friends again.  I couldn’t help myself from asking about him though, how could I not?  I’d been wondering about him for years.

Their responses were vague.  One telling me yes he’s in Halifax, yes he is still with his Greek girlfriend, and telling me nothing other than that.   The other getting extremely defensive, accusing me of only talking to him to try to get dirt on The Boy and shutting me out completely.   I was left completely confused.   I don’t remember The Boy and I ever having ended on bad terms, in fact the last time we spoke he had confided in me.   So why were his friends being so weird with me?  Why was I being made to feel like the ex-girlfriend that they must protect him from at all costs?

Yesterday I decided to Google him.  Don’t get weird, you know you’ve Googled ex’s too!   For some reason I decided to use his full name, and this is what I found:

HALIFAX — A 33-year-old Halifax man has been sentenced to four years in prison for his involvement in what is believed to be Nova Scotia’s largest seizure of ecstasy tablets.
**** **** **** will serve no more than 43 months of that sentence, as he has already spent five months on remand.
**** was released on bail after police searched his home on Jan. 13, 2006, and found 39,000 ecstasy pills, as well as a small quantity of cocaine and marijuana.
His release privileges were revoked this past January when he was charged in a separate incident for trafficking in marijuana.
He has since pleaded guilty to that charge and one count of breaching a recognizance.
**** also pleaded guilty to the 2006 charges, including possessing ecstasy and cocaine for the purpose of trafficking and possessing marijuana, and was sentenced Tuesday.
In his decision, Judge Castor Williams called **** “well-financed and well-connected” and said he’s convinced the man was motivated by greed.

The Boy, in prison.  I sat shocked for a long time just trying to process it.  On the one hand I could understand what lead up to him getting himself in that position.  On the other hand, he was THE BOY, MY BOY!   In my mind he’s still the 17 year old guy that I loved to the ends of the earth and back.  Not some drug lord who is doing ‘hard time’.

I researched a bit further, and it was him – for sure.   The same name, same area, same age, same university degree… but so far from the same person I knew.   This wasn’t the same guy who brought me flowers and took me to my prom, this was someone entirely different.

I feel sad for him.   I know people who don’t know me OR him would tell me not to, because he’s made the decisions that got him to where he is… but I can’t help it.  I remember him and who he used to be.  I knew him at a time when all of the people who helped get him into this mess didn’t.

I remember how incredibly intelligent he was.  That he took all honors classes in high school, that he even did my reports for law class because he found it interesting and they didn’t offer that course at his school.  I remember his hopes, dreams, insecurities, and pet peeves.

I remember the silly sayings he used to have that drove me crazy after hearing them a thousand times over the time we were together.  Like that’s enough of those shennanegans when I was giving him shit about something, or oh MANOOKEY JUICE! when he thought I was full of crap or lying about something.

I remember the last time I saw him face to face.  When I was 21 years old and at my grandmothers funeral.  It was early in the morning and there he stood, the same guy I’d spent 5 years fighting with to get out of bed before lunch time.  He stood there even though he knew my new boyfriend would be too, because he knew how much my Nana meant to me.

I am sad, desperately sad… because when you love someone you want them to have a good, happy, life where they are safe.   This is not the life he has chosen for himself and I am so afraid for him.

Filed Under: Make Me Cry • Memory Lane