All I Can Feel

Authors Avatar

Asha Pathak 11MC – Original Writings Coursework

All I Can Feel

This is a story about a boy I once knew. He chose to live and learn - the hard way. The first time I had met him was a long time ago, he wasn’t much to look at and to be honest, I didn’t think highly of him and his reputation. He looked at me with a twinkle in his eye; little did I know that this would later result in a deep and meaningful friendship.

We had met through a mutual friend and he had introduced himself straight away, I had had so much fun by listening to him and found it easy to relax which was a bonus really as I was usually tense around older men. I liked the way I felt after we had talked, and it made me curious about who he really was.

It turned out that he was an ex- drug dealer just turned eighteen year old. I learned to have respect for him and found that I could confide in this person. A feeling a lot of teenagers have when they’re depressed is that no one understands them, and that they’re totally alone with their problems. Adults would call it adolescence. Typical. The fact was that I never felt these things after I had got to know him, and I was able to tell him everything that I thought was going wrong in my life. He taught me with his own experiences and encounters not to be afraid and showed me a completely new perspective of life. He told me about his past – it made my “problems” sound petty. His father was shot in a park. A drug dealer. His mother; a prostitute. Him – well, he could decide what he wanted to be.

“The old man was hooked on cocaine. He made me and Mum watch him take it. He took pleasure in hearing Mum cry. It still amazes me that he never died on an overdose; it doesn’t matter, at least he’s put her out of her misery. I don’t blame him, he was just a screwed up man who didn’t even want a family, let his trousers down and ended up with a wife and kid. But despite that he still married Mum and supported us”, he laughed “I remember when he taught me how to swim. He said he needed to go the coast on a job – Mum said I’d catch a death of cold because it was like an icebox outside. When we got there he threw me into the sea and jumped in after me. Our clothes were soaking and they wouldn’t let us onto the train”, he paused. “We walked half way and I fainted. I’d caught pneumonia”, he paused again. “I’m not ever going to end up like him.” A tear trickled down his cheek. “Never.”

Join now!

He craved this life that people may have seen as beyond him, but he was out to prove them wrong. I put my belief into him.

One evening as we were talking he had told me that he had smoked a joint. I was slightly disappointed in him, but at the same time glad that he had told me. He looked at me and brushed the hair out of my face. I smiled and told him that I really appreciated him being my friend and that he meant a lot to me. “You mean a lot to me ...

This is a preview of the whole essay