Friendship with Michael didn’t start out in any remarkably noteworthy way. I don’t even recall our first interaction, but something about him seemed interesting to me. Maybe it was a shared apathy for some of our assignments, or maybe it was some kind of shared interest - what that would’ve been is lost to time - or maybe it was just good old fashioned predation. When it came to targets, mine was pretty hard to miss; new kid in school, younger than everyone else, and eager to please anyone and everyone. The only way I could’ve drawn more attention to a predator would’ve been to wear a hat that had the word “VULNEREABLE” stitched across it in bright red thread.
Over some period of time, Michael started to hang around my house. This was a big deal for me, because I’d never had the chance to host anyone! My sisters’ boyfriends and friends were in and out of our house growing up, and my little brother was starting to do the same with his kindergarten friends. But, for whatever reason, all of my friends tended to stay away and we met elsewhere. Some of that probably had to do with the fact I didn’t ever make that many friends, but it was still a nice shift. It also meant that Michael got to know my younger brother, coincidentally also named Michael.
Most of our time together consisted of watching cartoons and playing video games (or Bideo James, if one is so inclined), occasionally doing something outside in the front yard. That was where I was in my element, because I absolutely loved to play outside. Throughout my early childhood, that was something that was consistent, and I’d slowly graduate from an old sun-bleached plastic tricycle, to a Razor scooter that annihilated my ankles way too many times, to a bicycle that my dad pretended to speed check, and told me I broke so many world records speeding down our slightly sloped driveway as the sun gave its blessing and let the sky paint our street inky violet.
What made playing outside so much fun to me was the imaginative aspect of it all; in my eyes, the sidewalk was never just a sidewalk, it was one little street that would end up mapped onto a larger grid. The walkways up to the patio in front of my house were the highways, leading to smaller arterial streets along the path to the hose and side gates, where they finally emptied into the imaginary residential streets, neatly organized in my head, with imaginary lines projected onto the concrete to keep track. That’s what the entire sidewalk, all the way to the corner looked like, to me, and it felt like my domain. My world for my eyes only, and I loved that. I wanted to share that with people, have them join me on my “commute” from my side gate to the neighbors’ garage, because we’d get to go all the way across town.
Becoming friends with Michael was like inviting Godzilla to a governmental summit about better collaboration between towns. I never felt like I could share this imaginative little fantasy land with him, after trying to do so once and being immediately ridiculed. That was pretty much the dynamic that had been established and expected, by now, so I never put up much of a fight. I can’t pinpoint what might’ve been the “first” rejection, but knowing how the rest of our time as friends went, I’m sure that it was just the first of hundreds of instances thereof.
It didn’t bother me that I had to give up my perception of the world to stay friends with Michael; on the contrary, I really soaked up the experience to create memories in reality, ones that felt more tangible than not. Memories of spicy fingertips, coated in Chex Mix dust, late nights burning into early mornings, and squabbles over who would drive and who would throw items in the 32-course cup for Mario Kart are some of the brightest that I have. Not just throughout this period of my life, but throughout my life. In isolation, they take me back to moments where all the loss I’d brought into my life, all the pain, confusion, and sacrifice, had been worthwhile. For a few frozen moments that had been preserved in a vacuum, Michael and I were just like any other pair of best friends.
That’s the fucked up thing about abuse though, right?
All of those memories have to co-exist with the others, with the pain and cruelty. Sure, we stayed up together watching Spongebob Squarepants when they had the 24-hour marathon, but was it worth being belittled for liking the episodes I liked? Or for being made to give up my spot on the bed and to sit on the floor instead?
Sure, I got to experience a buzzing summer night under the floodlights of the backyard in the pool, just as idyllic as it’s been since the genesis of post-war Americana. But, that night, I remember the very first time Michael revealed his true feelings toward me.
We were standing in the shallow water, and he’d begun to spin a yarn about how he was all-powerful, and that he’d been able to teleport his own younger brother somewhere and back in the blink of an eye. I remember looking at him, gobsmacked and a little skeptical; after a bit of protest, he asked me if I would be willing to give it a try. Now, in hindsight, as an academically advanced nine year old, I really shouldn’t have believed this. And even today, I still feel like a complete moron for having gone along with it at all. But under the humming lights in the still water, with no one else around, I felt like I should trust my friend. After all, he was my best friend, wasn’t he?
As soon as I’d affirmed that I’d try, Michael asked me to close my eyes and to empty my thoughts. He said he’d count to some number, probably thirty, and then I’d be somewhere else. But! The key of it was, I couldn’t actually open my eyes, I could only think about doing so. If I opened my eyes beforehand, I would get lost in the teleportation sequence. So, I did just that, and when I imagined opening my eyes, I saw… nothing. Duh. But Michael narrated the scene for me; suddenly, I’d been phased onto an empty highway in the middle of the desert. He asked if I could see the sand and the cracked pavement, and I said yes.
Then, he asked me to turn around, and as soon as I told him I had, he said, LOOK OUT!, because there was a massive truck coming at me, full speed. He grabbed me in real life and told me to open my eyes. To this day, I can still feel how my face was contorted in fear and confusion, and when I opened my eyes for real, he was looking right at me.
He’d let go of me and I moved back to my own little patch of pool, and in his face, I saw him trying to hide a smile. But behind that, there was nothing. Not any kind of feigned concern, no childlike amusement, nothing. Just a sadistic grin that had made its way onto his face. He asked if I was okay, and told me that the next time, he’d leave me there for the truck to hit me.
I don’t remember him ever trying to play that trick on me again. And really, it was a pretty harmless trick. Cruel? Yeah. Unfair? Definitely. But would it have been abusive on its own? No way. But, I wouldn’t be forced to write this 15 years after it happened had it been the only thing weighing on me still, huh?
Growing up, I didn’t have the language to explain myself. I thought that everyone loved their friends, that everyone loved school, and that I was supposed to be as kind to everyone and as funny and lovable as possible. I’d never had any kind of severe repercussion for being that way, just some intermittent bumps along my way. But Michael was something else. It was the worst kind of coincidence that we ended up in class together in section 4B.
My parents didn’t know why I was the way I was, and they never really questioned it. I mean, what reason did they have to do so? I was well-behaved, studious, and - save for the beginning of third grade - an easy kid to handle. Especially with the stresses of my older sisters going off to college, my grandmother moving in with us for her hospice care and passing away, and my younger brother straight up existing, it makes total sense my parents never looked into my mind and how it might be different on a fundamental level. I don’t hold them accountable for that, or for anything that happened to me.
No one’s accountable for that, except Michael. That’s only something I’ve even begun to come to terms with nowadays. It’s hard to absolve oneself of any role they might’ve played in their abuse, especially the kind that lasts over a period of time. But it’s a necessary pain to bear, even if the initial pain wasn’t. Sure, my imaginary city was destroyed by a monster who I let in, but I didn’t cause that destruction. I would, however, have to find a way to put it back together. And that, sadly, never happened. Because the monster kept coming back.