Glass Cutter

Oliver and I could talk for hours about anything. He’d always called it “stream of consciousness.” We could talk about Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, or the square root of pi, or even just the idea of language. After he’d shared the truth about his memory with me—hyperthymesia, as he’d called it—I hadn’t been able to get enough of his “streaming consciousness;” and sometimes, which was most of the time, it’d even felt like he knew everything about the anythings we’d always converse over.

Oliver could recite all three parts of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy—a collection of books, called Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso—from the beginning to the very last canto, a total of almost more than 15,000 individual lines; and the most impressive part of it was that he could do it without even a single pause or hesitation for thought.

Many of my favorite quotes had been ones recited from Oliver’s memorized literature. “The path to paradise begins in hell,” he’d once said to me, quoting Alighieri on a day Delilah had been particularly bothering me. Another night, one that I knew I’d never forget for as long as I lived, he’d whispered breathlessly into my ear as his hands slipped past my shirt, “Remember tonight, for it is the beginning of always.”

He could also talk about the square root of pi for hours, which had perhaps intrigued me the most out of our conversations. He could recite more than just the first thousand digits of it—3.141,592,653... He could even talk about its historical significance concerning ancient, prehistoric pyramidal structures in Egypt, China, Russia, and every other place in the world, how it was simply the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. Roughly equivalent to ²²/₇ and represented by the Greek letter, π, Oliver had told me it was considered to be a “transcendental” number, ceaselessly mystifying mathematicians for thousands of years, even to present day.

“Because pi is an irrational number,” he’d once told me, “that means that its decimal contains an infinite amount of numbers in an infinite amount of combinations; and if that’s true, then that means that by using a specific function, an infinite amount of letters can also be found in an infinite number of combinations.

“And if this is in fact true, then that means that maybe the way I feel about you can somehow be explained into something more fathomable than just what I carry inside of me. I’ve been having a lot of trouble figuring it out lately, and it just gets more and more difficult everyday. I love you; I adore you; I literally cannot live without you...but none of that seems good enough to just say. It doesn’t really get the whole meaning across, you know?”

He could go on for days about all different things, and sometimes it was almost frightening how much he could remember and knew. We could have a conversation in person, continue it through text messages, and it would finish in person the next day. Literally and eternally, every detail in his head and our conversations had never been and could never be lost.

Oliver’s favorite topic to discuss had always been the idea of language, though. He could literally go on for days about all the world’s different languages, telling me all about the earliest stages in cuneiform or the 6,000+ different verbal forms. Perhaps the most ironic thing about this, though, had been that he hated language because he’d said he always felt like it could never properly convey that which was intangible; and yet, he’d always made it a point to remind me that words were all we truly ever had for ourselves as human beings.

One time, we’d had a discussion about this belief of his. I’d wanted to argue that words were not all humans had to give—we had actions that we could utilize to our own benefit of communication, as well—but he’d made a point when he’d held me tighter into his embrace and murmured with his hushed tone of a late night conversation, “But think about the discrepancies that actions have. Think about how you would react to me kissing you or touching you in all the places your dad would’ve probably killed me for.” He’d smirked at that. “You wouldn’t think I was doing it because I loved you. You only know now that I do it to express how much I love you because I tell you this. Without me telling you, you’d think I was just getting lucky for myself.”

He and I had tended to carry on conversations about our feelings, and no matter what topic a stream of consciousness would conjure up in our minds, every one had somehow always rebounded to just what had caused it: our subconscious prompts. He’d even brought up the study of psychology, had told me all about the id, ego, and super-ego according to Sigmund Freud. It had always been so fascinating to hear him talk about such things—and, really, just all things—because he’d never only just speak to me; he’d always teach me, always present something new to keep me up the nights I’d spend alone, always give me something to accompany the ceaseless thoughts of him.

A special relationship between Oliver Sykes and I had somehow developed in less than just four short months, but it had been a tightly knit bond, developed more in the ionic spectrum than covalent. My favorite thing about him was not only the fact that he could literally talk about anything, though; it was also that anytime he’d try explaining something I just couldn’t understand, he’d say something along the lines of, “Don’t worry. If it doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t need to,” and it had often been through this humble understanding of my mind, a mind weaker than his own, that he’d made it possible for me to find sense in any one of the myriad conversations we’d held.

However, since he’d come into my life, many other things had stopped making sense. My mother had been seeing one of his very own friends, whom he’d also gotten arrested and charged for drug possession with, and because of this, my best friend’s father had assaulted her in a fit of rage; and all the while, some “kids” from the town I’d called home had vandalized my living room as a type of revenge for something I’d unknowingly done to upset them. The anger that the people of Menlo had seemed to hold inside themselves lacked sense to me because of the great heights Oliver had managed to take me to; but this senseless anger had not been my own, and therefore, for this reason, I could always know and take comfort in the fact that it had not needed to make sense to me, nor would it ever.


The sky shone a brilliant gray, snow clouds resting in the late December weather. Suede coats, woolen scarves, and leather gloves seemed to become the school mascot, just about everyone donning such outerwear; and as Oliver and I headed from the back of the school campus toward the gymnasium entrance to return from our lunch break, we reveled in the cold weather, comfortable with our own canvas jackets and the lowering forty-degree temperatures.

He stopped me suddenly in my tracks, taking a hold of my hand to do so, and said, “Hey, why don’t we skip out today and go do something?” A bright grin formed on his face, and he bit down on his lip, bringing the silver hoop between his teeth for a moment. A sparkle shimmered in his eyes, almost like specks of glitter from the snow clouds above, and he peered at me for a long while.

I cleared my throat, the question taking me off guard. “Uh,” I stammered. “I don’t know, Oliver...I’ve never skipped before.”

He took my other hand in his, holding both parallel to his hips. “C’mon, just this one time, please? We’ll tell the school nurse you weren’t feeling well, so I took you home—or you went home by yourself, whatever you want.” The excitement sounded clearly in his voice.

I looked over to the school entrance to see only Betty Yu walking up the stairs, her long, black hair swaying down to her thighs. Despite how much I loved Oliver, it actually wasn’t uncommon for him to take me out of my comfort zone—but that was also one of the many things that made me love him so much—and that moment was an example of one of those times.

I pursed my lips and sighed. “What would we even do?”

He shrugged and pulled me closer to him so that our bodies were in contact. I felt the chills run down my spine because there were people watching us through the classroom windows, I knew, and a small part of me worried that my house would get vandalized again one day because of the growing affection we’d been showing each other more publicly.

“We’ll go to Seattle or something,” he answered simply, as if it was obvious. “We could spend the weekend there and come back Sunday night, this way we can be home for Christmas Eve.”

“Oh,” I breathed, “well...” I wanted to tell him no and that we needed to go to class, but it was hard to say no to Oliver Sykes. In all honesty, I didn’t know how anyone ever could.

“Alright,” I finally answered; “but I can’t do this anymore ’cause I’m also gonna be calling out of work, too. We’ll definitely be home by Sunday, right?”

He nodded, grinning, and gave my forehead a gentle kiss. “We’re gonna have a blast, love, I promise;” and while he’d intended to ease the worries with his affection, he’d really only made them worse, as I knew everyone in the classrooms had seen Oliver Sykes kiss Amanda Tate.


Oliver and I arrived in Seattle around dinnertime, the sky already a dark indigo behind us. We stopped at a Starbucks before making our way to his friends’ apartment building, and it was perhaps the most impacting decision either of us had ever made since determining our friendship.

We sat in a corner, watching the people pass as they hurried up and down the street. Silence filled us because sometimes, he would just like to watch. He’d like to memorize the patterns on a young girl’s pants, or the number of buttons on an older man’s peacoat, or the reflections of light on a woman’s patent leather purse, or just any other thing his eyes could grab a glimpse of.

The sound of an older man’s laugh filled the air of the quiet coffee shop atmosphere, the culprit sitting across from a younger man with his back facing us. “Yes, that is exactly right!” he exclaimed. “They think we’ve lost our way and we don’t know any better,” he went on, his voice only lowered slightly. “Too bad the joke’s on them!” and laughter boomed again.

Oliver furrowed his eyebrows in the men’s direction.

“What is it?” I asked him, understanding his expression as unsettled.

He remained silent, and the older man spoke again; “Yes, yes! Everyone’s so mindless these days. I swear there’s gonna be an uprising someday soon—maybe even World War Three!”

“That voice sounds so familiar,” Oliver murmured as the younger man quietly replied to his company.

“Whose is it?” I peered over my shoulder at the two to see only the younger man’s face and a head of thick, gray hair on the loud man across from him.

Oliver looked down at his half drank coffee, his grip collapsing the cup a little. “No one.” His voice was low and rough, almost like his throat had tightened up a little with anxiety.

I pursed my lips and looked at the strangers again. I didn’t believe Oliver, but I didn’t want to question him about the man’s familiarity, either. A feeling didn’t settle right in my gut upon the thought of it, and a type of intuition told me the loud stranger was someone Oliver hadn’t wanted to see in his life ever again.

“I agree!” the loud man suddenly chimed again. “I agree wholeheartedly!”

“Someone should tell that fucker to be a little more considerate to everyone else here,” Oliver growled, his eyes still focused on the drink.

“Do your memories ever go away?” I asked, trying to distract his mind from the growing anger. “Like ones from years ago—do they ever seem to get foggy?” There was a type of anger inside Oliver’s wrinkled forehead that I could only guess came from his past visions, and I wondered if any of them could ever go away.

“No,” he answered curtly. “They all feel like they just happened a few hours ago.”

“That’s it!” the stranger exclaimed again, interrupting my breath to speak. “That is exactly it. They give us a little bit, only just enough to survive, and they make it so that we need them—so that we can’t fight them. Take the second amendment for an example! We can’t fight if we don’t have no weapons. Damn, fucking politicians—”

Oliver immediately stood up at this, knocking his chair into the burnt orange wall behind him, and walked to the two men’s table. “It’s any,” he declared loudly, slamming his hands onto their table. “We can’t fight the government if we don’t have any weapons.” He brought his face close to the older man’s and added through grit teeth, “Now go back to second grade so you can learn the fucking language, you piece of shit.”

I turned around in my seat to see the two baristas looking at the altercation in the center of the shop, and the two men at the table remained silent, the younger man’s eyes wide.

The older man at the table leaned back to widen the space between himself and Oliver. He cleared his throat, wiped his mouth with the napkin beside his scone and coffee cup, and cleared his throat again. “I’m sorry I’ve disturbed you,” he finally answered calmly. “Do you have a fucking problem with saying it nicely?”

Oliver shook his head, laughing with an evil hint in his tone. “I do, Ian. I do have a fucking problem saying it nicely to you; and if you wanna fix the problem, we can step outside.”

Ian Sykes, Oliver’s father, had abandoned his wife and son with a Post-it note explanation more than ten years ago; and he was also the older man laughing loudly at that Starbucks with his younger company seated across from.

“Excuse me?” Ian Sykes retorted, his back straightening defensively.

Oliver reached into his back pocket, took out his wallet, ripped his license from the designated spot, and flung it at Ian’s face. “Actually, I don’t have a problem with saying anything nicely,” he growled. “I have a problem with you;” and in the blink of an eye, his hands were hooked into the collar of Ian’s leather jacket, lifting the older man from his seat. “I have a huge fucking problem with you.”

I had never seen rage in Oliver like that before. In fact, I didn’t think I could say I’d ever seen rage like that in anyone. It was frightening, almost, but it was more painful to witness. Ian Sykes had hurt his wife upon his departure, but he’d made his own son, his own flesh and blood, hate life so desperately that the seven-year-old boy had tried taking his own life. No child should’ve ever known what the taste of Death was like, and Ian Sykes was a horrible man for being the cause of it.

“Sir,” the male barista suddenly chimed, interrupting Oliver and approaching behind the cash register, “I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.”

Oliver dropped Ian, causing him to fumble into his own seat, and walked to the register, where the employee was. Aside from myself, Oliver and his father, his father’s friend, and the two baristas, there were only four other people in that coffee shop, and each of them stared at Oliver with fear in their expressions.

“I’m so sorry,” Oliver began, leaning over the counter to look at the man’s name tag, “...Bobby. Forgive me for disturbing the peace here; but just let me ask you something, okay? Do you have a father, Bobby?”

Bobby nodded, seeming a little frightened.

“Okay,” Oliver replied, nodding back. “Okay, and is he still around? Does he still talk to you—you know, ask you what you’ve been up to and stuff?”

Bobby nodded again.

“That’s nice...That’s very nice.” Oliver turned back to face Ian, but his speech was still directed to the employee. “You see, Bobby, this is my dad.” He patted Ian’s back, causing the older man to flinch a little as he stared down at the ID on the tabletop before him. “This is my dad, and I haven’t seen him in twelve years. He walked out on me and my mom, Bobby—so do you understand why I’m a little frazzled now?”

Bobby nodded a third time. “I-I just need to ask you to either calm down or leave, though,” he stammered.

Oliver nodded quietly before grabbing Ian’s arm and dragging him through the glass door entrance. Within a second of stepping outside, his fist met the older man’s face, and Ian Sykes fell to the ground on his knees, holding his face in his palms with blood falling through the spaces between his fingers.

I jumped up from my seat, snatched Oliver’s license quickly from the other men’s table, and hurried outside to try and calm him, but he brought his fist to Ian’s face a second time before I could. Ian fell onto his backside, and a third blow knocked his head into the glass window of the café. He held his fist up for a fourth time but quickly saw me in his peripheral, and in one second, his arm fell limply at his side, a look of defeat and shame in his expression.

“Oliver,” I choked, seeing the blood from his father staining his knuckles.

Without another word, he turned on his heel and began walking down the street in the opposite direction of his car—and of me. I called after him, but he continued on without even the slightest bit of hesitation in his stride. I felt my heart fall a little at the way he so easily ignored me, but I had to remind myself of the situation.

It was yet another example of why I’d begun thinking I was so much more self-absorbed than I’d ever wanted to be. While Oliver struggled with seeing his father for the first time in over a decade, my first instinct was to feel offense that he was walking away from the sound of my voice.

Once finally nearing a corner and allowing me to catch up with him, though, he leaned against a brick storefront and sat down upon the sidewalk. He reached into his pocket, grabbed a cigarette, and as he lit it, his eyes peered up at me in the most breathtaking way. I felt almost awful because in the way that his eyes sparkled with tears, I found an even further attraction to him that I hadn’t ever known possible.

As I sat beside him, though, ignoring the accusatory glances of passersby, I realized the feeling in my gut was much more than just a physical attraction. The way he’d looked at me then—as physically attractive as it was in itself—held an emotion much deeper than just pain. A saying tells that eyes are the windows to the soul; and after seeing Oliver’s glistening eyes, tears threatening to spill over from the brims for the entire public to see, I realized that I was not attracted to the sadness that I had felt guilty for. Within that sadness was another emotion—needing.

His eyes followed me before I sat down, and no words had been said, but they said that he needed me there, that if I had stayed at the Starbucks to clean up his mess, he might’ve lost it all, every bit of life he’d ever worked for. I didn’t know if I was reading him correctly, but my interpretation of it alone was enough to make my heart skip beats.

Sadness and pain were sometimes hard to feel when in love; and at that moment, despite the anguish Oliver must’ve been feeling, I still felt completion and comfort—because no matter how much pain Oliver or I might’ve felt, we still had each other, and becoming like one single being was enough to heal any wound.

I just hoped he felt the same way.

He caught me off guard when he took my hand in his, the one free of his father’s blood, and he gave me the smallest smile possible, the threatening red gone from the whites of his eyes.

“I just don’t know how to feel sometimes,” he murmured, peering down at our intertwined fingers. “I wanna be angry and upset—and a lot of times I am, I guess—but then I realize there’s no reason to be. That realization still catches me off guard sometimes.”

I nodded and rested my head against the brick wall behind us. “I understand;” and I really did. No matter what seemed to ever happen, an initial feeling of anguish or discomfort would always take over, but almost as quickly as it did, it would always subside with the thought of sharing myself with one single human being, a soul more beautiful than the rising sun, a young man named Oliver Sykes.

“Amanda?” he asked after a long moment of silence.

“Yeah?”

“Tell me the fondest memory you have of your dad,” he said softly. “I wanna hear more about him. You once told me I reminded you of him, and I’ve always wanted to know why.”

I felt my cheeks get hot from the surge of longing for my passed father, but I also felt an unexpected comfort with the question, too. I’d known since the beginning of my friendship with Oliver that he would eventually ask—just like I would eventually ask about his own absentee—but I hadn’t expected it to be in a moment like that, on a crowded evening street in Seattle, a hundred miles away from home. All the same, though, I was more ready to answer than I’d ever thought I could be.

I suddenly smiled at the thought. “My dad had this weird hobby of cutting glass,” I answered, chuckling at the surge of recollections. “He would always find these big pieces of glass, and he’d bring them home and paint them; and then he’d try cutting them in all these different ways. One time, he tried cutting through it with this thick rope of thread that I’d helped him make.”

The picture of my father towering beside me in our living room came to my mind, his shoulder-length hair sticking to his forehead from the summer heat. He’d asked me the day before to help him weave a kind of rope, braid long strands of white thread together, and as I sat beside him on the hardwood floors, I’d felt so proud of myself because without my help, he would’ve never been able to try a new method of cutting his glass pieces.

“I feel like that’s maybe why I love art so much now,” I continued. “Unconventional art was my dad’s favorite thing—other than me.” I smiled at the knowledge that I had always been Daddy’s little girl for as long as he’d lived. “And I guess, even if I don’t do all that crazy stuff like cutting glass or braiding thread, it still feels like I’m keeping his memory alive by continuing on with something that he liked doing.”

Oliver didn’t answer, but a smile remained on his face as his eyes studied the sky above us. As I memorized all the beautiful features of his profile in the orange hue of a nearby streetlight—his dark hair curving just above his eyes, his hazel eyes beautifully round in the thin silhouette of his face, his nose bridge perfectly straight, and his thick lips pouting in the most attractive way—I suddenly became aware of why the infamous Oliver Sykes reminded me so much of my father, the also infamous Brent Tate; and upon finally seeing it, I realized that I’d known it all long but just only understood it consciously for the first time then.

“You remind me of him because you’re a glass cutter,” I declared, breaking the silence.

He peered at me quizzically. “What do you mean?”

“My dad was probably the strangest man I’ve ever met,” I began. “I can honestly say that I’ve never even heard of a person trying to cut glass without actual tools; but he was also the most kindhearted, loving person I’ve ever met, too—that is, until you came along.” I squeezed his hand at this.

“My dad had such strange hobbies, but they all defined him,” I went on. “If he didn’t always try to cut glass with thread or poorly rig broken record players, he wouldn’t have been my dad; and you remind me of him because you also have these strange interests that just characterize you completely.

“You’re a glass cutter, too, Oliver.” Understanding seemed to read on his face at this. “You wanna cut everyone down to the level they belong on. You wanna put them in their place because you genuinely want the world to be a better place; and that’s the most altruistic thing I think anyone could ever do or worry about.

“I think what reminds me most of my dad, though, is that it’s kind of like you don’t have the right tools for cutting down Menlo. For the rest of the world, you certainly do, but Menlo’s almost like a different kind of glass—something a little more stubborn than just fired sand, you know?

“I love it, though, Oliver, because I’ve never met anyone that’s even half the person you are; and it excites me so much to think that you love me the same way I love you because that’s the biggest honor anybody could ever ask for. You’re the most sincere, kindhearted person that’s ever existed, Oliver. I really mean that. I just wish I could make the rest of the world see what you have to offer—or at least just Menlo because the rest of the world seems to pretty much get it, seeing how popular Bring Me The Horizon’s getting.”

I found myself grinning and staring up at the darkening sky with an odd feeling of relief. It felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders once I’d finally come to understand just exactly who Oliver Sykes was. He was not a misbehaved, gorgeously tattooed, cocky teenage boy. He was so much more than that, so much more than the little town we called home could or would ever see.

“Tell me the fondest memory you have of your dad,” I said after his response remained as just a small smile. “I know you have to have at least one.”

He pursed his lips, the smile gently fading, but a shine from the orange-colored streetlights still lit his eyes up beautifully. He looked down at his bent knees, his thighs pulled close to his chest.

“The last night I ever saw him,” he finally answered, closing his eyes and resting his head against the storefront’s brick foundation. “The day after, I found a Post-it note on our fridge, saying that this wasn’t working anymore. I remember first feeling a little confused—like I didn’t know what this was—but unfortunately, it didn’t take me long to figure it out. He was talking about having a family.

“The night before he left, though, he let me stay up really late with him. Looking back on it now, it kind of seems like he’d been hinting to me about leaving all along. We stayed up talking together, which was really weird because he never really talked to me or my mom like that; but he and I talked that night, and he told me all this stuff about life and whatnot. I wasn’t really sure if I believed anything he was saying then, but now it all seems to make sense. I guess things like that happen once you grow up.”

He took a deep breath and went on with a tremor flashing through his body. “He told me that I was gonna grow up one day and realize the meaning of life; but at that age, I didn’t really understand even the concept of life, let alone the meaning of it. I didn’t see a difference between living and being alive, but that night, I realize now that he was trying to make me see it because he knew I couldn’t. I guess that if I could’ve seen it then, though, things would be a little different now.

“I don’t know if you remember this,” he went on, seeming to lose the hesitation in his tone, “but our first day of chem, the first day of school, you told me I should go on Jeopardy because of everything I knew on that introductory sheet; and our conversation eventually led to me saying that life was pointless, and you got this defensive tone all of a sudden.” He smiled at this memory, his eyes dropping to our linked hands once more. “You said that life is all about finding yourself; and even if a person never discovers who they’re really meant to be, it doesn’t mean that they were never meant to be anything at all.

“And I didn’t argue with you then, but I didn’t want to agree with you, either. The thing is, though, I did agree with you. I believed you when you said it, and I suddenly believed that everything in my life had happened for a reason—that my past wasn’t just a bullshit excuse of a childhood. It was hard, though, at first because I’d gone my whole life thinking that life was pointless. Life was pointless because my dad left me; it was pointless because Delilah was a cunt; it was pointless because Amanda Tate could never love me; it was pointless for all these stupid fucking reasons—but when you said that, when you told me that we’re all here to find ourselves and who we’re supposed to become, I suddenly just knew that you were right.

“I knew since I was little that I wanted to change the way our town ran,” he said suddenly with a very stern undertone. “I knew that I wanted to change the hypocrisy, the corruption, all of the shitty foundations that Menlo had been built on; and when I got older, when I started making music with my friends here in Seattle, I knew that it wasn’t only Menlo. I wanted to change the world.

“I wanted to set an example of what a revolution really looked like. I wanted to show people that the answer wasn’t in guns and fighting, or getting into politics and being just like the filthy bastards they wanna stop, or being richer than all hell. I wanted the world to know that a revolution could only ever be inside us, that we, ourselves, are all we’ll ever have, so we need to make the most of it.

“But none of it ever made me feel like I had a point in living. It all just gave me something to do, something to keep me busy when I got bored; and then when you said that life had a point, that that point was to find ourselves and our purpose, it made me realize that being the change I wanna see in the world is my purpose.

“And now I have another purpose, too, Amanda—to love you.” He grinned at this, giving my hand a gentle squeeze, and I felt my heart flutter along with the gentle winter breeze. “I owe you my life, and that sounds so awful now that I’ve actually said it out loud—” He chuckled at this. “—but it’s really the only way I can explain it. You saved me.

“Before that first day in chem, even though I’d never tried to kill myself so violently since second grade, there wasn’t a single fucking day that’d gone by that I wouldn’t think about it. I thought about making a spectacle, just so everybody in Menlo could have a laugh and keep themselves busy for another few years with the story of Oliver Sykes hanging himself from a streetlight on Maplewood Boulevard. I thought about keeping it quiet and doing it at my house, where no one would find me for weeks.

“I hated myself, Amanda, and I don’t think I’ve ever hated a living creature more than I’d spent just about my entire life hating me. I don’t even hate Delilah as much as I hated myself back then. I always wanted to follow Gandhi’s words, to be the change that I wanted to see in my life, and I always wanted to set that example for the world and for Menlo...but it never seemed to change how disgusting I saw myself.

“I covered myself in tattoos because I hated my skin; I drugged myself up because I hated my mind; I grew my hair out so it covered more of my face because I hated my face; I wore beanies because I hated my hair; but none of it was ever enough. None of it ever took away the absolutely disgusted feelings I lived with everyday.

“And then you came along. You came unwillingly at first—” We both laughed at this. “—but you still came, nevertheless; and you said just a simple sentence to me, one that you probably didn’t even realize was so important. Life is all about finding yourself—that’s the point; and you saved me because of it, and for that, I really do owe you my life because you’re the only one that’s ever been able to convince me that there was a reason for keeping it—and, even more importantly, treasuring it.

“I’ve found myself, Amanda, and I know who I am now...I’m Oliver Sykes; I’m the singer of Bring Me The Horizon; I’m the boyfriend of Amanda Tate; and yeah, I come from a sick, twisted, fucked up place—but I’ve realized the meaning of life; and I’ve realized the meaning of my life; and that’s a fuck of a lot more than most other people can say.

“And all of that is why the last night I spent with my dad is the best memory I have of him—because when he was around, he was a shithead, and that was the only time in my life that he ever took the initiative to act like he was my dad. What he said to me then, followed by him leaving the next day, affected all the things I did in my life and all the fucked up ways I’ve felt; but without that conversation, without that one night of having him actually be there for me and with me, I might’ve never noticed the true importance of what you said to me that day in chem—and without being able to see that, I think the only thing I’d be seeing now would be two feet wide and six feet deep.”

We sat in silence for a long while. I didn’t quite know what to say because I didn’t quite know how I felt. I had an overwhelming sense of adoration, a sempiternal feeling of awe. Oliver never ceased to surprise me, but as we sat on the cold pavement of a Seattle street, the city buzzing all around us and flourishing with life, I came to the conclusion that he never would; and with this confidence in his profound gift—the gift of originality and individuality—it almost felt like I could spend the rest of my life with him, like he really could “wife me up.”

I knew the quote Oliver had been living by, and another feeling that resembled inspiration captivated me with the recollection of Mahatma Gandhi’s words; If we could change ourselves, he had said, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes in his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. We need not wait to see what others do. My mind raced with the motivation to change my surroundings, along with an unfamiliar sense of confidence to do so.

I wanted the world to know that I loved Oliver Sykes with every possible fiber of my being. Even more importantly, though, I had finally decided that not only did I want the world to know, but above anything and everything else, I wanted the entire town of Menlo to. I wanted to be the revolution that Oliver talked about—because I was sick of being shackled to the shitty foundations our town had been built on. It was time for a change, and only I, myself, could direct it if I was the one that so wanted it.

Once establishing some sort of sense with these emotions, I was finally able to say something in response; “Oliver Sykes, my very own glass cutter...” I smiled and rested my head against his shoulder, feeling his cheek immediately against my hair. “...changing the world one amazing song at a time.”