When Neal was 13 he met a girl named April. She saw through his act and he stated the obvious. He called her a sociopath and was harshly accused of being a pathological liar. By the same time next year the two were 7,000 miles from home and slowly healing.

The two came across a homeless girl half their age with twice as many scars as they had between them. They spent 3 months nursing her back to health out of a generous elderly woman's house with the medicine and money Neal got from pickpocketing rich people who wouldn't miss. The little girl got better and was absolutely infatuated with the two she had come to think of as big siblings.

Neal remembered his younger brother being taken by social services when he'd gotten sloppy and his teacher spotted a dark bruise. April remembered her old 'friends' that had broken her favorite cousin's arm.

They snuck away in the middle of the night 2 days after she told them she loved them. The little girl was left in the care of the wonderful old woman with a stack of money and a glass bead with an 'A' on it. Years later, that little girl would grow up and start a world-wide known establishment for homeless children and kids that had nowhere else to go. She kept the bead and never stopped searching for her rescuers.

When Neal was 15, he pickpockets the wrong person and April pays the price. He doesn't have any money left for her gravestone.

The boy made it to Long Island, New York in a way that even he can't recall due to the drug coursing through his veins and muddling his sharp mind. From here, he had found himself lying in a heap outside much like the little girl he and April happened across, and much like a year, six months, and seven days ago, a couple saw him and brought him in. The woman's name was Ellen and her husband was called Charlie.

When Neal was 17, Charlie got shot in a drive-by shooting, having blocked him from the car with the gunman. No matter how many times Ellen would tell him it wasn't his fault she was left a widow, he believed it whole-heartedly and the idea that everyone he dared care about and allowed to care about him would end up dead because of him was only reinforced. Neal also didn't allow himself to be as selfish as he had been before, intruding on people's lives and screwing them up.

At least this time, the person he loved that had died at his hand got a gravestone. Neal was numb from the moment they lowered the coffin to the day Ellen found him sitting on the ledge of the high bridge and pulled him away. She told him that he'd better stop being a complete moron and realize that he couldn't push her away because she wasn't going anywhere.

When Neal was 17 and a half, he cried for the first time since April died because he understood that he was strong enough to face his problems. The next year, he and Ellen were 100 times better than before and were both happy.

On Neal's 19th birthday, a business partner of his father tracked him down and gave him a choice.

He could steal a famous piece of artwork and live, or he could be shot in the chest the same way Charlie had been. Neal bought a plane ticket and flew to Italy without ever telling Ellen where he was going. He changed his name, stole the painting and-out of spite created a forgery, put the painting back without getting caught, then gave the fake to the man who was responsible for the entire thing.

When Neal was 19 and 13 days old, he made a split second decision on a whim and went to Manhattan. As he was commentating what a brand new man with no record or ties to his name could do that he knew he wouldn't mess up on, he passed a side-street stand where a short guy was conning the owner out of his pocket change.

By the time Neal was 23, he and Kate were 7,000 miles away from home and slowly healing.