Honestly, before I met Mikey, and before Mikey met me, we were two directionless kids, just sick of it all. I say ‘kids’ because that’s what we were, young, naive, and both determined to hate the world for what it didn’t give us: love. One would likely surmise that the story began when we met in the park that humid Summer night, in actuality the whole story stretches slightly further back to the day before. Because I intend to tell the whole story, the story about the only boy that has ever shown me kindness, I will start further back.
	I had always loved games, the rush, the escape, the feeling of ecstasy that ripples through your pants during a triple airshot; My parents felt differently. Violin, was what they believed should provide me the rush, escape and feeling of ecstasy in my pants, and as a result I was trained religiously on the violin since I was 3. Towards my later teens, when violin bored me and the keyboard and mouse called out to me, my parents would try and force me to practice, physically abusing me and taking away my computer, in short, life was bad. One day, after a particularly bad lesson, I arrived home to find my mouse in ruins, the plastic shattered, the innard spilled open. My father stood menacingly over it, daring me to retaliate, taunting me with his newfound power. I froze, grabbed my violin and ran out of the house, fully intending to break my violin in retaliation of my fathers hostile action. Running aimlessly, I found myself in a distant park, on the edge of town, with the sun floating ominously over the horizon, threatening to set. It was here where I rested, taking hot air into my lungs. My sweat soaked shirt clung to my chest, prominently displaying my ribs and nipples. Next to me, on the bench, I had my violin case, upon which i had written in crude lettering when first receiving the violin: “Voll’s violin, For Voll to hold and play, not you”. Tracing the lettering with my fingers, sadness overtook me, tears shook my body, I realized that the violin was very much part of me and destroying it would be destroying a part of me. I stayed there for a while, the asphalt beneath my feet grew steadily darker, until it became difficult to see them. Suddenly, a hand appeared, proffering a tissue. The hand was connected to a body, lean, muscular, and tan, which was attached to a head, with the most perfect face I’ve seen. The person was smiling slightly, a lopsided, kindhearted smile. Then, he spoke the three words that changed my life:
“what’s wrong bud?”
	All the problems in my life evaporated. I became consumed in that eternity of a second, I knew i needed to remember each detail of this magical second. Suddenly, I became very conscious of my disheveled appearance, my ruffled hair, my puffy eyes and flushed cheeks from  the cold, in comparison to the Adonis-like man that stood before me. I tried to open my mouth to speak several times; Weather from the cold or the lack of breath caused by Mikey’s mere appearance, I couldn’t speak. The stranger, with immense grace and infinite kindness, surrendered his jacket to me, it’s warm embrace shielded my insecurities, and inside the coat I was able to regain myself. During my recuperation inside the jacket, the stranger was talking:
“It’s gonna be just fine buddy things are hard now but they will be better soon” After some brief pause he spoke again,
“I’m Mikey, what’s your name?”
By this time I had recovered enough to choke out my name,
“Voll”
At this, Mikey said,
	“that’s a great name, short, pleasant, unique. I love unique things”
At this, I nearly died, nobody had ever liked my name, nobody. In preschool I got called faggot and cock monger because of it. Now, sitting besides me, was the first person to ever compliment my name, and not just any person, an attractive, nice person too. All the rest and recovery time in the world couldn’t have readied me for the wave of emotions I felt in that moment.