And I Don’t Have Any Clue Where To Go

Our friendship developed quickly, whipping through like a wildfire.

One minute I was bumping into Tom randomly on the street and the next I was hanging out with him nearly every day.

He was helping me with the Chevy most days. It turned out he wasn’t so bad at fixing up cars either but he was always learning new things from my mother and me. It was handy having another pair of hands around to help out with all the tough stuff, especially male hands that could unscrew unbelievably tight lids.

He was teaching me to play the guitar as well. That was his passion: his music. Whenever I was with him there was music somewhere, either on the radio or him singing away as he worked or just hanging out and he was strumming his guitar. He told me it kept him grounded; he moved around so much he needed something that would keep him from losing it.

He never spoke very much about his family or his past. All I knew was that his father had died a few years back of cancer and that Tom had been close to him, and Tom had never stayed in one place for longer then two months.

That’s what gave me the first instinct that he wouldn’t be staying in town for very long, the way he talked about the next place he would go, with such enthusiasm, I knew he wasn’t going to stick around for more then he had to.

He’d always been really friendly with me and with everyone else I ever introduced him to but I could tell there was always things he was hiding under his armor, under that protective shield he threw up when a question cut too deep. He always avoided some questions, mainly the ones about his Dad and family and also when asked where he was born or his hometown.

It took me three weeks to break down his shields.

All it took was one kiss…

…only one conversation leading up to that one kiss.

And his shields collapsed like a landslide.

He told me everything.

How his mother died when she gave birth to him and how his father never blamed him for it, he was too wise to ever do that. How his father moved around a lot trying to escape the feeling that his wife was following him, the guilt of leaving the town she was buried in as well. How it was only Tom and his Dad for 13 years of his life, never another woman or friend. How Tom’s Dad finally tried to settle down in one place so Tom left home and traveled by himself all around America from only 13. How his Dad had died and Tom felt guilty because he hadn’t been there with him.

And most of all, he told me his home town, the town where his Mum was buried.

That town was the one he wanted to escape the most.

That town was Sutcliffe, Nevada.

He was like a lost child with no clue on where he was supposed to go, where he was meant to fit in.

And I wanted that place where he fitted in to be right here with me.