What I have so far, advice and feedback please
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Have you ever thought about how many people have had their lives completely turned upside down by a single event—a cataclysm? That happened to me when I was a young boy. One day, the rug was just pulled out from under me.
As a child, my life was great. I had loving parents and grew up in a good home. We went on family trips and made a lot of great memories together. My brother and I were inseparable. We fought, laughed, and played games on our PS2—he always beat me. Growing up, I thought our family was perfect. I believed we’d always be that close. I had no idea how little I knew.
It was about halfway through seventh grade when things changed. My mom picked me up from school one day with my brother already in the car. I was confused—and pissed off. At the time, I was more concerned about not getting to smoke my usual after-school cigarette, the one I’d stolen from my dad’s ashtray that morning. I used to skateboard to and from school every day. It was peaceful being out early, alone, just listening to music.
But when they pulled up that day, I could tell something was wrong. My brother looked stressed. He kept glancing at me like something awful had happened.
We had a lot of sick and elderly people in our family, so my mind went there immediately. Who had died this time? Even at a young age, funerals had become routine. My parents had me and my brother later in life than most of my friends’ parents, which meant many of our relatives were already gone—people I knew only through stories. It didn’t help that many of them were heavy smokers, drunks, or both.
I got into my mom’s Porsche SUV—a car we could only afford because my dad knew how to work on them and had for most of his life. As I settled into the backseat, my brother kept staring at me in silence. My mom asked, “How was school?” like nothing about this moment was out of the ordinary.
Then we drove across the street to a restaurant. We went in and sat down. Of course, my first question was, “Where’s Dad?”
That’s when she started to explain that our family wasn’t going to be the same ever again.
Immediately, a flood of thoughts raced through my head: What happened? Everything was fine yesterday. What does this mean? What’s going to happen now? But the biggest question—the one that echoed the loudest—was: Why?
Anyone who’s had their parents divorce while they were young probably knows that question well. It’s the one that keeps you up at night. It loops in your mind constantly. Why?
My brother was 18 and just about to graduate from high school when everything really started to change. I was told I’d be splitting time—one week at my dad’s house, one week at my mom’s.
At the time, I blamed my mom for everything. For splitting up the family. My dad seemed happy, relaxed—why wasn’t she? I wanted nothing to do with her. But I thought I’d be okay because I had my brother—my best friend—to go through it with me.
That wasn’t the case.
As soon as things started to get tough—when the changes really hit, he left and moved two hours away, which at the time felt like another country. He didn’t call. I couldn’t drive to visit. It started to sink in: I was alone in this new situation.
Almost everyone felt like an enemy to me.
My dad was easygoing, and being with him was great. As long as I stayed out of major trouble—or didn’t get caught—I could pretty much do what I wanted. We grew closer, especially during those first couple of weeks when it was just the two of us.
When we first moved in, we had nothing. Our living room consisted of two lawn chairs, a small foldable TV tray, a TV, and a PS3. I’ll never forget those nights—renting movies, ordering pizza, and watching TV like that. At the time, it felt perfect.
My bedroom was just a blank room with a military cot my dad had picked up at an estate sale. His bedroom was simply a mattress on the floor. But I wouldn’t have changed a thing. It was all we needed to have a great time together.
We’d sit on the back porch before school, drinking black coffee and having long talks. He treated me like an adult—and that only made my resentment toward my mom grow deeper.
That’s when things really started to change.
I finally made the decision to go over to my mom’s house and tell her off. And I did. I told her I hated being there, that I wanted nothing to do with her, that I only wanted to live with my dad. Then I skateboarded back to his house, leaving her standing there in tears. She was sobbing because of what I said—but all I felt in that moment was victory. I felt like I’d won.
For a while, it was great. Just me and my dad—hours of good conversation, the occasional beer he’d hand me while we hung out, and me doing dumb stuff with my friends. For those couple of months, it felt perfect.
I was still in middle school when everything changed. One afternoon, I came home to find my dad had packed up the little we had in the living room. He wouldn’t look at me at first. When he finally did, there was a heaviness in his eyes I hadn’t seen before—shame, maybe, or defeat.
“We’re being evicted,” he said quietly. He told me he’d reach out once he’d saved enough to rent another place. For now, though, I’d have to go back to my mom’s house until he figured things out.
To me, that wasn’t an option. By then, I knew my parents avoided speaking to each other whenever possible, and after the way I’d left things at my mom’s, going back felt impossible. I didn’t tell my dad, but I made a decision right there: at 13, I’d try my luck on my own.
I didn’t have much to pack. One backpack for school, another for clothes. I stuffed them both as full as I could. My dad tried to convince me to let him drive me to my mom’s, but he eventually gave up. My skating between houses had been normal for the short time we’d been switching back and forth, so he went back to loading his things into his little white Porsche.
Inside, I gathered what I thought I’d need—pocket knives, canned food from the pantry, anything useful I figured my dad wouldn’t notice missing. In my head, I had it all planned out: where I’d stay, how I’d eat. It all felt foolproof.
When everything was ready, I hugged my dad. Told him I loved him. Told him I’d see him soon. Then I rode off on my skateboard, heading to the local park near my school—the place I’d decided would be my home, at least for a while.
But as I rolled away, panic crept in. Maybe I should just go back to my mom’s, I thought. But the thought snapped shut as quickly as it came. I still had so much disdain for her, and after the way I’d spoken to her, why would she even want to see me?
So I stayed with my plan. I reached the park around five in the evening. It was huge, sprawling—perfect for hiding. I could move around from one secluded wooded area to another to avoid being seen or questioned by passersby, while staying close enough to the pavilions for water from the fountains. That was my plan: stay invisible, stay alive.
I got most of my food from school lunches, so food, thankfully, wasn’t too much of an issue. Feeding myself on weekends, though—that was a bit trickier. I found a church nearby that had a food pantry where I was able to get a few meals. I told everyone there that my family had just fallen on hard times, which was true—but I couldn’t let anyone know I was actually homeless.
One thing I realized pretty quickly was that I didn’t have many clothes, and I was starting to stink. I noticed classmates and teachers giving me looks, and I knew I needed to figure something out fast before someone tried to contact my parents.
Then I had a "great" idea: I’d steal coins from the fountain in the park to get some cash. Of course, I got soaked doing it, but I didn’t care. My plan was to walk to a laundromat about a mile away, and that’s what I did—completely clueless about how much it actually cost to wash and dry clothes.
I realized pretty quickly it was a dumb and unsustainable plan. Also, apparently being 13 and alone in a laundromat raises red flags. I got way too much attention. People started asking questions—where my parents were, if I needed help. The whole thing made me nervous. I just wanted to be left alone.
I got back to the park that I called home and started to brainstorm other ways to draw less attention to myself. I settled on just washing myself and my clothes in the same fountain where I had gathered those coins—always late at night, when the park was empty. Most of the time, I’d wash both me and my clothes at the same time, just to save time and effort.
It started to feel normal to me after only a short while. It's wild how quickly you can adjust to a new way of life.
There were a lot of nights in the park when police would walk through with flashlights, trying to make sure the place was clear—obviously not doing a great job. I had to hide my bags by camouflaging them with branches and tucking myself as deep into the brush as I could to avoid being seen.
My days were a routine: go to school, come back to my makeshift camp, do homework, read whatever library book I had at the time, then take care of chores and relocate if I thought I had raised too much attention. It never got easy, but it got more comfortable as time went on.
Until fall came.
When the temperatures started to drop, I realized pretty quickly that I wasn’t prepared for it at all. Another problem I hadn’t noticed right away was the cameras. They had mounted surveillance cameras on many of the pavilions, and if I showed up on any of them too often, it would definitely bring a bigger police presence into the park.
When the rain started coming in, I switched to sleeping under concrete park tables in more secluded areas. It was rougher and definitely an adjustment, but at least it kept me dry during the lighter storms.
Still, many of those colder nights would’ve been so much easier if I could’ve just started a fire. Just something—anything—for a little warmth.
It was near Thanksgiving break. It had been over a month now. I had never thought it was going to last this long.
Why hadn’t my dad contacted me? Why hadn’t this come to an end yet?
I was starting to worry about the school break. While many of my classmates were visibly excited to have time off, for me, all it meant was a full week without a planned meal. I was nervous, and everything was starting to take a toll on me.
Between cleaning myself in the cold fountain water and the lack of food, I started to get sick—weak, dizzy, and run down.
It was the night before a big project was due in science class, and I had just eaten a cheap cup of ramen I bought from the grocery store nearby with another handful of coins I’d gathered. That cup of noodles was a luxury for me—partly because I’d already spent most of the coins in that fountain. But it refused to stay in my stomach.
I was angry. Angry that I’d wasted it. Angry that I was still out there. Angry that nothing had changed.
Still, I got up the next morning and powered through school, then went back to the park and tried to plan for the break. I had no idea how I was going to make it—sick, out of food, and temperatures still dropping.
Of course, it was then—when I already felt my worst mentally and physically, with an empty stomach and no ideas left—that I focused on bundling up as much as possible. A massive storm was coming, a torrential downpour.
It was the storm I’d overheard classmates saying might ruin their Thanksgiving plans. But for me, all I was focused on was simply making it through.
I gathered all of my things, trying to keep them as dry as possible, and slid underneath the most tucked-away concrete park bench I could find. Thunder boomed. Lightning struck nearby. Rain came down sideways. I lay there almost devoid of hope—cold, drenched, shivering.
It wasn’t until about nine p.m. that the rain turned into a light sprinkle. All that time, I hadn’t seen a single sign of anyone else in the park. Until I saw her.
A woman on the walking trail with an umbrella and a rain jacket. She was coming my direction.
I panicked, thinking she’d see me and call the police. As she got closer, I didn’t know what to do. All my energy was used up trying to preserve warmth after the storm. I hoped that if I stayed still, she wouldn’t notice me—that she’d just walk right past.
But as she got closer, I realized she’d left the trail. She was walking toward the exact bench I was hiding under.
She sat down on the soaked concrete bench, less than a foot away from me. My mind raced in panic. What was she doing? Was I safe? Should I get up and run?
Before I could act, she reached down, placed one hand on my shoulder, and set a plastic sack on the ground.
I could feel the warmth on my cold face. It smelled amazing. Without saying a word, she got up and walked away.
As soon as I could, I ripped into the bag. Inside was a homemade ham-and-cheese sandwich and hot chicken noodle soup.
Why she didn’t call the police or scold me was beyond my comprehension. At the time, it wasn’t even a thought.
All I knew was that it was the best food I’d had in a long time. And it gave me hope again.
It was two days after that that I finally got a call from my dad He finally found a place to rent send me the address and told me to be there later that day after I got off school and I headed and then for a while things were looking up soon better than they were. Of course naturally when I got there he had saw the condition I was in and had many questions He didn't understand I don't know if I do now but I told him how I'd been living and I was scolded very harshly I got thoroughly chewed out.