A Place Like No Other.

The summer after his first year of college he lived it up. For the first time in his life he was experiencing true independence and finding his sense of self. With his baggage gone and his guard lifted he was finally enjoying his burgeoning steps into adulthood. Once he was settled at home, he was overwhelmed by a sense of freedom as he sped away in his car and expertly navigated his way around the city, he felt comfort as he walked into a town center that he knew like the back of his hand, and he displayed a confidence that could only come from leaving home.

When the novelty of being home wore off he got his old summer job back. His first day at work was like he never left, he walked in like he owned the place. He held his head high with an aura that everyone was immediately drawn to. He sauntered into the establishment and knew that everyone was whispering about who the "new guy" was and he got such satisfaction when he corrected them and said he wasn't new at all. He made friends instantly, reconnecting with old coworkers and starting relationships with newbies. It seemed like everyone wanted to talk to him and ask him what he was doing after work and if he wanted to hang. He couldn't believe that he was connecting with people so fast whereas in school, it took him an entire year to make one friend that would probably forgot his name over the summer. He assumed his ease in making new friends was because he was back in this comfort zone and could just be himself, he never once thought that maybe going away had changed him in ways that everyone but him saw.

That first summer he overindulged himself in pleasures and vices that he had never known before and lost himself in a superficial haze that he thought cured himself from the miserable loneliness and constant self doubt that plagued him while he was in school. He tried to escape from all his insecurities to prove to himself that he was not the shy, scared little boy that left and was really the outgoing, life of the party that he had become when he was out all night doing every drug under the sun. He felt as if this experimentation told the world that he was a rogue risk taker who lived life on the edge and face anything that he met head on. He believed if he delved into the party lifestyle maybe eventually he wouldn't need to try so hard and one day he would just be that person. If he only knew that his out of control life style was hurting his family, the people he loved, the very people he longed to be with when he was away. He wasn't showing them that he had grown up, rather that he had grown into a person they didn't know, a person that was on the path to destruction.