“Okay, I’ll do it?” I agreed because I was 13 and she was pretty.
“I was just kidding, please get down from there.”
“You shouldn’t have dared me if you didn’t want me to do it.” Fool-hearted logic from a young boy feeling his first real surge of testosterone.
“You’ll trip and die,” she pleaded.
Her red hair swayed with the wind and I felt alive for the first time in my young life.
So I did it.
And she was wrong. I didn’t die and my hospital stay was rather pleasant. They spoon fed me Jello every day.
Sometimes I run my fingers over the lines of my scars as I watch my two young sons fall asleep.
I wonder what they’ll do one day for love and I pray that they’ll survive it.
Erik D'Souza 