In the year that I had just turned 18, I had come to high school a religious zealot, heavy with the residual dogma of my former private Christian school's teachings. The world outside those modest (but not so humble) walls was a heathen, blasphemous devil's playground full of sinners who lived in unholy ignorance. I was disposed of the school a warrior in the name of God's army, sent on my crusade to heal the land and drive out the folly of my fellow man. But on the outside I seemed enigmatic, distant, and even wise. Signature golden blonde hair and prize blue eyes. My features were always slightly feminine and often seemed veiled by a sadness as if I were inwardly mourning some depth of secrets of which I never spoke. And even though I was only fourteen, I already felt weary from the weight that my spiritual quest had laid upon me. Prior to the two years at the private Christian school, I had dabbled in Buddhism, Agnosticism, and, for a brief time, the more shallow and trendy forms of various pagan practices. I was trying to satisfy a spiritual itch. But it all came with the added knowledge that religion itself could never fill me the way I had hoped. I knew my current holy war was a vanity fair but I suppressed that feeling until I could ignore it.
As that boy, I came out of the the private school and into a public high school. The clash of going from one to the other was exhilarating and eventually shook me out of the daze of my Christian mindset. At last I was exposed to other spiritual beliefs and shockingly different people. I fell immediately into the currents of teenage social hierarchy, swept back and forth from one social circle to another, taking in the entire experience and learning from it. Although I was certainly "qualified", as it were, and welcomed to be part the in crowd, I was far too pensive by nature and eternally troubled and sad. So I was embraced by the druggies. A group of young and beautiful outcasts who lived in a private world of pleasure, emotion, and narcotics. They were reincarnated directly from the 60s. They needed their drugs to alleviate the pain of their existence. Poverty, discontent, abandonment... this was their world and they reveled in their company, worshiping the beautiful enigma of each other even if they did occasionally fight violently and vandalize all that was not their own. Yet in all their self-destruction they invariably created an art of their very lives. Tragic beauty. Every one of them was so sad and that sorrow became them like chords on strings. Death itself was well acquainted with them, having come so near to claiming each of them at one time or another that it was quite a wonder that some of them were still alive. They spent their lives mourning the insurmountable condition of themselves and each of them privately clung to secret hopes that they would someday find someone to rescue them out of their despair. Someone, anyone, other than themselves. That's why they chose me to look up to. Because I was exactly the same as them and yet I was infinitely more powerful, especially because I abstained from their self-deprecating habits and drug-induced euphorias. So powerful enough that I was their spiritual messiah in their faithless hearts. I had never before been needed the way they needed me then.
They were all different on the outside. Kirsten and Mary were best friends, one bleach-blonde and the other pale and sullen. Above all else, they loathed Christianity and the social flourish they never attained or reached out for. Russell was a poet and actor who loved the Beatles and Hendrix. He was also a Buddhist who devoted his mind to enlightenment, his body to hash, and his heart to his artistic nature. Then there were the faceless jesters. Those whom fit in no where else yet managed to find the shaded corner outside of the cafeteria and almost behind the school where we all got high. They were full of energy and moved so much faster than the rest of us. Unwise and foolish, they came and went, lasting with us only as long as they could make us laugh, then they would ban together and leave our nest to reenter the progressive pace of time. A luxury we never afforded nor wanted.
And then there was Jaymin. Jaymin Robertson. In more ancient times he would have been a god, long since forgotten, but a god nonetheless. He was strong and fit with tanned olive skin, pouting lips, deep brown eyes into which all the universe focused, and thick chocolate hair that fell in slight disheveled waves just above his shoulders. He was the perfect combination of masculine and feminine beauty. Neither one nor the other, but seductive and made for sex. Everyone fell in love with him, but no one got close to him in fear of breaking his heart any further than it already seemed to be. He was an ideal for us. Jaymin was charismatic and iconic. When he was present, everyone was different and fawned on him, suddenly roused from their despairing lethargy. Yet he never noticed. He was too removed and lost into the recesses of his infinite mind to care about the love that surrounded him. Instead, he damaged property, struck down all who crossed him, and laughed all the time. His laugh was always sincere, but very ironic. For underneath he was the extremity of what we all were: beautiful and sad. If he ever knew how powerful his image and personality really were, he could have taken over the world. But instead, he was elusive yet affable. Gregarious yet altogether absent.
I made friends with Jaymin. His bedroom eyes hypnotized me and his hand always found my skin, stroking it suggestively but always as a joke. Still, even though the way he spoke to me of love and romance and sexuality was in jest, his eyes were utterly naked, jeopardizing the vulnerable truth within. He wanted me. He wanted me to revive him and spend eternity with him, as if we two were kindred souls, vampires lost in a strange modern hell. Week after week went by and he and I spent quiet hours together after (and often during) school in the parking lot or in some hidden place on campus. The love that passed between us in those silent moments was a language that only he and I spoke. Yet still, we never acknowledge the truth of our relationship. We never spoke openly of what was going on and the emotions remained unsaid and impermanent. But after searching endlessly for another soul who understood the other so completely, we found each other in the midst of our pain that then turned to a blissful reverie. I found my new religion and he found his.
The fumes that lingered in the backseat of our friend's car were intoxicating and thrilling. It was nearing 5:30 in the afternoon, and time continued to pass strangely and quickly. We had all gathered in and around the car to smoke (except, of course myself) and talk of politics and intolerable sufferings, taking turns to tell of the injustices that were dealt each person. I fell asleep on Jaymin's chest, who was on my left behind the driver's seat. When I woke, considerable time had passed and his arm was around me and my head swam with all my overactive senses. I heard someone cough outside the car. Russell sat in front of the wheel, his head rolled back and his eyes closed. Still breathing. Kevin, who was large and had black stringy hair and a thick beard yet maintained a Jesus-look of peacefulness sat in the passenger's chair. Behind him and to my right was an already unconscious boy who had just joined our group recently and whom I never really met.
I heard the soft drone of conversation through both of the doors that were opened to let out the smoke. The warm breeze swept into the small and crowded space in the backseat. Then I felt Jaymin's hand glide down my back. I turned to look at him. His delirious eyes glittered at me but his mouth only smirked slightly.
"You're high," I said in a subdued tone, my voice muffled by the strong breeze.
"No." He drowsily shook his head and his smirk increased slightly.
"...What?"
