Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 1

each day, I'm touched by serene warmth, an inner peace and contentment, and empowered with confidence to face the future with hope and real expectation. When with him, I swell with happiness, love and admiration. When he's absent, I yearn for him, wanting to hear his voice, to feel his calming and caring presence, and to see his beauty, a sight that wilts my heart, and at night, springs tears of love as I gaze at his sleeping body.
    I almost squandered his offer to assist me and to get to know him that fateful day nearly two years ago. Fateful, for he happened to bicycle past on the dirt road and heard my crying and stopped to search for me in the bush grasses obscuring me. In my distress, I didn't hear him moving through the waist-high grass, nor find me, looking pitiful , he later said.
    "Hello, are you injured?" His voice startled me, unexpected beside this isolated country road. In my state of mind I simply looked his way, scouting for aggression, seeing none. I shook my head in reply and returned my forehead to rest on my arm, while my body rocked to another bout of sobs.
    "What's the matter? Can I help you?" he asked, while placing his hand on my shoulder. "You look as though you can do with some help."
    I looked at him again through my tear-blurred vision, seeing him now kneeling by my side. I dabbed my eyes dry on my work shirt collar to see a young guy my age I'd never seen before. He had a kind face with concern burrowing his brow, a feeling he also expressed in his voice. I should've responded politely to his courtesy. Instead, I sneered, "Leave me alone."
    He recoiled and then leaned forward, replacing his hand on my shoulder. "Are you sure?"
    "Don't touch me," I warned. I'd lost faith in people and had grown suspicious of the occasional do-gooders, fearing they wanted to overpower me and take advantage of my age and simpleness.
    "Piss off," I spat, trying to sound tough, as I returned my forehead to my arm believing that any ready friendliness shown by a stranger disguised other intentions.
    "Won't you let me help you?" he asked, dismissing my unfriendly remarks. "Everyone needs someone to lean on sometimes. That's what my mum and dad always says."
    I'd almost grown to believe the abuse I copped was normal for an ADHD kid like me, because I thought and spoke and behaved differently, like an idiot in their eyes. Nobody would befriend me or listen to my appeals for help or believe my complaints. The school teachers considered me nuts, an alien and uncontrollable. Fellow pupils steered clear of me, spitting at me and punching and pushing me away if I tried to talk to them. The police told me to leave. Shopkeepers and neighbours warned me not to return. Church and welfare people shook their heads in disbelief. They told me to stop lying and making up mean stories about my respectable parents , to stop wasting their time. In one regard, my parent's orchard became my sanctuary because I'd built a secret hideaway there, beside the creek. On the other hand, Hell's Orchard , as I called the place, also became my prison; the machinery and packing sheds and glasshouses, the rows of trees and my bedroom being my stepfather's abusive playground.
    "Why don't you tell me what's bugging you?"
    He persisted with my bad attitude toward him that day, dealing with my belligerent nastiness, while I struggled with the after-pains of another assault. My life's lessons and my stepdad had taught me to be snarky toward all strangers, friendly or not. Don't trust 'em or believe 'em or tell 'em anything. He seemed undeterred by my sarcasm and rudeness, nodding patiently to my caustic remarks as he kept talking to me during the course of the afternoon. Little by little, he whittled away my immunity, my unwillingness to listen or believe him receding in the face of his pleasant nature and kindly words. In time, I started to accept that he genuinely wanted to help me. I also warmed to the feeling he honestly wanted to be my friend and him to be mine, my only human friend. Fate again played its hand I felt, for I'm glad I hadn't been really abusive toward him, turning him away.
    "Please," he pleaded. "Life can improve and I can help you. Won't you let me?"
    Why, I'm not sure, but against all of my stepdad's brainwashing about strangers and the need to remain silent and not tell , and against my own convictions, I allowed myself to believe him, bit by bit. I guess his calm attitude and gestures, and his general ability to paint happy