Seventeen (prologue)
It’s a strange thing, remembering happiness during what you believed was the worst time of your life. Or at least, what I thought was the worst time of my life back then, as a teenager. Getting sent to a gay conversion camp with my out-of-the-closet boyfriend after punching his ex-girlfriend in the face wasn’t something I imagined I’d one day look back on fondly. But that one punch ended up setting the course of my life.
I turned seventeen the day I punched Brooklyn Johnson in the face, for calling my boyfriend a faggot.
The reason I’m thinking about all of this now is because of two questions I was asked just before college graduation, almost ten years later. My professor asked: When you die, and your life flashes before your eyes, what do you most look forward to seeing? And: If you could relive any age, what would it be?
Those two questions went hand in hand for me. I didn’t hesitate.
“Seventeen,” I told him.
“Seventeen?” He lowered his glasses. “What happened?”
And that’s how I found myself looking back on the best summer of my life, a summer that started with a slur, a punch, and gay conversion camp.
This is a good start to the story. It’s short and to the point.