He Left Me Alone

His dark hazel eyes. His rare smile never reaching them. I was drawn to him. At the time I wasn't aware of the significance. The summer of 2001. It was our great grandmothers funeral. I didn't know her all that well, living hundreds of miles away tends to limit how well you can get to know anyone especially without the technology that's available now. We sat on the bins in front of the garage talking and smoking. I don't remember what we spoke about now. Tattoos, family and work I suppose. I was only 12, but I was drawn to him as the perfect role model. I looked up to him. I was smitten.

Occasionally I would hear snippets about him, my uncle periodically letting some information out about their family to my mother and sometimes that would then find it's way to my ears. He didn't mean much to my mother. She hates tattoos and smoking. He was everything that my mother frowned upon. I can still see his short shaven dark hair, his tattoos licking up his neck. His slim figure just perfect. He was my idol. The sadness from his eyes seeping into my heart, making my blood race. I would give anything to have the chance to sit in a room with just him. To be able to share our fix together. To share our pain.

When the call came from my mother telling me he was dead I was numb. I didn't cry. I didn't scream. I felt nothing. Everyone tried to persuade me not to go to the funeral. It was a 300 mile drive. The family would understand why I couldn't go but how could I abandon him. How could I loose him forever without saying goodbye. So I went. Against my families wishes. Against everyone's advice. I left after college. Drove all the way to the outback of no where. It was nothing like I expected. Built up, used, and abused. Oldham seemed quite scary in the dark. I woke up to a punctured tyre the next day. His family seemed both amazed and pleased to see me. I felt like I was in the spot light, uncomfortable, but I was there for him. The man who should have been my best friend.

So many people I didn't know coming up to me. Thanking me for being there. 'He would have appreciated it'. Reminiscing of our great grandmothers funeral. Each person telling me how he didn't speak to anyone easily, but seeing us together on the bins that day had proved that we had a natural connection. I wish I could tell someone what that connection was but no one would understand like he did. I wish I'd known how close we could have been before it was all too late. We could have spoken to each other more. Maybe it might not have ended like this.

Spending time at his grandparents house, where our great grandmothers wake had been, I couldn't help but stare out at the garage. Where the bins still were. Where years earlier we had sat and connected. The first and last place I had ever met with him. What I would give to sit on those bins again and smoke away. Taking with him, bringing out the smile it seemed that he reserved for me. The smile that never ever reached his eyes. I will never forget the way he would look at people but not quite see them. His eyes always masking too much pain that he just couldn't hide any more. I must have known back then. He was only 17. That he had already tried it. If he was anything like me probably more than once.

It makes me wonder where I will be in 5 years time. As school came to an end we were told to write down where we would be in 5 years time. Eight years later I am no further on than where I was then. No goals accomplished. Nothing to my name. In five years time, will I be six feet under? Will I be with him? Will he have waited for me wherever he has gone to, or will he have moved on? Will he truly be in a better place now than where he was here? Maybe there is no longer anything I can do for him. Maybe he is better off without me. Maybe he doesn't need me any more than anyone else does.

I miss him so much. My heart breaks when I think of the times we could have had together, the memories we missed out on. I spent the next day exploring Manchester. Thinking of how he would have grown up hanging out and shopping in the city centre, visiting all the sites and museums that I kept myself busy with all day. I finally gave up imagining and pretending, that he could have been to all these places and might have been there with me had things turned out differently, and made the 300 mile drive home in the dark.

February 2016, four months after his death. The pain will never fade. I will always wonder if I could have made a difference. Whether if we had be able to meet up again, if we had been able to talk, online or on the phone, might he still be here. Might I be with him. In heaven or hell. I could have been happy and content forever now it's all gone. On the 'seventh' attempt he took his life, because he couldn't cope with being alone and mixed up any more. Now he has left me alone, for the rest of my life. When he was alive even if we weren't close I was never as empty as I am now. I want him back. Or I want to be with him, sharing stories, admiring tattoos, understanding each other.

I want to go back to Oldham now. I want to see him on my own. I want to talk to him, ask him what he thinks I should do. I can't explain to anyone why I would be going up there though so I have no way of escaping alone and no way of justifying why I would need to go up there on my own. It's a lonely life being unable to do what you want without having to justify yourself to your family. When you're in my situation with your whole family watching every step you take, not wanting you to follow in his footsteps, it makes it very hard to live your own life and do what you want. Why did he have to leave me here alone.