lovely dream, still it seems, like the dream of a boy not yet a man
It wasn’t fair how Jack seemed to be forgiven so easily, nothing more than a promise and a grin, and everyone let Jack go. Jack Kelly was always able to get anything he wanted with that stupid grin and charming tone.
It wasn’t fair how he got each girl, each praise, each boy to agree.
It wasn’t fair how everybody seemed to move on but David.
The pit in David’s stomach remained, his chest still heavy, and heart still hollow while he watched Jack leave— him for a dream.
It didn’t matter at all, because who was David compared to Santa Fe?
The longing still shined- No, it glared in Jack’s eyes. Santa Fe taunted David like a joke, a running gag that he fought so hard to be the bigger person of. No matter who David was, the brave leader or the meek kid, he would never be Santa Fe.
He made himself sick thinking about how envious he was of a daydream, the stories Jack continued to hum made David furious yet still soften.
He was mostly furious at the fact he couldn’t stay furious at all. His anger bubbled inside him before it dissipated whenever Jack had that smile on his face— The same smile everybody saw, everybody knew. Perhaps he was more mad that he couldn’t pinpoint the origin of the feeling, or because he could pinpoint exactly what it was.
He never wanted Jack to leave, but not because he woke up from a dream, but because he would find his new dream.
So it was a dreadful feeling to be left behind, for a thing much more beautiful than he. What hurt the most, David had found as he stood still at the train station where Jack had left him, that every one of his thoughts was proven correct merely ten minutes ago when Jack hugged him goodbye.
David was too loud— No, no he wasn’t loud enough. David had to be seen by the other— even if never being looked at to begin with would have saved the boy time, heartache, and fear.
And he would’ve ran to catch him if prompted to run away too.
He wondered briefly if Jack looked back in the car, if somehow he was thinking the same thoughts the wider the gap between them became.
Then, he remembered how he was one of the many that was left behind. He was another tally, another person, another heart that Jack Kelly kept in his pocket.
David was no special than anybody else, no more important.
Not when Santa Fe was just in reach.
Not when, he came to the realization solemnly, his presence could be so replaceable by a desert in the middle of nowhere.
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