“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.”
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He was a poet; and they are never exactly grown-up.
"Hey! What's up? How's it going? Life good? Of course it is! My name is Nathan Patterson, but I want you call me Nate, okay? All my friends call me Nate."
Nathan is a pretty average teenage boy, but at nineteen years old, one can't exactly call him a teenager anymore. He doesn't seem to notice his own immaturity, though it has been repeated to him multiple times. He was always the boy in the back of the bus to rip pages out of his notebook, chew them up, and send them flying through a straw. From handing people a shaken up can of soda to pronouncing names in a butchered pattern to substitute teachers, he practically invented half the lines you feed to the other line in a prank call.
Amazingly, Nate is still up to his childish antics. All of his friends have endured at least one painful prank, from plastic wrap on the toilet seat to a room filled with the disembodied heads of various teddy bears. His jokes can be rather mean, and his favorite person to pick on has always been Collin. Collin always gets picked on more frequently, if not cruelly, than the others. It is one of Nathan's odd ways of saying, "I'll be there for you when you need me." The message isn't always received.
Though he is so immature and difficult to get along with, he is everybody's best friend. He has a very select circle of friends, however, and will trust them with his life. Nate's biggest flaw is that he is dangerously loyal, and would take a bullet for anyone he deems as worthy.
Maybe I just love some of you. Maybe not enough.
Nathan, being so happy as he is, often surprises people with the past he has endured. He never had a mother, you see, for his own died during his birth, leaving his father to raise him. His father, however, racked with pain and sobs for the loss of his wife, had a rather common case of a sickness. The sort of case you see in many movies and books, and watching you think, "They should be smiling, not crying. A memory is precious." The sort of case you can't imagine anyone real actually being sick with.
Ah, but he was. So sick, in fact, he gave up his own son. For this sickness, you see, was not at all physical or mental, but emotional. He could keep nothing that reminded him of his wife without going to the floor in tears. So, he got rid of it all. Her books, her music, her furniture, her scents, her son.
He put the boy, only four years old, in to a foster home. The only reason Nathan was so old was because his father waited, waited to see if he could eventually cure himself. He never did, and Nathan grew up on sobs and depression.
The boy was in and out of foster homes, and between foster parents. Every time he was given a new family, he would throw a fit and become rather disruptive, only to be returned within the month. He would do the same at the foster homes, and was moved to new ones.
This went on until the boy was twelve, and he grew very tired of protesting so much, of never having any where solid. He was no a happy child, nowhere near happy as he is now, but he was always excited to crack a new joke, or play a new prank.
When he was thirteen, and very calm, he found a new foster home. He didn't hate this one as much as the others, and this time even had an older brother. This was amazing for two reasons; older children are harder to relocate, and this couple already had a child to take care of. It wasn't what he wanted, but he accepted it, and stayed there until he was fifteen. That was when he decided he didn't want to belong to somebody because they signed a few pieces of paper. And they weren't exactly a dream, either. Their marriage was falling apart, and their son, who had been a brother to Nathan, had soon gone off to college, leaving him alone to deal with the shouts and crying that tore through the house. That wasn't how Nathan knew marriage. He had learned from his father that love and marriage was sacred and wonderful, and nothing could ruin it but a tragedy. That was the only thing he learned from his father. And when was the last time Nate was happy? It had always been about others, and he was never asked what he wanted. Sure, he was cared and provided for, but he was always a nuisance. A pest. So he ran. He ran so he could be happy.
Nathan's story is no secret, All of his friends know the basics, but they don't exactly know the details. They may know that he slept on park benches for a year, but he won't let them know that he was so desperate he slept under people's porches, gutters, and even in the sewer once. They don't have to know. It didn't matter, and would only make his presence an awkward one. And that wasn't how he liked it. He was the joker, the happy trouble maker.
The rest isn't so important. He was in between homes and schools until he was sixteen, when he finally gave up and found his "foster brother". Nathan liked learning, and was desperate to finish school. He did.
Nathan, however, is not ready for college. No money, and no enthusiasm. So he took a year off, since he was finally happy. He lost touch with his brother, something he does regret, but he doesn't like to be sad about the past. The past is history. Unimportant.
So come with me, where dreams are born, and time is never planned. Just think of happy things, and your heart will fly on wings, forever, in Never Never Land.
