Once upon a time, many years ago, in a world filled with shades of gray, there was a lost boy and a lost girl who somehow managed to find each other. They became lovers, but this is not a love story.

Shy and yet sure of each other, they surrendered their virginity for the closeness they felt in each other's hold. She had never kissed lips before his had touched hers and he had never experienced the fire that burned inside of his chest before she put it there.

Yet the feel of flesh alone was not enough for them. They yearned to be ever closer, bound to each other in deeper ways. The girl found herself with a craving that the boy was very willing to satisfy. Blood was shared on their thirsty tongues as they each tasted the flavor of the others life. They breathed in each other's breath and swore promises of love. Love.

They found themselves smiling, happy. They were enjoying life and eager to wake in the mornings. Every new day was another day that they could be together. Until the night that the girl was led away in handcuffs for something that she did not do and their lives were forced to change course.

She was held for no more than four days and released on Christmas to live in a place that felt more like a prison than a home.  She was told that she would soon be sent to live out of state and there was nothing that she could do about it. She was only a couple of months into fourteen years and yet the girl was ready to die, but the boy was not ready to let her.

They stole what time together they could. She didn't have to tell him of her plan to kill herself because he knew. He knew and he had found a way around it, a way to escape the pain and be together, so that maybe they could smile again.

They sat high on a rocky crevice with their legs dangling over the edge, tide pools below them, the ocean making mild waves out in front of them. That was when he told her of the plan and that was when she accepted it. He saved her life that day and she began to feel hope again. His eyes were hope for her.

Yes, she would follow him. She would follow him anywhere.    

Time went by and they prepared for their journey, confiding the truth in only a few and telling premeditated lies to the rest. They were broken up. He was moving with his family and she was running away to Los Angeles before the summer could take her to that place where she refused to go. These were the lies that they told.

The morning that she left, she knew that she was not coming back and yet she did not hesitate. She was determined to survive. She was determined to live with love and he was determined to have her. Her feet carried her away from the past while her heart pulled her into her future - a future where his arms awaited her and she would never feel unwanted again.

But things were not as they seemed. Out of his fear of losing her, he chose to betray her. He led her into a situation that he omitted very necessary truths about. He led her in thinking that no matter what happened, he could protect her. But his dishonesty hung there between them, the realization of it never spoken but acknowledged all the same. The girl was resilient and though stung, she loved the boy no less. Her love could never be questioned, only her trust.

Then the day came when he had to go away. She felt a strange pang in her heart when he boarded the bus, a pang that warned her that he would not be back as soon as they planned. He left her among predators. Fortunately the girl was strong and knew how to handle beasts, how to keep them tame enough to get through the wait. She knew how to block them from feasting on her mind, though the attempts were often made.

The girl knew how to survive, and so she did.

The months passed. Holidays came. Holidays went. She had been told that he had sold her out. She had been shuffled to new places for safety. The girl could not be found, not even by the authorities who were searching for her. She saw them, but they did not see her. The only one who could get to the girl was the boy. He could solve the puzzle and even though she was told that he had turned on her, forgotten her, moved on from her, she knew that he would come. Not one day went by that she didn't believe that his heart was still true and that he would come. She was called foolish, but she held her belief. She knew that no matter her name, no matter her location, her hair color or length, he would come and he would love her every bit as much as when they had first found each other amidst shades of gray.

Finally one day, after many months, nearly a year, he did. He came just as she always knew he would and the sight of him, his beautiful tortured eyes, stopped the beating of her heart and stole her breath away. Then the boy and girl touched and her heart and breath began again and they smiled.

Still, he did not tell her all of the truths and slowly she came to understand that this boy who had returned to her was not the boy that had boarded that bus at all and she did not know how to reach him. She could not solve the puzzle to find him, though she tried.

Their risks led them away from the mountains where the girl had lived in hiding for two years. Eventually they ended up back in the same place where they had began and yet it was still an impostor who wore the boy's skin and the girl knew that she had lost her love after all.  

Though he could be gentle there was also a rage burning inside of him and the girl knew that it could not be contained forever. She would try soothing him, but eventually that fire would flicker and his grip would tighten. The girl came to feel as though she were making love to the boy's murderer.  This impostor was not trying to make her happy, he was only trying to make her his. He wanted to possess the girl, to claim her, but the girl could not be owned. She would be no man's possession.

She would at times push the boy. She would test his limits and when the fury would show itself, she would absorb the energy of it and she would stain her mind with the murderer's face, so that she would not forget. She would not let her love weaken her. If her love could not bring the boy back, then her strength would have to cast his impostor away. Then came the day when she realized that his light was gone for good.

The knife was a threat that she would not accept and she wrestled with him to take it away. She wrestled with him and then she held him. She looked into his eyes and the girl betrayed the boy. She lied to him to save herself. Once upon a time, he had saved her life and now she found herself fighting to survive this harsh new version of him. The girl betrayed the boy and her own heart. She buttered her words and then sent him away with false hope as his guide. The girl had already decided that her path must continue without him.   

Upon the discovery of her lies, he became more enraged than ever, but the girl had made sure that he was far away and could not reach her. She flooded her mind with the memories of the vicious imposter and blocked him from her sympathies, believing him a murderer of the person that she loved more than any other.

As he descended further into the darkness, she fought harder for the light.

She went on to marry the opposite of him and he fathered a child with someone that he did not love. The girl and the boy became woman and man in lives separate from each other and the girl made sure that she could not be found. Yet she could often feel him searching somewhere in the distance through the night, through shades of gray and black. She knew that some day he would find her, some day he would come for her again.

In the early years, there would be occasional communication. He would leave a phone number and she would block her identity and call to see what he wanted. She would be cold on the calls and keep her husband nearby. She would poke and prod and purposely anger the boy, now man. She would anger him to be reminded of the darkness he had become. Eventually the calls no longer came and she decided that she was glad for it.

The years passed, more than decade faded by.

Then one day, the girl, now woman and no longer wife, received a message from the man. It was directly to her and she realized that she had been found. All the terror in the world seemed to seize her at that moment. She wanted to run, to leave as fast as she could, but she knew that she could not. The woman had given her life to others. She had sought solace in a cause and would hold true to her commitment, no matter the price.

The man sent her many messages and at first she replied to none. She watched him through his words. She observed and contemplated and worried. His obsessing seemed to confirm for her that he was indeed still mad and that helped her to not reach back for him. It helped her to not allow thoughts of the boy to override the memories of the impostor.


Then he shared a journal entry and her terror was replaced by terrible heartache.  He told her the things that she had needed to know all of those years ago. He answered the questions that she had always needed to ask. He explained his descent into the dark. As she read his words, her world began to spin and her hard-earned defenses began to weaken.

Once upon a time, she knew that the only one who could find her was the boy, but what she did not know, was the level of Hell and abuse that he would have to endure to get to her. The woman felt sick at this new discovery. The boy that she had loved so dearly had willingly sacrificed himself to the impostor in order to save the girl yet again. A great guilt came to crush the woman at that moment and she came to question every decision that she had made since she had chosen to betray him.

Still she could not risk letting him inside of her heart. The woman convinced herself that what he felt was not love, but an obsession. She finally made a reply to him and made him swear that he would not come for her and then she watched his words again without giving him response. She received many more messages without encouragement and watched for the flicker of rage and accusation.

There were things that she read that she was uncomfortable with. She thought the man was much too repetitive in his claims of conquering his demons. She thought it seemed more like he was trying to convince himself of the story that he was trying to sell her. Like if he swore it enough, it would suddenly be true. Yet she could not wash the words from his journal away and her mind constantly returned to it.

One night after he had not contacted her for 24 hours, she decided it might be safe to block her number and call him. It was awkward at first and she had her walls firmly in place. She told him that it was likely the last time he would ever hear from her and so he should just say whatever he needed to say. The man spilled his heart out to her and she fought the urge to repay him in kind. He didn't sound so much crazy as he did broken.

Time passed and the woman began to realize that she could not keep to her resolution to not call him again. Little by little her defenses began to chip away. Crumble, crumble, fall – the walls came down and she was on the phone with him again. The more he spoke, the more she hungered to listen. She sat entranced as he would recount his memories of her and as he did so, the woman began to remember as well. She began to remember herself through his voice. She had been thinking that she might find the boy through these calls, but instead she was also learning what it felt like to once again find herself.

Her tears would fall in silence as she felt the ice melt away from her fiercely guarded heart. When he would say that he had to go, she would find herself not wanting him to and she would ask him to stay and remember more for her. She would close her eyes and go back to that time when a boy and a girl would smile together and she would feel wanted.

The man told her that he had never stopped loving her and that in the few relationships he had been in since, it was always her face that he was searching for. He told her about how he had to reach rock bottom so that he could learn to pull himself back up and be a stronger person. He told her about dreams and feelings he had about her through the years and she realized that she had been having the same ones about him. That they had always danced this pattern and all the years meant nothing because they could still feel each other's presence every bit as strongly. More than a decade later she still craved the copper taste of his blood on her tongue and the feel of his arms around her. He had found her again, just as she always knew that he would.

The man was always so sure that they would be together again, but the woman could not understand how he could be so certain that the years would return them to each other. She did not hold the same belief that love could conquer all or that they really could go home again. Yet she had to know and so she asked him to come in late October. She asked him to stay in a hotel and please not try to kill her. Though it all made her wonder if perhaps she was now the impostor, the one who had buried the girl that the boy had loved so dearly. The woman asked herself if she would have the courage to dig her back up and face the past that she had spent so long forsaking.  She did not have the answer.

The woman told the man that the trip did not mean that they were back together, only that she was willing to see him again even if all they were to ever have would exist only in the few days of his visit. The woman no longer believed in the false fairy tale of forever. She just knew that she had to see him one more time to find out.

And now the countdown begins. The man and the woman speak regularly as they await late October. They speak and they find themselves smiling again. The man feels hope and the woman finds herself allowing him in against her better judgment.

One night, she let her guard down completely and asked him to do her a favor. She asked that he hold her in his dreams, so that when she eventually slept, she would know that his arms were around her and she was no longer alone. He told her that he was always holding onto her, that he had never let go.

Then one day the man asked the woman for a favor as well.  He asked her to write something. She asked what sort of something and he told her anything, so long as it was meant for him. And so the woman sat at her computer, stared at the screen for a moment, and then began to type up a story about a boy and a girl who became lovers, but it was not a love story.

It was a story about age and survival, a story about deep sadness and longing, lies and truths. It was a story about forgiveness, a story about forgiving others and desperately trying to find a way to forgive oneself. It was not a story meant to have a happy ending because there are some things which never end.

October seems forever away.