He was a sinner. By definition and by his own word. He became the very being your parents told you to avoid; drugs, sex, alcohol. He wasn’t, and never would be a saint. But what he never lacked was compassion, thoughtfulness, and in his own eyes-hope. For his eyes was the color of the sky after a storm. They were the beacon of hope that came from the bottom of Pandora’s Box. They held what you needed most to know, but what you’d never find out. It made you question who you are and what you were to become.
People listened to him; in a way that would make you think he was the leader, even at such a simple age. When he spoke, everyone leaned in a little closer, got a little quieter, even if it was just a joke. But oh! To peek inside his head was impossible. For was it pride, or self-punishment that made him so untouchable? That made others fear and avoid ways to try to understand his methods. And the brave ones? He lied to. For no one was allowed to see what lay beneath the surface.
You would hear his name echoed down the hall, a sheer murmur underneath the gossip and useless babble of the people he knew. And of the ones I didn’t. Shivers were sent down my spine, for reasons I couldn’t tell you. He became my guide in a world foreign to me. An “honor” I scoffed at, but a position I held dear. And were others cringed, I gazed. Not unafraid, but simply curious. Curious to why even through every smile, there was a sadness no one seemed to notice. They told me I was wasting my time, his peers, and that I was too new to understand the unspoken rules of our society. And sometimes even his eyebrows would rise when I would confront him with simple observations. Like his clenched fist, at the mention of his father, or the blur of his eyes when a certain song came on the radio. Two clouded mirrors of my own fears. But even through his walls, mask, and self-doubt-I found trust. A small drop of water in the lake of his pupils. And where he found trust-I found love; a concept he never thought existed. I opened up a door to him that remained locked for so long; he had given up on opening it.
Since then, he’s never looked back. Only forward, to a future that for the first time seemed indefinite.
So, if you would see him now, you would call him a changed man. But not I. For in my eyes, he is still the same man I bet before. He was a star that had fallen from the sky that no one wished on; an old book worn from one too many damaging hands. There is nothing I can do to change the past, but for him… I would do anything to change the future; to make sure this one star never dies out.
For I do not believe in miracles, but I do believe in second chances.