In the days when I was young, vulnerable, and timid, I spent most of my time at place where none of that mattered. It was called the Hiding Place. You can find the Hiding Place in the forest across from John’s Convenient Store. Yes, that forest may look intimidating from the outside, as forests often do to us urban sprawlers, but it’s actually the gentlest, most welcoming thing ever; you can just waltzed right in. Then, you have to keep walking straight and when you see a large deranged tree, look to your left. There it is, my friend; that mossy area under the broken, old bridge. There’s a lovely, little stream that cuts through its middle and smooth rocks line the edges; don’t let these go to waste. It’s a special place, it really is.
I feel like I was raised in the Hiding Place by the Hiding Place, like it was my nest and my mother.It saw me through the good, the bad, and the worse. It was the place to have a good, hearty conversation or to just sit still for hours on end and breathe. The Hiding Place was the star at the center of my existence; that large bundle of energy that all my life events orbited around. The Hiding Place knows my entire story, or at least everything that is worth knowing.
It was there that myfriend justin and I drank champagne from plastic cups on the night of my 17th birthday. justin asked me all kinds of beautiful questions that night.
“Why is your butt shaped like a ham?”
“Shut up Justin, you jerk.”
“Dude, stop pronouncing my name wrong.”
“I’m not.”
“Yeah, you are; you’re pronouncing it with a capital ‘J’.”
“Sorry justin.”
“Much better. Anyways, where are your parents.”
“Stranded in the middle of their pathetic lives.”
I don’t know what made me say things like that, but I said them often at the Hiding Place. It was where most of my thoughts were found, to be honest. Not just regular, boring, everyday thoughts like “I should be an optometrist when I grow up,” but also strange, twisted, and beautiful thoughts like “aren’t parallel lines tragic in the way they follow one another into infinity but never meet.”
That’s why every Saturday morning I would speed walk/slow run there with a notebook tucked at my side and a pen wedged behind my ear. I would take a seat, crack open the notebook, and begin to convert my white-hot teenage angst into pretentious prose about disillusionment, cognitive dissonance and the lack of selection in the school cafeteria, etc. When I was finished, I would stare at my creation, feeling like I had just crafted my magnum opus. Then I would look away for a second. I would look towards the little stream; watch the water stroll along and leap over pebbles with the elegance of those effortlessly beautiful girls who are secretly despised by all her friends. It was like I was watching perfection in its liquid form. When I looked back, all the brilliance I once saw in my writing would be missing. All that I could see was rambling; sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, non-fluid rambling. The Hiding Place was a great place to feel inspired, amazed, and then insufficient.
It was also a great place to take chicks. They always thought that I was letting them into my world, when really I was just trying to get into their pants. (I know that made me a little bit of a jerk, but I supposed that if I compensated for that by holding doors open and recycling, I’d still get a pretty good spot in heaven). I know I was being a dirty lair, but so were those girls. They pretended like they saw the Hiding Place, but really all they saw were rocks, grass, muddy puddles, and the opportunity to get a boy to need them.
Only one girl truly saw the Hiding Place. In fact, I think she saw more of it than I did. Her name was Crystal, and she had the clearest eyes on the face of the universe. I took her there on a luke-warm evening in the beginning of summer.
“This is a pretty ugly place. You actually get girls because of it?”
“Well, don’t you think that it has a certain rugged beauty or something?”
“Really, ‘rugged beauty,’ is that what they all told you? This place isn’t beautiful. It is disgust.” She laughed.
“So, you think I’m pretending to love it?”
She paused for a moment; it was so quiet I could hear her brain churning. The she said, “I think that somewhere along the bumpy road, you found this place. You were probably in pain, you were alone, and this place was here to keep you and only you, company. You do love this place. But you don’t love it because you think it’s beautiful, you love it because it feels like the only thing that’s truly yours.”
I smiled at her, and grabbed her hand, “Now I actually want to share this place with you.”
“Even if that were true, I’ll never experience this place the same you do, not unless you can split your soul in half.”
In that moment, oh God, was she beautiful. In fact, she was something even better than beautiful; she was right. I felt a lovely burning sensation in my lungs.
“Crystal-“ I began.
She pulled me towards her by my hips. We stood there for about a minute, just staring at each other, before I finally decided to kiss her. It was a sparkling minute, just ours and no one else’s. When we broke apart, I resumed staring at her, and I swear that in that moment, she was all that was left of the world.
That moment stretched itself into three beautiful months. Three months of feelings things that I never thought I would have the privilege of feeling. Three months of greedily scrubbing the life out of each precious summer day. And then, just as Fall fell, she was gone.
But that Fall wasn’t a bad time for me, simply because it was Fall and I love Fall. I love the way the leaves turn all bruised and bloody and hold on to their branches for dear life before finally giving up and letting go. I love the way people marvel at those leaves, without realizing that the reason that they’re so colourful and bright is because they are dying. It’s a glorious death, in my opinion.
That Fall, I started skipping class to go the Hiding Place. I always learned a little bit more there anyways. The amazing thing about the Hiding Place during Fall was that the stream was choking with so many leaves that you couldn’t even detect the water. In fact, if you stood far enough away, you couldn’t even detect the leaves. It all just looked like one fluid procession of red, orange, yellow, and brown. And I can’t tell you how much I loved watching all those colors flee and wondering where they might end up, the air around me as crisp as a frost bitten apple.
Unfortunately, Fall tends to be followed by Christmas time. Otherwise known as Overcompensation Season; that time of year when my parents miraculously remembered that I actually exist, and out of guilt and desperation, began badgering me about “what I want,” and insisting that I spend more “family time” with them. I’ll be honest; initially, it was always nice being remembered, until of course I realized that I’d soon be forgotten again. But I always smiled through the season; that smile as fake as Santa Clause, and as insincere as the brats that bribed him with milk, cookies, and a few last minute good deeds.
My parents were always eager to put up the Christmas decorations. Actually no, they were always eager to put up MORE Christmas decorations than the neighbors. If the neighbors put up a statue of Jesus, they’d put up the entire Last Supper. If the neighbors put Christmas lights on their roof, they’d drape the entire house with so many bulbs that some poor bastard marooned on a deserted Island would mistake it for a rescue ship. They were determined to out-Christmas the entire neighborhood. By the time Christmas Day actually rolled in, they were so tired from all the Christmasing they’d done through the month of December that they’d decide to bail on going to Church.
On Christmas night, my dad and I would take a walk. We always skirted the perimeter of the Hiding Place. He was always drunk and sad.
“Son,” he told me oneyear, “You’re a good kid, you know that.”
“Thank you, dad.”
“No,” he slurred, “No, you deserve better. Next year, we’re going to be around more, you just wait and see. We’ll be the best parents in the whole city, the whole country, the whole world, and even the whole, entire neighborhood. ”
He was really drunk.
“Oh, and I’m sorry I forgot your present, son. I know I said you’d have that new pen set bright and early on Christmas morning. Thing is, sometimes I say something, and I mean it, but then I forget all about it.”
“The fact that you guys were presentis present enough for me.” I smiled my Christmas smile.
“So how’s school?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
He laughed. I don’t think he completely understood what I was saying. He was really drunk.
“Your mother is a really nice lady, don’t you think?”
“I guess, isn’t that why your married her?”
Then, he hugged me. So earnestly that it almost hurt. I could see the Hiding Place from over his shoulder. The stream was as frozen as I was. God, he was really drunk.
I woke up the next morning all sore and cold. I walked around from room to room. No one was home.
In the post-Christmas part of winter, justin and I spent more time at the Hiding Place then we did away from it.
“So, I met this girl.” Justin said one cold February evening.
“So?”
“So, I like her.”
“Whoa,” I laughed, “So who is this fair maiden?”
“Her name is ANNABELLE.”
“Annabelle?”
“No, not Annabelle; ANNABELLE. All capital letters.”
“That’s really strange, man.”
“I know. I asked her why she writes her name so weirdly.”
“And what did she say?”
“She threw my question right back at me. She asked me why I write my name weirdly.”
“And what did you say?”
“I told her that I don’t spell it THAT weirdly. I mean, I only break from convention when it comes to the first letter; the rest of my name is spelled the way it’s supposed to be. Whereas, she only stays with convention when it comes to the first letter; the rest of her name is all weird.”
“That doesn’t really answer the question, though.”
“That’s what she said.”
“Bland use of “that’s what she said,” but go on.”
“So, I told her that I spell my name with a lowercase ‘j’ because I wanted equality between the letters of my name. I didn’t want ‘j’ to be grander than any of the other letters. I wanted them all to be small and humble. And then I realized that she was after the same thing; equality, only she wants to let the world know about it. That’s why she uses uppercase. She wants all her letters to be large and loud.”
“And then?”
“Then we made out.”
“So, you didn’t ask her if your guess was right.”
“It is.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“No.”
“Then how can you know? She’s not you, you know. It’s not like her soul is the other half of yours. How can you be so presumptuous? All you had to do was ask her-“
“Whoa, why are you crying?”
“I’m not crying you stupid bastard,” I said through my tears, “I’m just pissed that you had the chance to know something about this person you claim to care about, but then decided that you’re some kind of telepathic brainiac and didn’t even bother to ask her. Are you just lazy, or are you just scared of being wrong, or are you just a stupid bastard-“
“Dude, if it means so much to you, I’ll ask her tomorrow-“
“IT DOESN’T MEAN ANYTHING TO ME, YOU STUPID BASTARD, BUT IT SHOULD MEAN SOMETHING TO YOU!”
We stared at each other. justin looked surprised, nervous, and a just a little bit amused. Then I realized something. My eyes narrowed, and with my Christmas smile, I asked him;
“Did she try to tell you why she spells her name the way that she does.”
“Um, no, I think that she forgot about-“
“WHY? WHY? DOESN’T SHE WANT YOU TO KNOW THINGS ABOUT HERSELF!IS SHE JUST AS MUCH OF A STUPID BASTARD AS YOU ARE! GOD, PEOPLE SUCK! YOU ALL SUCK!”
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Us people suck, okay.
“I know. You all suck.”
We stared at each other a little bit more. Then, we both turned away. We didn’t say anything else the rest of the night.

The next morning, I was sitting on a rock, scribbling a petty poem when I looked up and saw jusin.
“Because they’re prettier,” he smiled.
“What?”
“She writes her name in capital letters because she thinks that capital letters are prettier.”
“So, it has nothing to do with equality, huh?”
“Nope, and it’s got nothing to do with sticking it to the world. She just thinks they’re prettier. Also, her favorite color is burgundy, she’s against animal cruelty, and she loves steak. So there you go, I asked her meaningful questions about herself. I guess that humanity sucks a little bit less now for you, right?”
I smiled, “Well, everyone likes steak. You could have figured out that much without asking her.”
justin laughed. I laughed. It was wonderful.
It was a kind of wonderful that wouldn’t have happened anywhere else; the kind of wonderful that can only come out of an honest conversation. And the Hiding Place was the best place for an honest conversation. Maybe it was the calming effect of running water, or the beautiful quiet, or lack of judgmental douchebags, or some convoluted combination of the three, but the Hiding Place helped you to say what you want to say. What’s more wonderful than that?
I still remember my last day at the Hiding Place. Thinking about it sends spiders crawling down my spine, because I didn’t know that it was my last day as I was walking there. Does anyone ever know that it’s their last day?
It was a Saturday and I was sitting there, furiously scribbling in my notebook, trying to make magic out of ink. The angry sun was biting into my back, and that was fine. That was good. I kept writing; words followed each other like they should, and my paragraphs all stacked on top of one another like building blocks. I finished, and like always, I looked away. But this time, when I looked back, what I saw wasn’t just rambling; it was insanity. I had written the same sentence over and over again for 5 pages. And that sentence, oh good Lord, it was disgusting; completely awash with senselessness. It was evil:
“he fell so hard into this pit, he began to call it Home.”
I started crying. I cried on each page, until every scrawl melted into an incoherent smudge. Then, when I was all dried out, after I had drowned all of my words, I walked over to the stream, and dunked my face into it. I stayed there until there wasn’t a pint of fresh air left inside of me, and then involuntarily lifted my head back up. I tried again. Again. Again. Again. But no matter how often I tried, or how hard I tried, I would always save myself. To my own frustration, I refused to disappear.
Someone found me soon enough. And instead of doing the polite thing and leaving me to my self-destruction, they rescued me. So, now I’m here. I’m here and I’m “just fine.” Or at least that’s what the nurses tell me. The doctors pretty much ignore me, and toss all kinds of big, ugly words back and forth to one another. I’ve haven’t seen justin in the longest time, but Crystal somehow found me and visits me every week. Sometimes she even brings her daughter.
I’ve been away from the Hiding Place for 10 years. They won’t let me go back. They don’t think I can. To be honest, I don’t know if I even want to go back. I can barely remember it. It’s not mine anymore.