The Suburbs

prologue

How frail the human heart must be - a mirrored pool of thought.

[Sylvia Plath]

• • •

Kody had fallen in love three times during the short seventeen years he had spent on cloudy little planet Earth.

The first time, he was thirteen years old. She was called Jessica, and she smelt like cherry lipgloss and vanilla milkshakes. They spent a week together on a school trip to the woods. They kissed beneath an oak tree and held hands on the way back to their respective cabins. Kody thought he was in love with her, but when her family moved to the Middle East a month later, the fond memories of her dimples and freckles evaporated into delusion.

The second time was with a girl named Acadia. They were fifteen years old and best friends. She smelt like cigarettes and danger. They slept together in the shed in her garden after drinking cider and spirits. Acadia wore leather and too much lipstick. At school, she reverted back to her designated role as his best friend. They never spoke about that night again, and soon Kody realised that he had loved her for just one night.

At Kody's sixteenth birthday party, he met an older boy called Charlie. He was a friend's brother. Charlie had a habit of smirking and brushing his slender fingers across Kody's hips. By midnight, everybody but him had gone home. He nurtured Kody's fragile identity and helped him overcome his deafening insecurities. They dated in secret for two months until Charlie fell into the arms of another and forgot all about the younger boy who hadn't quite learnt how to look past a pretty face yet.

At seventeen, when his family decided to leave the metropolitan jungle of a concrete city, Kody finally realised that he had never been in love. The faces lost in the crowds of London's bustling streets faded into a corner of his mind and they were locked away under layers of realisation and regret.

This new town was a different world, this new school a different society, shrunken into a micro version of reality. The suburbs were home to a monochrome of familiarity and rainbows of repetition. With both his parents having jobs that paid far too much and required their attention far too often, they were able to afford the dream of a perfect house in a clean neighbourhood with a spacious garden. It couldn't be more different to the fifteenth floor of the posh apartment building they used to inhabit.

With three stories, four bedrooms, polished oak wood doors, and a sparkling glass conservatory attached to the kitchen, the quiet house was easily big enough for their insignificant little family which wouldn't leave a shadow of an impact on their new town. It was the average townhouse in the average street, full of average residents with average pets.

His new school wasn't much different. Everyone's hair was brown, their jeans were blue, and their smiles were only partly genuine. Little bundles of stereotypes lurked in the corridors, their differences far more exaggerated here than at his old school in London; there were nerds, athletes, musicians, artists, and of course, a group of loud students Kody automatically assumed to be the popular ones.

He'd met some nice people; no one extraordinary, but who was in this town?

There was a girl named Isabel with long blonde curls, bright blue eyes and big round glasses. When she smiled, dimples indented her cheeks, and in the sun, her highlighter glittered on her cheeks. She sat next to Kody in a few classes, and was the first to offer her services of friendship, which he readily accepted.

Then there was Christopher. He was tall and lanky with a habit of telling jokes that only he found funny. His scruffy ginger hair and pale blue eyes added to the charm of his dorky personality. He rode a bike to school, worked at his Father's butcher shop, and wore half a bottle of cheap cologne every single day. He was Isabel's boyfriend of two months, and quickly accepted Kody as a friend.

Kody had also taken a liking to a girl called Rhea who reminded him of his friend, Acadia, who he had left behind in London. She wore dark colours, winged eyeliner, silver jewellery, and her round chocolate eyes were almost the exact same shade of brown that Acadia's were. She had shoulder length chestnut hair which was often tied into a bun, and despite her unapproachable appearance, she usually wore a friendly smile and said hello to strangers. In reality, she was nothing like Acadia, and yet, Kody found warmth in the familiarity of her presence.

He was comfortable in his new friendship group, though he was still struggling to adjust to his new life. The town was okay, the school was okay, the residents were okay - even if his family were the only black people in town - and overall, he would be okay.

London was already behind him. Fake love stories were buried, replaced with new prospects of fresh relationships he had yet to forge. Though there were fewer opportunities here, fewer chances to dream and wonder and get lost, he knew that it was for the best. This life was quiet, peaceful, and already becoming a part of a new routine. He could focus on schoolwork, future plans, time spent with his family, and most importantly, his happiness.

And so, as Kody ate breakfast Friday morning, marking the end of his first week as the new version of himself, he decided that he would be okay.

He would be more than okay.

He would be happy here.