by Emma James
I’m now more than ever aware of the lack of male support in Bowie’s life. Not even a grandfather for him to turn to for guy advice when he doesn’t want to talk to me.
I know he likes Harper, but he’s eight! He’s growing up so fast. He’s a teenager already in a young boy’s body.
Toran, I need you. You would know how to talk man-boy stuff with our son.
My skater-boy and I were so easy—until it got complicated—and then he died, and that somehow got even more complicated.
I was still only eighteen when Bowie was born. My mother refused to allow me to lose sight of a bright future for myself. She gave me the tools and support to pave my way for an independent life, just as she’d had to do.
Mom was by no means rich, but she was smart, determined, and strong of mind. She worked hard to pay the mortgage and kept up a life insurance policy in case anything happened to her, prematurely. She always reminded me there were no guarantees in life, and you had to plan for the future and for the ones you loved.
My son and I lived with my mother up until she passed away, eighteen months ago. She was the best mother and friend I could ever have hoped for. She helped me to find the strength to become who I am today.
I never really noticed how much my mother sacrificed for Bowie and me until I no longer had her in my life, and then I learned how deep a mother’s love will go, but it should also be unconditional, and that is something, Toran’s parents must not have understood.
Toran’s family didn’t want to be a part of my life—Bowie’s life. There was no grandma and grandpa or an aunt or uncle to step in and help ease Bowie’s loss of two family members: his dad, and my mother.
There is just me, and that has to be enough, and now I wish more than anything my mother was here to help me with Bowie because she knew how to be both parents. I have no other relatives, just like Bowie, and now I fear I am ruining this single parenting role. I thought I was doing okay at it, but maybe I’m not.
Just because Toran, my handsome skater-boy didn’t enjoy sex with me and our night together is what convinced him to out himself to me and his friends, doesn’t mean I am a lousy sex partner.
Does it?
Phobia. Much?
I was only eighteen.
Now look at me, propping myself up against a door—barricading myself from a warrior of a man—who within minutes manages to flood my body with emotions which I don’t quite know what to do with.
The man practically has me swooning, the way I’m leaning heavily against the back of my front door for support.
I don’t swoon.
I’ve never swooned.
Who swoons?
Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With The Wind? She’s what you would call a swooner. But I’m not a swooner.
So why do I need this damn door to keep me from falling?
“Pull yourself together, Flora,” I reprimand myself, pushing myself upright and moving away.
I walk into the den, over to where I’ve got what some people might call a shrine, but I like to think of it as a place where Toran’s spirit can anchor itself if that kind of thing is possible.
On the sideboard I have two scented candles, fresh flowers and the drumsticks Toran gave me as a best friend birthday gift for my eighteenth, which I mounted inside a memory box. There are candid framed photographs of Toran by himself, and the two of us framed on the wall above the sideboard.
I like to think that having things that connect Toran to us here in my house can help his spirit to navigate his way to us when he wants to.
Call me a little cray-cray, but I need to believe anything is possible—even an afterlife. That way, Toran and my mother are still with me and I am not so alone.
I need to keep my family alive in my heart and soul even when I can’t touch them. Call it a coping mechanism.
I drop down onto my comfortable, white leather couch, my head falling forward until my chin is cupped in the palms of my hands as my elbows rest on my knees.
I would never have met Toran if not for a Rottweiler named Biff and a Poodle named Apricot and a healthy dose of sixteen-year-old curiosity.
To help Mom out with the costs of raising a teenager, I walked Biff and Apricot, the neighbor’s dogs, Monday to Friday before dinner, and I worked at a café on the weekends. I had mapped out an hour round-trip walking circuit from my house in San Diego at ten dollars cash a walk.
I remember deviating from the usual street I took because I could hear the sound of a live band playing, and I was naturally curious. Due to my mother’s taste in music, I knew the song playing was “House of Fun” by Madness.
A bunch of kids a little older than my nearly sixteen and a half years were performing inside the open garage, putting in a lot of effort, jumping about as they enthusiastically got into the Madness ska song.
I stood on the lawn out the front of a modern, well-kept, large two-story house, listening to their song.
Whoever was singing was really good. They had me captivated by how immersed they all were in the cover version. It was like nobody else existed, and they were playing to the happiness of their souls.
Once the song finished, the lead singer started laughing into the microphone and pointing at the grass beside me.
I was mortified to see what Biff and Apricot had each produced in sloppy piles. I thought the dogs had already done their quota for the circuit I walked, and now I had no empty poop bags. It was bad enough I’d been standing there with previously forgotten used poop bags that were tied to each lead until I could dispose of them, but now I had nothing to pooper scoop the new poop up with.
Who knew dog poop was going to be the icebreaker that started a conversation introducing me to the Flaming Hard-Ons?
Rowdy, was the handsome, blond surfie looking guy on lead guitar and vocals; Finn, an Asian/American boy with the silkiest black hair on the keyboard; and Silver, the dark-skinned boy with cool dreadlocks covered the brass section.
Toran, the drummer, and Gamer, the bass guitarist, who wore a baseball cap on back to front and vintage gaming T-shirts paired with Dickies shorts or pants, came to my rescue with bags from the garage laughing—as only guys would do at my predicament. They were amused by how warm the poop was when they each scooped a load up before requesting I hand over the already-pooped-in bags for them to dispose of for me.
Their band name was a work in progress, changing whenever they felt like it until something stuck.
It was weird how they instantly clicked with me; the girl they dubbed their first official groupie. Phone numbers got exchanged after they sang me another couple of songs.
I’d thought Toran was the most beautiful boy I had ever laid eyes on with his skater-boy style and messy light-brown hair. He had the prettiest green eyes a girl could swim around in. Being the drummer, he was the ultimate in ‘cool’ to a girl like me.
Toran soon called to invite me over to listen to the Flaming Hard-Ons practice without me having to have two dogs with me.
All the guys had already graduated high school the previous year. They were enjoying being ‘free spirits,’ playing anywhere they could get a paying gig, which just added to their ‘cool’ status in my young impressionable eyes.
Toran’s parents owned the house, but in all the time I visited that house, I never saw them or even felt their presence in any way. No photos. No proof of family existence anywhere. They were ghosts.
Initially, Toran never talked about his family, only to say they were allowing him time to discover himself—to enjoy his youth—before his life got serious. At sixteen, I didn’t question what ‘serious’ meant. I didn’t ask anything about them. I was living in the moment, just being a kid. I didn’t even know their full names. They were just: Toran, Silver, Gamer, Rowdy, and Finn.
I spent time hanging out at the house they all shared when I wasn’t walking dogs or working. I knew they surfed, skateboarded, worked casual jobs during the day, and lived on air, pizza, and music, and that’s all I cared
to know. They kept the large house neat and didn’t seem to worry about the world going on around them.
They were all good guys who liked me; they found me interesting and fun to hang out with, and that was a massive boost to my awkward teenage self-esteem.
I had my girlfriends at school, but I didn’t see them outside of school. I didn’t have a girl best friend. I was a little weird like that. My friends had ballet or sports or went shopping, but I didn’t have the money for those luxuries. Most of my earnings, I gladly handed over to my mother to help her. She had done so much for me; it was the least I could do to contribute when I was finally old enough to help out. I didn’t need to wear the latest fashion. I enjoyed shopping in thrift shops and matching pieces of clothing I would find in different cheap shops, and I managed to make myself look pretty fashionable.
Toran and I became close really quickly; we were best friends.
Although he was very private about his relationship with his parents, and I respected that, I shared everything about my mom with him. He would sometimes come to my house to have dinner and hang out with my mom and me, and he seemed to enjoy her relaxed, easygoing company.
It was just before I turned seventeen that he let go enough to tell me he was an only child, and his parents had plans for his future. He told me they thought of their son’s music as just a “phase” (with air quotations) he was going through—but it was never a phase for my skater-boy. He loved music. It was his passion. He’d hoped his parents would come to realize that with time, but he had a deadline of age twenty-one to enter the family business. That was the deal they had struck for these years of rent-free freedom. I never was told what their family business was, just that this was borrowed time until life got serious for him.
After eighteen months of a breezy friendship, we decided to try a friends-with-benefits approach, which is never a good idea in the first place with your best friend, but I felt safe with Toran.
It was the night after I’d turned eighteen, and I felt so grown up. I wanted to lose my virginity to my skater-boy, and he admitted I would be his first, which surprised me. I didn’t question how a boy who was as cool as he was, hadn’t ‘done it’ with a girl before me, but it made me feel special.
The day after I lost my virginity to my skater-boy, he was able to admit out loud that he wasn’t attracted to me—to any female in the sexual sense. His love for a best friend had clouded the difference between loving me as a friend and wanting me on a much deeper level because it was what he thought as a guy he should be feeling—what his parents would find acceptable.
He was trying so hard to ignore what he felt deep down that he lost sight of the memo his body had long ago received. He desired something I couldn’t truly satisfy, and the one thing best friends should be is honest with each other. Even if it hurts.
Once the tears stopped flowing, I realized I couldn’t change Toran to make me feel better about myself. I’m glad we were each other’s first.
When Toran decided to “come out” to his band, the announcement came with a lot of eye-rolling from his friends and elbowing each other as they had already suspected Toran was into guys. They had just been waiting for their friend to come clean with himself, then he went and slept with me, and that threw a spanner in their theories until Toran set the record straight. It was such a critical moment for him, filled with reservations and nerves, and the guys just carried on like business as usual.
I took any crumbs Toran would feed me about his family. I never pushed him to know more. I let him go at his own pace. I knew his loyal friends knew everything about each other, and their lips were sealed. They were a group of trusted friends to their core. Something of which I would soon feel the impact.
Six weeks later, I graduated from high school, and then to my utter shock and confusion, I discovered I was pregnant. After the initial fear wore off, I broke down and told Toran. He was naturally stunned. We replayed the night out again out loud, thinking we’d been responsible and careful, but there are no guarantees—I hadn’t been on any contraception. We thought a condom would be one hundred percent safe.
Not according to the fine print.
Toran took charge and tried to make it easy for me. He wanted to know what I wanted, and he would stand by my decision. It never entered my mind for a second to terminate the pregnancy. My skater-boy promised me he was going to stay a part of my life and his child’s life, helping out physically, emotionally, and financially, no matter what.
I knew we were never going to have a conventional relationship, living under the same roof, but we would be a family, and I had to be okay with that. I knew we would be okay with whatever hurdles we crossed in the future because Toran was that kind of guy. He was loyal.
I trusted him and believed in him and that helped a lot to stay calm. Because who is ready for an unplanned pregnancy when they are only eighteen?
When Toran looked me in the eye and told me he loved me as his best friend, I knew it to be the truth. We had never used the ‘L’ word between us, but it helped a lot to hear it. I understood what he meant because I realized I loved him the same way. We just weren’t in love with each other.
I know it was a lot for Mom to take in, and she handled it well—considering the news we had just dropped on her—she pulled up her new granny pants (pun intended) and buckled the belt tight.
Mom had taken a few deep breaths in while she tried not to look shocked then pulled me in for a bear hug that lasted longer than usual. I think she was saying goodbye to the girl and thinking about the woman I would have to grow into overnight.
I did my best to hide all my fears. I know Toran was doing the same. My mother gave my skater-boy the best gift; she committed her complete support to him with anything he needed. Be it a parental conversation or monetary assistance, which had him blowing out a loud breath as though he was relieved he could count on my mother’s unconditional support. I didn’t understand what that truly meant to Toran, but I’d eventually learn.
Tragically, time was not on Toran’s side.
At thirty-three weeks pregnant, I was expecting to see my skater-boy and the band play a gig later that night; instead, I found all the boys—except Toran—in the late afternoon on my mom’s front porch. I’d been sitting reading up on ‘What To Expect When You’re Expecting’ in the antique rocking chair Mom managed to find and restore. I knew something was very wrong from the bereft looks on their faces as they tried to hold it together.
I stood up slowly, the book dropping to the floor, and waited until Silver spoke through the waterfall of tears. That was when my world collapsed around me.
I don’t remember much after hearing Toran had passed away in his sleep. I was heartbroken, confused, and devastated for my skater-boy; his life cut short so young. I started wailing, clinging to them all as it got too much, and I lost consciousness.
On the way to the hospital, the boys had pleaded with my mother to keep Toran’s name off the medical records while I was out cold. They must have been convincing enough for her to agree on my behalf at the time. The medical staff only knew of me as a teenaged single mother-to-be, and there had been a death in my family, which had stressed me greatly.
I woke up in the hospital, hooked up to an IV, thinking I’d had a terrifying nightmare until my mother’s tear-stained face came into focus. Her inability to find the words to appease my fears as she broke down confirmed Toran was gone.
The nightmare was real.
Toran couldn’t possibly be dead.
Everything had felt so surreal.
Silver had explained to my mother while I was out cold that he was the only other band member home that morning, not yet having left for his lunchtime shift at the cafe where he worked. The other guys had already left for their casual jobs, and he’d gone in to wake Toran, worried his buddy would miss his 10:00 am shift. He’d found his friend unresponsive and called 911. Silver already knew his friend was dead from the color of his skin and his rigid body.
Toran had told his parents earlier that day over the phone about me and the baby, and that didn’t go down well. Toran was very hurt. He didn’t want to go into it with me but thought if he gave them some time they might come around. I know it must have been a shock for them.
There was a lot I didn’t understand, but I didn’t want to make waves for him. We weren’t a couple; we were something different.
I had been living in a bubble where I thought we had time on our side to figure everything out with his family.
Time was a thief who stopped Toran’s clock.
I was released from the hospital the following day under strict instructions to have complete bed rest and not to get stressed.
Not. To. Get. Stressed.
I think we were all way past that.
Gamer and Rowdy had helped Mom to bring me home. I wanted nothing more than to go to their house to see Toran’s room, but they all ganged up on me, including my mother, and I was taken home for forced bed rest. I only did it to relieve the stressed look on my mother’s face.
Bed rest only meant being alone to think about Toran’s death and all the things I didn’t know.
I questioned my mother on the boys’ behavior regarding Toran not being listed as the father and she said they were all distraught and trying to handle mediating with her on behalf of the family and the loss of their friend while Silver and Finn were handling everything else and that they would explain it better soon.
The boys stayed loyal to “The Family” and kept to a script, no matter how much my mother pressed them for information. Gamer had explained Toran’s family situation was complicated and to trust them that a family member would be visiting with me within forty-eight hours.
That was it.
The secrecy surrounding Toran’s parents felt very cloak-and-dagger.
Nothing made sense to me at the time. It was all so confusing for my mother and me. I knew nothing of where Toran’s body had been taken. I needed answers, badly.