In high school I had many different friends from varying clichés. One such group of friends I met through my ex boyfriend Chris. It was a group of guys that all skated together. Even after Chris and I broke up, I remained friends with a number of the guys and even went on to date a few as well. One of them stood out from all the rest and his name was Kane. Kane and I were friends for a long time until one day we began to see each other differently. He was much different from the other guys from “The Crew”. He wasn’t very talkative, he was kind of shy and he seemed to keep a lot of things to himself. His Dad had died when he was young as well, though I can’t remember exactly what from. He didn’t really like to talk about it. I wasn’t used to someone like that at all. I usually dated guys that were more emotional than me and weren’t afraid to express their feelings to me. Kane was like an onion with many layers that you had to slice through to get to the core, his heart. When we started dating I would get frustrated and angry because he wouldn’t open up. He was more into doing things that didn’t require talking, as much as I liked him and wanted to do these things, I also felt I had a brain in my head and could use it from time to time. He would reassure me of how I felt when I got angry but at that time it was like I needed something more than what I was getting.
At a rave on New Year’s Eve 1998 I met my first mature love. I met him through a friend of mine, Zoey, that I went to the rave with. We were both on ecstasy but I knew instantly
there was some sort of chemistry between us whether it was platonic or not. His name
was Thomas. We had drug induced conversations and by the end of the night I gave him
my phone number for some reason, maybe it was fate. I did have a boyfriend at the time, Kane. He was a good guy and I liked him a lot but he wasn’t filling the emotional void that I was desperately looking to fill at the time. I needed to feel wanted and cherished. I’m not sure if Kane did or not but he wasn’t emotionally there like I needed him to be at the time. Three weeks after meeting Thomas we began dating and Kane and I were over after only three months but we still remained friends, and would continue our back and forth, push-pull relationship until he died. Thomas was different. He came from a dysfunctional family as well. Both of his parents at the time were in rehab for heroin use and even though he was 17, he was living on his own, well with roommates. This was a good thing but also not such a good thing. It gave me a place to go to escape the hell that was my home life, but it also provided an unsupervised place to do drugs and lots of them.
I know I’m taking a step backwards here but my relationship with Kane wasn’t over yet. Thomas and I were together for 5 years on and off and a lot of that off time was with Kane. Before Thomas and I even got together we became friends fast. Kane would even go with me to hang out with him and drop X. I’m sure this bothered Kane but I felt this gravitational pull towards Thomas that I never felt before. Nine months into Thomas and I relationship something happened between my mother and I that I will go into further detail about later, but I had to move out of my mom’s house and had nowhere to go. My Aunt Lindsay stepped up to the plate and drove down from where she was living now in Ponte Vedra Beach and took me in. Again all this will be explained later, but while I was up there Kane and I kept in contact through AIM and phone. He even sent me a valentine’s day card. I did end up back in South Florida, I had my GED and a driver’s license and wanted to start college. I needed to be back south even though my Aunt helped me out tremendously and to this day can’t thank her enough for what she did for me. I felt I needed to be back down south where all my friends were and start school. Kane was there when I got back of course. We spent many nights driving down A1A listening to music and talking about life. While I was gone he bought himself a motorcycle and sometimes come over to visit me on it. I didn’t understand this new obsession of his and why he and his friends were riding them. I wouldn’t get on the bike with him even after he would plead with me. Ever since I developed panic disorder, again I’ll explain later, what would seem like so much fun to me before was terrifying now. Kane and I would make plans with our friend Drew and his girlfriend who happened to be my best friend in high school at one point. We went to the beach and kind of coupled off. While we were walking on the beach, Kane would bring up why we weren’t together, why was I so hesitant to kiss him and all I could come up was confusion. I knew how I felt about him but at the same time I was in contact with Thomas at the same time and cared for him too. Kane didn’t take my explanations lightly and disappeared. It took the three of us a couple of hours to find him randomly walking the streets near the beach. The last time he and I hung out we made plans to watch the movie Detroit City Rocks with Drew and Sam at his house. When the movie started I remember him holding my hand and he continued to hold my hand throughout the entire movie. I haven’t seen that movie since that night and to this day I can’t bring myself to watch that movie. If I see it on the channel guide I avoid it like the plague. I’m the same way with the song November Rain by Guns and Roses because of my dad.
I don’t remember how long it was after that night we watched the movie when I was told Kane was in the hospital. It could have been the next day or a couple of days later. He was riding his motorcycle in a parking lot, hit a speed bump and was thrown from the motorcycle and hit a light pole. When I was told of his accident he was in the ER in critical condition. When I got to the hospital and saw him I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. He was in a coma with a breathing tube covered in bruises, scrapes and cuts. His abdomen was covered since most of the trauma was there since he hit the light pole in that area and was internally bleeding. He had to have surgery to try to stop the bleeding. I was at the hospital everyday he was there and unfortunately that was only seven days from the time of the accident until his heart stopped on June 12, 2000. I wasn’t there when he died, I was at home sleeping when I got a knock on my window from my buddy Drew waking me up to tell me the news. I felt my heart-break again. It wasn’t a new feeling but the wounds and scars of the past that were still inflicted on my heart weren’t ever healed, and the new rip I felt that second burned inside me like someone poured alcohol unto a fresh-cut. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that I would never see or talk to my Kane ever again.
Misguided Mommy 