At first I thought the screen might be broken or something. The buttons had disappeared, but the screen stayed blank, even after it started playing dull, muffled voices. Then a light appeared at the end of the darkness. For a moment, I wondered if it was going to start with my appearance here and work backwards.

Two giant hands reached out to me as soon as I parted the darkness. Women in clinical white, a hospital room, this recap was literally starting with my birth.

"It's a boy," then snapping the umbilical chord, then clean blankets, all very cliché. Untill my mother came into view. Much younger than I'd ever seen her except for old photos and videos. I was handed over to her, she held me tight. She looked so overjoyed to see me. "Hey little Oliver, nice to meet you."

I couldn't help but smile back at her. "Hey mom." It sounded weak. My chest was stinging, all tight like a spring wound up too tightly without space to uncoil. I took deep breaths, focussing, untill it stopped.

The recap had moved on, to my dad driving us home. Our old house. My room, the sky blue wallpaper. Old barker was running around their feel, still almost a puppy back then. Then a series of short moments. My first steps, first words, drawing all over the walls with finger paint, potty training, learning to eat and drink by myself, pulling Barker's tail untill he snapped at me, putting my shoes on. They were so proud of me through all of it. Never angry, only concerned.

My first day at kindergarden. Oh I hated it, I was so scared when they left. But then I met Lin and we spent the rest of the day collecting cool bugs in a sand castle we built for them. I couldn't wait to go the next day to check on them. Of course they'd all left over night, so we just started over collecting them again.

Things advanced steadily towards middle school, collecting and loosing friends along the way, but Lin was always by my side. We were practically inseparable and our parents were practically planning our wedding already. But then I had my first kiss and it wasn't with her. It wasn't with any girl at all.

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My parent's pride had dimmed progressively over the years. No interest in cars, in sports, in anything typically manly my father would have liked to share with me. So of course I kept that kiss a secret, or tried to, but as more and more secrets pilled up something had to give eventually.

The mistake was incredibly stupid. During highschool, he'd invited a friend over night. When they were out the next day, Oliver's mother had gone into his room to clean or get the laundry or something. She'd seen the unused sleeping bag, the obviously used bed, and drawn her conclusions.

When he came home again, he was greeted with a serious conversation. They weren't angry of course, just concerned. Concerned about how this could endanger him, how it could ruin his life, how all their hopes for his future were dashed now, how they couldn't understand why he'd choose this life when he had such a nice girl. They never understood that it wasn't a decision.

From then on, they stopped being proud, always just concerned. Every smile laced with sadness, every compliment and offer of help harbouring a hidden accusation. He tried so hard to win them back, even making himself get into sports and cars and whatever his father liked, trying to prove to them, to himself, that he was still a real man. That he wasn't so different as they feared. It didn't work.

He moved out as soon as he could.

Lin was still with him at college. The closest thing she had to family, now. Having her as a shoulder to cry on would have been such a relief if only he could have let himself cry. He'd learned to hide that pain, though, built a monumental wall around it. But you couldn't just wall off one emotion without also burying the rest of them.

He tried to get back to those easy days, where he could just enjoy a guy's company, but the walls were always there. The speck of fear, of doubt, of loathing. Nothing ever lasted so at some point he just gave up entirely. He buried himself in his work, tried to find solace with friends and hobbies, and it was good. But a man is not a mathematical equation. The good does not simply cancel out the bad.

So, one evening, after yet another unsatisfying fling laced in so many complicated emotions he couldn't even untangle them, so deep he couldn't even notice, he drank. He called Lin, needed a shoulder to cry on, and on his way over his life ended. Just like that.

He felt sick. Seeing it all layed out so plainly, looking at as if it was someone else, it was all so stupid. How he had let that one sour relationshop spread through all his life. And now that he rememebre, it all seemed back in, ready to infect his next one as well.

This had been a mistake.

The screen flashed again.

"Keep memories? [Yes] [No]