Safe Haven

I can’t tell my story without somehow including pieces of his.

Although I sometimes wanted to ignore his existence and pretend that he was never involved in my life at all, I simply couldn’t. You see, John O’Callaghan had a presence about him that just demanded attention. He didn’t even have to be as tall as he was to have all eyes on him.

I guess that’s what helped to guide his success. He had that ability instilled somewhere deep inside that allowed him to quiet a room or draw everyone near. Even at a young age he had that effect on me.

Our relationship started off running wild on the abandoned jogging trail that cut through the once scenic parts of our hometown. We dug for “buried treasures” and scavenged the area for anything that would bring our overactive imaginations peace on beautiful summer days when our mother's kicked us out of the house to get some "fresh air".

It was late June when, together, we found Fort Ravenrot. Nestled fifty yards or so off course it sat in its aging glory, hiding in plain sight.

To be honest, it was a crummy little shack that had been abandoned for some reason long ago. The roof leaked through its rotted shingles in more than one place and the flooring was rough enough to always need shoes on or you would have to deal with splinters later. But to us, to a young John and me, it was the most spectacular place in Tempe. We used it as our fortress against the evil of the woods that summer and then forgot about it when school rolled around, preserving the magic of the secret place for summertime and summertime always.

The next summer though, our friendship turned from friendly to the natural cootie phase where I couldn’t stand him and he couldn’t stand me. Our friends became a crucial part of our interactions, though we hardly were civil to each other.

War waged on the entire next summer. The girls and boys took sides and fought over the ownership of Ravenrot, racing each other right away in the morning to get there first. And if the other group got there before you did, you could choose to give up and try to see if anyone’s mother could bring you to the pool for the day, or you fought.

And more often than not, we chose the latter.

Water balloons left over from Cassandra Ritter’s birthday party were launched, filled with the ickiest water we could find. Shaving cream stolen from our father or older brother’s medicine cabinet was sprayed and water guns were always loaded.

We were warriors. We were savages. We refused to give in.

For those two years, no one associated with the other off of our makeshift battlefield.

That third year though, something changed: either the boys got tired of the perfume bombs us girls created or they simply didn’t want to deal with our whining anymore when we lost. But something had obviously changed because instead of seeing someone playing lookout or setting up booby traps, John stood outside of Ravenrot, leaning carefully on the door, as if waiting for us girls to waltz up.

And then he curled that finger, beckoning me forward into what would be known as the Treaty of Ravenrot: Number 12 (the serious one) between the boys and girls that declared Ravenrot open to all no matter the gender.

And it really did become a hangout for us kids.

No one cared if magazines were sprawled all over the place. No one cared if we Sharpie-d the walls in lame graffiti or moved a tiny couch in that someone had managed to find. No one cared about anything as long as there was music or food around for us to indulge in.

The mutual hatred shared between John and I had faded and eventually turned into a boyfriend-girlfriend type of relationship when high school rolled around.

Fort Ravenrot never faded from our lives though. Even when the leaks turned into steady streams on rainy days and the couch grew so musty that we had to get rid of it. It turned out to be a place of healing and peace offerings for the two of us even as we grew older.

When fights surfaced, we always ended up making up in old Ravenrot. And when we needed each other, we could always leave a note tacked outside the door for each other to find eventually.

But that was in the past. Time and circumstance, as I would call it, changed every aspect of my life in the matter of a couple of hours.

For the longest time, I blamed John. I really did. He was the one who made me so vulnerable, who convinced me that everything would be fine; he lied, and I regretted ever believing him.

But as much as I wanted to blame him for everything, I couldn’t deflect the greater majority of the blame from myself.

I left five years into our relationship with no intention of returning to Fort Ravenrot again, or even to Tempe for that matter, leaving nothing but a note tacked to that rain-wilted door and a few things left in his apartment to remind him that I even existed.

And although I was sure that he wouldn’t need those few pieces of clothing or hair ties to remember me, I would try to find every reason and every way to forget him.

That was until my parents plucked me out of a hospital in Seattle and decided that I'd spent far too long living away from Arizona.

I moved back at the end of spring 2012, almost exactly one year after my abrupt move and the dislike between the two of us returned. Only this time, we didn’t use shaving cream or stinky water balloons to express it. Instead, he used those piercing eyes to stare me down; he used silence to shun me.

I just needed to see him to know that a new peace treaty wouldn’t be so simple to come by.

Fort Ravenrot would not fix our issues so easily this time.