Adopting a New Outlook

~All characters are at least 18 years of age at the time of sexual interaction. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Adopting a New Outlook

Chapter 1:

There are moments in everyone's life that can change everything. My moment came earlier than most. If I close my eyes, I can hear the raindrops hitting the windows. The metallic tink tink tink as they hit the roof of the '67 Cutlass. The chatter of my parents in the front seat, talking about seeing friends, while they scanned the radio for a song that they both wanted to hear. From Eminem to Britney Spears to some amorphous boy band of the era before my mother started digging through the glove box, finding the one she was looking for. I watched sleepily as she popped the case open, pulling free the dark disc with the rainbow design. I smiled as the static hit. The first sounds of Speak to Me finally break through.

To say my musical tastes at thirteen were strange would not be far from the mark. Something about the 70's just seemed to resonate with me. I would often eschew modern pop for the deeper feeling of music like Pink Floyd or Zepplin, or Clapton, or Petty. My father liked to joke that I was born with an old soul. I had heard the line more than once.

Being the quintessential flower children hippies that my parents were, they encouraged my love of music, especially when I would delve into the works that they favored. For all that is great about the Dark Side of the Moon, it certainly is not the most appropriate music for a thirteen-year-old boy, tired from a long day, lounging in the back seat, trying to stay awake as night fell and we made the last few miles of our drive. I found myself drifting in and out, appreciating the pleasant soothing sounds for a few moments before I was snoozing again.

I awoke to the sounds of Brain Damage, realizing they had picked the perfect CD as I looked out the window into the deepening night to see a neighborhood that looked familiar. I smiled as I thought of seeing my best friend Lily for the first time in a month. We were nearly inseparable for the first 12 years of our lives, but her father had recently found a new job that forced them to move nearly 150 miles away.

Being the daughter of my parents' best friends, we were given ample time to ourselves. I thought of the childish games we'd play as our parents sat around the table, or the TV. Simply being in one's presence with regularity doesn't make two friends but, when there is that simple spark of commonality, it can fuel what's there. To say we were young and knew little of what the world had to offer was true, but there was always something about her that drew me in, beyond proximity.

Looking back on it now, I can say with some certainty, that if there is a thing such as the Fates, they have a sick fucking sense of humor. The murmur from the front seat drew my attention as Eclipse began, to find bright lights reflecting off the wet surface of the windshield. A horn honking, then another. A sickening squeal and then nothing...

Chapter 2:

I awoke to some incessant beeping and voices my groggy mind could hear but couldn't yet assign any meaning to. I tried to clear my throat, but it felt like cotton. If I even managed to grunt before I attempted to open my eyes, I would be surprised. The sharp brightness of the lights forced my eyes to shutter. The mechanical beeping turned quickly from a mild annoyance to a deafening offense as the haziness in my head gave way to a pounding headache. It astonished me that something, for one, can be so unholy painful, and two, can be so painful, in fact, that it collapses all your senses into it. I couldn't hear but the pounding, see but the backs of my eyelids, feel but the pain. I tasted copper in my mouth as I realized I'd bit my tongue hard enough to draw blood. I tried to steady myself, one deep breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Then another, and another, until finally I felt some of the tension in my body relax.

I loosened my white knuckled grip on the bed sheets and turned my ear to the conversation I was beginning to comprehend.

"...It's good you came." A woman's voice I didn't recall spoke, "We had the police calling everyone they could, trying to find relatives. It's a good thing they checked their phones."

"It's just hard to believe." A pained voice replied. Recognition sparked in my mind. Mrs. Hunt spoke again, tentatively, this time, "Aaron is going to be alright... Right?"

"He's lucky in at least one way, that's without a doubt." The first voice replied, "I'm not sure how much the police told you, but if he hadn't been lying down in the backseat, we'd be having a very different conversation right now."

A third voice spoke up then, the waking of my mind becoming apparent when I immediately recognized it as Mr. Hunt, "We spoke with the EMT's on our way in. They told us they pulled a shard of glass from the seat cushion just above him. As it was the boy still got cut to ribbons."

"He'll live though. God knows when he'll wake up, but I can say with some certainty he will. And," the first voice paused for a long moment before continuing, "When he does..."

"We know," replied Mrs. Hunt, "He's going to need people here for him."

"No grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins?" asked the woman.

"Only child of only children," Mr. hunt offered, "And, if I recall correctly, Michelle's grandparents were both passed when she was in college and Robin grew up in foster care. Which is where we met actually."

"So, you're his Foster brother?" she asked.

"And Aaron's Godparent's," Mrs. Hunt.

"Well," the woman breathed deep, letting it out, not in a sigh but relief, "That solves one problem. If you two think you can manage it that is."

There was a short silence, wherein I held my breath in my lungs with a fierce refusal to let go. I didn't exhale until Mr. Hunt spoke again, "God knows we never expected this."

"Expected what?" I tried and failed to ask. That is strange, I thought to myself, trying and failing to feel as nonchalant about the whole thing as the voice in my head was. The tension returned and I dug deep inside myself and found panic, plain, pure and unpleasant panic. I couldn't remember why when I looked inside, but I felt loss. I swear it in my bones I felt it, like you would a knife in the heart.

My breath quickened and I forced my eyes open against the offending bright of the Hospital lights. My head still felt like it was underwater, struck repeatedly like a bell, but I could make out Aileen and Nick, standing with a woman in a white coat. Aileen's eyes bore the signs of sleepless nights and Nick stood, as I had never seen him before. Shoulders hunched and I swear if his wife's arm wasn't wrapped around his waist he would have simply collapsed from the weight of the world.

I felt a heat rising in me. It started in my belly and rolled through me. I wanted to scream, but I settled for a whiny whimper. A rustling across my left arm began and I felt a weight I hadn't realized had been there, shift. Her fiery auburn hair tickled at my skin, sending a cold shiver down my spine. Those brilliant blue eyes found mine and smiled, shortly, sadly. It was no sort of smile to greet a long-lost friend. That sort of smile did not belong here, in this room, with this pain. That sort of smile belonged in happy places, where the world turned true, and all was as it was meant to be. This hospital bed, the walking dead stances of Aileen and Nick Hunt, the loss burning inside me. They were given this smile, made from equal parts, I'm sorry and I'm glad you're alive. I knew it then, knew it in my bones. I shed a tear and shut my eyes. I heard Lily release breath and returned her head to the crook between my chest and arm as my pretend sleep became corporeal.

Chapter 3:

My stay in the wretched Hospital amounted to a little more than a week. Three days of which were lost in the long sleep that followed the accident. The Hunts revealed the truth as soon as I awoke the next day. Therein lay days where I was all at once, happy to be alive, afraid as to precisely how I would continue living, and wondering what twist of fate allowed me to walk away from what happened with little more than a concussion and about 40 stitches. The shards of glass that had caused the majority of my injuries also scored a deep cut across my neck. Lucky to be alive doesn't tell the half of it. Had I been resting on my side I would be in a very different room of that Hospital, less precisely one head. Instead, Dr. Martin gave me a very lenient prognosis of a genuinely sad shoulder shrug when I wrote, "When will I speak again?"

My stay ended with a black dress shirt and pants, carrying flowers to a funeral for two. The Hunts were there, encouraging words, encouraging hands on my shoulders, encouraging smiles. I still wept. For hours, straight through the service, straight through the ride to the headstones carved far too soon. I wept as they were put to rest. I wept as Aileen, Nick, and others said their final words to them. The tears continued to fall on the car ride to the Hunts' home, head resting on Lily's shoulder, no doubt making a mess of her black sweater.

That night I felt precisely as alive as a zombie. The TV played as my head rested on her knees. It wasn't the worst day of my life, that day should be obvious, but it was close. Close because I felt everything. It didn't just happen off stage. It played out in front of me. Then it played again through my head. My mind finally gave me some freedom when it allowed me to sleep. I put one more day behind me as I woke on the floor in front of the couch, bundled up in blankets.

The days that followed were not so bad as to call them trying times. The Hunts were fantastic people. Being so near my best friend again was nice, but it was not everything I hoped it'd be when my parents set off on that drive. Who could think things would ever be the same after that?

I lived those days as if reading off a script of my life before. Cast changes in the role of parents evident. I simply couldn't bring myself to actually live, instead, I acted the part. That is not to say there were no comforts, but the Hunts could not hang around me 24/7. Those times I got lost in my own head are still some of the most terrifying memories of my life.

Chapter 4:

High school was set to start in the fall, three months removed from my tragedy. My voice came back before the leaves turned, but I found myself remaining silent more often than not. Lily and I took very different paths into our freshman years. It seemed she made a new friend every day, and who could blame them. She was, in fact, a total nerd, stylish glass frames notwithstanding. Lily breezed through her classes, joined volleyball, then basketball, then track. She seemed to weave through those arbitrary constructs we name social cliques like it was second nature.

And me, well, I had precisely two friends, besides Lily. To say I was given a reputation early on would be putting it mildly. Not a week in, someone had recognized my name, put two and two together, and a month into my high school life I was Orphan Aaron. I would like to say children are decent human beings, but the vast majority are not. At least not in that piranha tank that is high school.

I went through my classes. I did my work well enough to manage honor grades, but my heart was never in it. I found some reprieve in Mr. Avery's English class. His reading list, apparently meant for the whole semester, was done in a matter of a couple weeks.

"I've finished this," I held the list out to his waiting hand.

He adjusted his glasses from where they rested in his deep brown hair and cleared his throat. "What's this then," he said in what I believed to be some trumped up act of his forty-year-old agedness, "Just move on to the next one once you've finished one."

He held the list out to me in an exaggerated shooing gesture. "There is no next one." I replied.

He first scrutinized me with his glasses still on, then removed them and repeated himself. "Hmm, finished you say?" I nodded. "The whole thing?" I nodded again. "All twenty books." This time I tilted my head and gave him a look somewhere between a glare and disbelief. He instantly started laughing. "Well then, what did you like most?" I tried to point to the name on the list, but he scoffed and chided, "Speak boy. Use words. Full sentences if possible."

I bristled but choked it down. "I enjoyed The Hobbit."

He grinned from ear to ear, "Most educators wouldn't teach Tolkien, not because it's not great literature," he fixed me with an overly serious look, "Because it is." He smiled again, "They don't teach it because most feel fantasy is somehow inferior to the great fiction of the turn of the century." He thought for a moment, "What did you like most about it?"

I almost smiled in remembrance and forced out the longest string of words I'd spoken in almost half a year, which admittedly wasn't some epic soliloquy. "The world he builds," I struggled to find the words, "It's almost like I could close my eyes, open them again and be there. It's strange and dark and beautiful and nothing at all like here, all at once."

He must have stared at me, open mouthed and unblinking, for at least a minute. "I half expected some rant about how female elves were hot or how much you'd like to see some sort of dwarf ultimate fighting league."

It was my turn to stare unblinking, until he spoke again, "I mean, you're fourteen. I would hazard a guess that at least, at least," he repeated with emphasis, "Half of the kids in my classes won't read a single book on that list." He looked at me seriously, "The other 49% will read just enough to get by."

I felt his eyes on me, as if waiting for some retort, asking for my input on the matter. I thought for a moment and just said the first thing that came to mind, "Sometimes, it's nice to get out of my own head."

This time, when his eyes changed, I knew he knew my past. I saw those same emotions I saw through most people's eyes when they saw me. Mixed in with the sadness were sorrow and pity, and a few other variants thereof. I didn't blame him. He had a heart, and empathy, and felt some small percentage of my pain. A moment in his mind, in my shoes. It was enough to make anyone shiver. He collected himself, brushed the knees of his pants twice and found a pen. He began scribbling as he started talking, "Well then, we'll just have to find you a few more things to occupy your time." He paused his writing, pondering a moment then looking over to me, "Anything on that list too hard for you?"

I shook my head no, "A few words I didn't know, but that's what dictionaries are for."

He returned to his list, with more gusto. Finishing it, he handed it to me and pointed to the top section, "These are some other books, similar to Tolkien." His finger moved to a group of books in the middle, "These are some higher-level books, a couple will be on next semester's list. A few others you likely wouldn't read for a couple years," He shrugged and continued, moving his finger to the last group of, "They're just some personal favorites of mine. And this is for if you really liked The Hobbit." It was just six words, "Read The Lord of the Rings." I snickered and he smiled. "You know musicians have even been inspired to write songs about some of Tolkien's works, like some modern-day bards."

"Misty Mountain Hop," I replied.

He tilted his head and asked, "You're 14, what do you know about Led Zeppelin?"

I almost replied, almost gave him an honest to goodness explanation of why I knew of Led Zeppelin. I almost threw in way too many facts about a past gone. I almost even said a single word, but I didn't. I just shrugged, hiding, once again, inside my shell like a turtle. It was not the most artistic exit to a conversation, but there it ended. In its place, a new friend found. Strange that the first one that would even talk to me was a teacher, but hey, beggars can't choose and all that.

The second such friend, and the only one my age came as an indirect result of another tragedy. It was winter, far too cold outside in the chill clime of the Midwest to be outside, so gym class was held in the stuffy, slightly moldy smelling basketball gym. A very undignified game of dodge ball began. The coed class split between two sides, captains choosing their fodder. I, naturally, was chosen near the end. I was never particularly muscled, but the months of, for lack of a better explanation, ambling through life, had done little to improve my look. I noticed Lily on the other side, chatting with a couple of her friends. Their captain was, despite my limited interactions with him, a boy, and I use that term intentionally, named Dan, that I genuinely did not like.

Some people simply are toxic and that was Dan to a dictionary definition. I can boil his character down to one concise event. I once came upon him, in the halls of our illustrious school, deep in the mocking of a small group of special-ed kids. The exaggerated noises, the faked hand movements, he played it up to his fullest, all with a smile. To speak my reaction in a word, appalled. I quietly got the attention of a teacher, who extracted the offending teen from his revel. Since that day, I did my best to steer clear, but fate was not always so kind. He would mock the same few lines I'd heard dozens of times. It did little to me, I quickly developed thick skin, and he often grew bored.

On that day, as the last few kids were chosen, I noticed him moving closer to Lily and her friends. He smiled his slimy smile, said some words I couldn't hear, unlikely to be noteworthy even if I could, to be honest. When his hand touched her elbow I stood still, locked in place for an indeterminate amount of time. She shrugged him off and he retreated to his own group of friends, no doubt to develop some meathead strategy of how to pummel their opponents into submission.

Our team's captain was a girl named Jessie. Let me suffice it to say she was not a sort to be found wearing sundresses. She dyed her hair a new color every couple of weeks. Currently it was deep blue and pulled into a tight tail. She had a certain allure to her that is hard to describe. She was quite good looking. A little over 5'6" curvy and tan with soft facial features. I dare say, had she forgone her customary punk band shirt of the day, currently Black Flag, and insert color here jeans, for a cheerleading skirt and some pom-poms she would likely as not be homecoming queen. However, like all people, we are more than what is on the surface.

The game was starting when Lily caught me staring off into space. She skipped closer and smiled, an ominous one. She held out her hand and the smile turned wicked, "Truce?"

"That afraid of me?" I joked.

She held her hand out again, exaggerating. "What, don't trust me?" Her voice was picturesque innocence.

"Nope," I replied, yet I held my hand out anyway.

"See, not so hard, was it?" she joked as she skipped away.

I made a mental note to keep my eye on her. When it came to things of real importance, honest to goodness events, she was solid as a rock. However, I'd learned a long time ago, when it came to games, she was a certified trickster. She was Loki in a skirt.

The first balls flew in the mindless flurry of potential concussions, and I managed, no doubt to my barely average athletic talents, to stick around as the teams thinned. I still kept one eye on Lily but had to keep dodging. It came down to 5 on 5 and suddenly everything devolved into madness. Dan knocked out two people on my side as Jessie got one of theirs before Lily found another one of ours. It was 4 on 2. Jessie threw, missing Dan by an inch, it found the one behind him though and suddenly a ball flew by me straight for Jessie. She snatched it out of midair and it was even again. A couple balls flew by for each side and we stood our ground. Then it proceeded to go downhill fast.