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Mike is not normal. It's something that he's been told his entire life so at this point it just felt as if it was common knowledge. That was never something he was ashamed of though, sure he wasn't as confident with his appearance as some people are but he didn't mind these differences. He didn't mind that he didn't look the way that people preferred, he didn't mind that he didn't have popular interests, he didn't mind being seen as a loser. He had other people that fit into the same boxes as him, to help him feel like less of an outcast, and most of all they were his consistency.
They were the people that he knew he could always turn to, that they would go out of their ways to help him no matter what, that they understood him, that they were just as different as he was. At least that's what he always thought. But when he was around thirteen the consistency that he clung onto, holding it as if it was a lifeline, the one thing keeping him sane had vanished from his grasp leaving him reaching for something that felt like a mere copy of what it once was. This circles all the way to the beginning, the creation of the very environment that gave him this stability.
It's a moment that replays in his mind more than he'd ever be willing to admit because despite the beauty that he finds in it, he knows that within it are the roots to his shame that are infecting and tainting his favorite memory. Even so the beauty never truly leaves because every moment the image of that swing set appears in his mind he feels the exact emotion he felt in that moment, he sees the same image. Sitting there on the swings was what looked like a glistening ray of sunlight like when sun rays manage to find their way through the clouds. What realistically should have been a normal sight felt like the embodiment of hope to him, in that moment he knew that everything would be okay. And when he walked up to this light he felt a flutter in his heart that somehow felt so familiar in spite of it being so new.
That feeling never left him, it wasn't tied down to that memory, it was strung along through his mind like a maze holding together every memory and every thought and every turn of that maze would lead back to the same person, the same light. For years he told himself that this was normal because what else could it possibly be?? But that view was shattered and forced him into the realization that he was even different from the same people he thought were just like him. He heard his friends talking about their girlfriends in a way that reminded him not of the way he felt about his own girlfriend but of the way he felt about his best friend, his ray of light, his hope.
He is different. He is not normal, but this time it isn't okay because this time he knows that there is something wrong, something he knows he can't fix no matter how many times he tries. The feeling that he once loved now came along with the mental punishment of shame trying its best to drain the beauty, he wanted to continue to love it but how could he when everything was pointing to him being wrong?? But how could something so lovely ever be as evil as it is made to seem?? No matter how much darkness tries to strip away this enchanting feeling there's always his ray of hope.
And nothing will ever be able to dim his light.