It starts with meeting at a five year old's birthday party. You've both got cake on your faces, and sparkles in your eyes, and you make sickly sweet promises to be friends forever. And it starts with sticky hands clasped together, and big eyes given to mothers to beg for playdates.
And both mothers look on fondly as you play together, your world shrunk to just the two of you.
It starts quietly, and before you notice it, he becomes your whole world.
It continues with school, and peewee hockey. You've always had each other's backs, and hockey is just an extension of that. You're brothers, on and off the ice, and between the two of you, you take the peewee league by storm, and become the force to be reckoned with.
At school, the two of you are inseperable, and there's hell to pay when you don't end up in the same classroom. You walk around with hands clasped, and side-by-side swings. Kendall and James.
It continues with the vow that you'll be married when you're older.
And then Carlos and Logan join your little ragtag band, and your world becomes just that little bit bigger. You convince them to join hockey, and you really become a force to be reckoned with out on the ice.
And the four of you become brothers, in everything except blood, and the world seems perfect for a while. And with James by your side, you feel like you can do anything. And you reach out to hold his hand to keep him by your side forever and always.
And then your dad leaves and the world falls apart.
You spend days in the tree house you and your dad built together, and you wonder what went wrong. You wonder if it was your fault. And your world is falling apart, and your heart is breaking, and James comes, because James always knows. And James holds you, and helps you pick up the pieces, and you grow up far faster than you wanted too. And your world view has changed, and there is no such thing as happily ever after.
And you're only ten years old, and you feel too young, and too old, and there is no such thing as love.
And if you no longer reach out to hold James's hand, well then you pretend not to notice.
Time passes, and one day you're eleven and spending every free minute on the ice, and then the next you're sixteen and working in a grocery store.
And you're still playing hockey, and it's become your whole world, and instead of dreams of long summer days spent with your best friend as you did when you were six, you dream of hockey scholarships and girls, and you have your three best friends, and your world is as perfect as it can get.
And then Gustavo comes and flips your world upside down.
And you trade bitter Minnesota winters for sunny California summers, and ice skating rinks for days spent by the pool. And you cling to your best friends in those moments, because besides your mom and sister, they're all you have in this crazy mixed up world that is Los Angeles.
And you promise not to let the town change you, but you look at James, and his eyes are sparkling, and you feel butterflies in your gut, and maybe just maybe some things can change.
You remember a promise of forever whispered at six years old.
And then Jo comes along, and you push down the thoughts of James because Jo is safe. Jo is good. Being with Jo feels like days spent on a picnic blanket, the world quiet and calm around you, as you watch the clouds float by. And you fall in love.
At least that's what you tell yourself when you gasp awake in the deepest parts of the night with a very different name on your lips. And you calm your racing heart, because you are not going down that path. It's dangerous, and James is unpredictable, and James is special. Everytime you look at James, it feels like you're teetering on the edge of the cliff, to afraid to jump, but unable to turn back.
And if Jo was like warm summer days on a picnic blanket, then James is cold winter nights, when the weather is unpredictable, unrelenting, and you weather out the storm. James is a tsunami, like waves crashing along the shore, and it empties and fills you all at once. And any time he touches you, it is like electricity, and you feel it in your hands, your stomach, your feet, in your skin. And James could hurt you in the worst ways possible, and he could break you, and make you ache, and long for it. And you're only sixteen, but James could easily be your forever. Your destiny
And then Jo leaves, and you mourn for what could have been. And you mourn for your life in Minnesota, when the nights were clear, and the world was small enough to fit just two people.
And you long to escape this city of lights, and this city of people, and you long to just get in a car and drive, and you don't know where you'd go, but you want the world to stretch in front of you, and minutes to feel like an eternity, and everything to be simple again.
Because in this town, nothing is ever simple.
And you never wanted this, but maybe it's what you were meant to be doing all along.
And you spend a lot of time thinking about destiny, and fate, and inevitability, and forever.
And you're too afraid to jump, but unable to turn back.
So you teeter at the edge of a cliff.