Born Different

By F. A. Aitken-Smith

Gabe is a young man with a terrible secret: he has what he considers
to be a shameful deformity. He hangs out with a bunch of other
outcasts, some of whom cross the line to juvenile delinquency. Gabe
is an artist, who is betting his future on an upcoming art exhibit at
his school, hoping to parlay his art into a job of some sort when he
graduates, since he has no other particular plans for the future.
While he is working to finish putting together his collection for the
exhibition, he participates in a theft planned and coordinated by one
of his criminally inclined buddies, while pining for the attention of
the lovely, rich and beautiful Grace.

As it happens, Grace's life is not so wonderful, and Gabe's life is
not that bad, all things considered. What is more, the two of them
have a connection that transcends their different backgrounds and
social status. Best of all, Grace actually loves the "deformity" of
which Gabe is ashamed, and encourages him to see himself as special
and gifted rather than deformed.

Grace and Gabe face personal pain and tragedy together, and they
ultimately transcend the barriers of prejudice and class to soar off
into a future that the reader just has to believe will be happy for
both of them.

The writing itself, in terms of evocative visual imagery, emotional
involvement, characterization and thought provoking turns of phrase
was outstanding. I was drawn into the story immediately, and read the
whole thing in only a couple of days: I couldn't put it down. It made
me squirm in places at the meanness, filth and squalor in which some
people live. It made me smile when surprisingly good things happened
that I didn't expect. It made me cry with both sadness at the
unnecessary shame that too many people carry around in their daily
lives, and with happiness when characters were able to get past their
fears and shame, rising to a new level of existence.

This was not the kind of story I would ordinarily have read, but
before the end of the first chapter, I was hooked, and I became more
enthralled by the story as it went along. Yes, there were some
stereotypes, but the front-and-center characters were compelling and
three-dimensional, and I cared about them deeply. It was
heart-breaking to read about so many people hiding so much pain, so
unnecessarily. Every time they stepped out and let go of their shame,
they inevitably found love and affirmation. Why is it so hard for
humans to allow themselves to be happy?

In the first third of the book, I found myself thinking of Gabe as the
Holden Caulfield for a new generation. By the end of the book, I found
him to be much more than that. The redemption that his presence brings
to his world borders on Christological, without being religious.

I was inspired and humbled by the story. I'm happy to recommend it.
Be sure to have some tissues on hand

Gabe hasn't had it easy so far in life. His father left him before he was even born, the girl he loves doesn't know he exists and his friends seem hell bent on getting him into trouble. To top it all off, Gabe has a secret he would rather take to the grave than reveal.

But secrets are revealed, painful truths are uncovered that, far from healing, drive each individual to the edge, to depths of despair, to self harm in all its guises, to thinking the unthinkable to end it all.

Destined to become a cult classic, Born Different, is a tale of one boy's struggle to fit into a world he feels he doesn't belong.

Born Different is an inspirational book for people that wouldn't read inspirational books.
Born different questions it all.... Authority, Society, Morality, The brainwashing of consumerism of the modern world and the mental illnesses that abound.

All wrapped up in a modern urban gritty fairytale like love s

• Language: English
• Publisher: F. A. Aitken-Smith
• Release date: Aug 17, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465830388

F. A. Aitken-Smith

Faye was born in London, UK. She believes everyone's own life to be the greatest work of art of them all.

Book preview

Born Different

Faye Aitken-Smith

Copyright 2011 Faye Aitken-Smith

Smashwords Edition

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission of the author.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Front Cover Image © REN Photography

Front & Back Cover Design by Kayla Wren

Because we all have wings, but some of us don’t know why

Don’t be afraid, love will mend your broken wings

Prologue

Gabe had gone as far as he could go and now he was stood at the edge of the steep cliff. He was all out of options...there were very few choices left, if any. The throng, of what seemed like over a hundred people, inched closer towards him. Gabe was convinced that he even heard some of them shouting for him to jump.

They had all driven him here, each and every one of them, in their own way. What sort of world is this, thought Gabe? He’d never felt like it was for him! He was special and different and he had carried that on his shoulders like a heavy weight for all of his life. And now, after eighteen relentless years of it, enough was enough.

Gabe drew in one last deep breath. He looked down over the cliff’s edge, down to the very bottom where the waves crashed, frothed and fought back. It was a hell of a long way down.

Gabe looked up to the bright summer midday sun and, believing with all his heart and soul that this was what he had to do, Gabe jumped.

Chapter 1

Still dripping wet from his hot morning shower, Gabe strolled into his bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him. The bedroom light was still turned off and his thick lined curtains and wood slatted blinds were still shut firmly tight, so as not to let any light or curious eyes in.

Gabe took a moment to stay in the absolute dark for a while. He let himself disappear into its black hole of nothingness for a few luxurious seconds more before getting on with his imposed morning routine. Gabe felt peaceful as he let the sensation of just being at one with the dark air fill his imagination. If he stayed still, he thought it was like he wasn’t really there at all. He could disappear. Gabe for a moment let himself believe that he didn’t exist and this thought left him feeling absolutely serene.

A thought surfaced in Gabe’s place of tranquillity, reminding him that he had an exam to sit this afternoon. His last one. And this very real thought, brought him immediately back to the present moment. Back to a not as pleasant reality, where he did actually exist and the feelings of peace and nothingness disappeared instantly, opening the flood gates for all the worries he was trying not to fret about so that they came through now in a torrent of abuse.

Gabe wasn’t looking forward to the exam at all but, he reasoned to himself, seeing as it was his last one it meant that there were no more exams to sit ever again. No more school. No more lessons to sit through and endure. No other kids to deal with on a daily basis. No more school routine. He had made it. He was eighteen years old. A man, legally at least, and he was nearly free of the place that he had felt imprisoned him.

After today, he only a week or so left before the real last ever day of school and the only day that really mattered to Gabe; the final day, the day of The Exhibition, Speeches and Awards Ceremony.

Gabe was only interested in The Exhibition on the last day. He wasn’t planning on receiving any awards but he was planning on exhibiting all his art works and, with any luck, his artwork would grab some one’s attention. Enough so, that someone would give him a job to walk into of some sort or, ideally, buy all his paintings right there and then with a great big wad of cash and commission him to do more.

Ha ha. Dream on boy, Gabe thought to himself. But he could dream on. ‘Dreaming on’ was all he had going for him at the moment.

Gabe’s paintings could be found hanging on the walls all over his school and Gabe noticed that people were always stopping to look at them. Gabe liked to watch how his paintings changed people, how some had been left a little shocked, others confused and even some were, on occasion, slightly repulsed by them. His paintings always drew comments and, most importantly to Gabe, questions and stories. Everyone always had a reaction as to what his paintings meant to them. Gabe thought that that was what art was all about, how people translated the images when woven together with the facts and experience of their own lives. Gabe loved that about art. Gabe thought that his paintings distracted people out of their boxed minds so that a light was turned on for a little while, as the painting or drawing reflected on their deep hidden souls.

Gabe had to prepare a speech about his art which had been worrying him even more so than The Exhibition. He should really be allowed to just focus on the art and not be distracted preparing some justifying waffle interpretation of his art works and inspiration and other such bollocks.

Even if he did prepare the best speech ever, which was extremely unlikely, giving the speech up on the stage in front of the whole school, all the parents, teachers and any other attendees, which were likely to be certain influential people in the city, all full of themselves and dressed to impress each other; all those eyes on him, judging him, whispering! No! There was no way on this planet that that was ever going to happen.

Ever since attending The Exhibition in his first year Gabe had, on many occasions, found himself rehearsing and playing out the day in his head, the big day when it would be his turn. Seven long years, Gabe had daydreamed about how he was going to arrange his little art space area, what he might say to anyone that might ask anything, how he would indeed respond if some big collector or gallery owner gave him a wad of notes. And always, Gabe played out the moment when it would be his turn to get up on stage, in front of a packed school hall, the sea of faces and piercing pairs of eyes directed at him. He went over how he would have to focus on the stairs, for fear of tripping up in front of everybody. How he would have to remember to shake some sweaty hand of whoever, probably the headmaster who might even utter his first ever words to Gabe personally. Gabe had succeeded in avoiding the man his entire school life. One last handshake to go, By the way, I was here too! I know you know that I was because it is a bit obvious to everyone that I am bit different. The teachers would have filled you in on whatever gossip, or lies, they had collected proudly like good little disciples. Good luck with everything and all that but I’ll be off now! And then Gabe would imagine taking to the microphone.

At this point, Gabe would feel sick. His legs would start to wobble, as if he was on a small boat on choppy waters, then the ground would start to wave and swell like the sea, antagonising the leg wobble so that they gave in and turned to jelly. Then Gabe would feel his lips go dry as, at the same time, the saliva in his mouth was being over produced, sliding down the gills of his throat as his stomach turned doing inside-out flip manoeuvres, as it worked whatever he had eaten back up his oesophagus, causing Gabe to get a fit of gulping swallows to battle the inevitable. Gabe knew there was a good chance his nerves would compel him to projectile vomit over the audience.

He’d even had nightmares about it. Similar to the ones when he’d been a kid and dreamt that he was turning up to school as usual, walking across the gravel of the playground, head down. And then he would suddenly realise, when it was too late and everyone else had stopped and had started staring, pointing and laughing at him, was that he was naked. Stark bollock naked. Naked without even a school bag to use to hide himself. Gabe had the exact same dream about being up on stage. Gabe took this as a sure sign that this was not his path in life. Hell, Gabe spent most of his life trying to avoid people. Trying to get them not to notice him, even if it was impossible for them not to. Putting himself in their line of fire was against every one of his natural and learnt instincts.

The more Gabe thought about it, the more he thought that he should just give the whole day, The Exhibition included, a miss. He only really needed to get his art work down there at some stage and then he could let it speak for itself. He just had to move it all from his studio in the garden, to the big school hall and leave some cards out with his details on it. And then he could just leave and never need see another pupil, teacher or brick of the bastard school ever again!

It was a very tempting proposition. A far easier and less nerve wracking way of doing things. He could get his friends to help him transport the huge canvases, and a sculpture that he had goaded himself into making this week in a final all-out effort to make the desired level of impact needed. (The sculpture that he hadn’t started yet. The sculpture that he had no material to sculpt it out of; no wood or marble or anything suitable. Or no idea how to sculpt, which was probably more of a problem. Or indeed, what to sculpt.) And then he could be back hiding out in his studio, on his own and free, by the time the hall doors opened up to the general public for The Exhibition. Not going felt like the right thing to do. It felt nice and relaxing as opposed to the other option which only ever left Gabe feeling gut wrenchingly nervous to the point of neurotic.

But there was just too much hanging on The Exhibition. Gabe knew somewhere deeper inside of him that he had to be there. He couldn’t leave anything to chance. The Exhibition was probably going to be the most important day of his life so far and he had to go the extra mile and give it his all. Even if he ran away before the speeches, he had to show his face around his work. It was the least he could do. If he was so desperate for someone to take an interest in his art work, he had to at least show them the respect of turning up. It was time to grow up and face a few fears if he was going to get anywhere in life.

If no one noticed, appreciated or liked his art enough to take it to another place, then he would be truly fucked.

Gabe reached over to the darkest corner of his room and he tried to locate the little switch on the lamp that was always on his desk. But he only succeeded in knocking down the precariously stacked pile of books that had been balancing amid his computer, sketch books, plate of half eaten food, discarded tubes of paint, brushes, dried up palettes and God knows what else, with a great domino effect, crashing din.

You bloody clumsy fool! Gabe cursed himself and in a burst of frustration, he swiped his arm over the top of the desk clearing it of almost everything including a pint glass that smashed in the process. And, once again, Gabe tried to find the tiny switch that he knew was hiding there somewhere.

You alright up there? Gina shouted up the stairs.

Yes, fine mum.

The lamp gave a low, warm, orange glow to the room. Just enough light for Gabe to barely see what he was doing but still leaving enough darkness to hide the mess and filth of his room. Enough darkness to hide in the shadows, all of what Gabe would rather not look at first thing in the morning.

But at least the desk was looking neater now! That was a start. If Gabe’s room was a tip, his studio was worse. His life was a mess and Gabe knew that it was time to start clearing up quite a few things. School was going to end and with that, so was everything about his old life. Everything was going to change, at last. Everything had to change! He couldn’t go on living like this.

Gabe selected the music he wanted to listen to and turned the volume up. High.

The first beats of the song banished the silence and were a welcoming distraction from the constant train of internal, mostly anxious, dialogue that was plaguing him today. As the music washed over him, he gave an audible sigh of relief.

Gabe opened the desk drawer and got out all of the things that he needed. All the paraphernalia it took to keep his secret...a secret. Gabe had plenty of secrets, but this was his biggest one, his huge dark secret that he thought was the cause of most, if not all, of his problems and therefore what he blamed for all them on bad day, and there were lots of bad days. Out of all of his secrets, this secret was the one that he was by far the most ashamed of! Everything else really just paled in comparison.

Gabe looked at his dimly lit reflection in the full length mirror. He made himself look over every part of his, partially, shadowed body until he caught his own eyes looking back at him.

Gabe stopped still for a moment and he looked back, deep into his own eyes.

I am me, Gabe told himself.

It gave him goose bumps every time he did this and Gabe involuntary shivered as he felt a pleasant effervescent chill start at the crown of his head and oscillate down his body in a wave.

Gabe stayed looking right back into his own eyes and staring at his own pupils in the reflection of the mirror Gabe tried to recognise that there was someone there. He tried to recognise himself. Gabe tried to witness that he really was, alive. And more than that...that he was conscious of the fact that he was alive, living a conscious life in this body.

This always excited Gabe and he needed this thrill. The thrill of knowing something special. Only he didn’t know exactly what it was. The thrill halted the worrying in its tracks and the thrill counteracted the burden of what he had to do now.

Gabe looked at the items on his desk now with resentment and he knew that he should just get on with it and take it in his stride but, if anything, the procedure it took into hiding his secret, got more laborious and frustrating by the day. It depressed Gabe, but he had no other choice. He could hardly act like a normal kid and just throw on his clothes, eat his breakfast, kiss his mum goodbye and run out of the house. Gabe was not a normal kid.

Without turning his head, Gabe shook the blue glass bottle, popped the cork and poured out a good few drops of the apparently healing, blended essential oils into the palm of his hand. He rubbed his hands together thoroughly to cover them completely and to warm the oil. Then he began to massage and moisturise the dry, cracked skin on his upper body that, like the periphery hot lava from a recently erupted volcano, was red and raised, angry looking and seemingly creeping forward and expanding by the day.

Gabe started on his neck and then he moved onto his shoulders. His fingers expertly felt for the knots in his twisted muscles. He tried to avoid any open wounds as he massaged deeper, in a feeble attempt to try and make the pain go away.

Gradually, Gabe worked his way around to where the dry skin turned into thick dying flakes on top of cracking, so deep, that red crevasses of blood were visible between the split layers of skin, like thin red rivers running through the valleys of the steep differing stratum of flesh.

This was the skin that covered his shoulder blades. This was the delicate skin of the thin flesh that covered the bones and joints of the growths on his back. Gabe had been born with these growths. They protruded from his shoulder blades. They were, much to his horror, as much a part of him as his arms and legs were.

As Gabe had hit puberty, the growths, along with the rest of his body, had grown and changed and morphed into something quite different from their adolescent self. Their initial under developed, small and delicate form, had transformed to become something now quite large, cumbersome and dominant. He had grown from the boy with a slight hump, in his dressed appearance, to now a man with quite an apparent deformity.

Gabe was sure that he was a man, or at least on the brink of manhood. He had all the usual characteristics of a man. He sure as hell was not a bird or a bat or a butterfly or indeed any kind of insect. He just had these growths, or to be more accurate, wings.

Gabe had wings.

Chapter 2

Everyone is born different but some are born more different than most and Gabe believed he had been born a lot different to everybody else.

His mum, Gina, had named him Gabriel. Like the angel. But Gabe didn’t feel like an angel, quite the opposite, Gabe felt like a complete and utter freak.

If everyone had been born with wings, then Gabe would probably have never had the need to give his own a second thought. But, as far as Gabe could tell, nobody else had wings. Gabe was so special and different that he was unlike anybody else out there in the whole wide world and therefore, therefore he felt, despite the knowledge that there was nearly seven billion different sorts of people on the planet, that he was actually very much alone.

Gabe closed his eyes and he inhaled deeply through his nose and exhaled fully through his mouth. Then slowly, as he counted to ten in his mind, he inhaled air into his lungs until they were full and his breath held steady. Gabe kept his chest high and puffed out and when he could not hold his breath for any longer comfortably, Gabe exhaled slowly and with control, and he tried to let go. With each tiny slow breath out, he tried to let go of all the stresses he had built up inside of him. The tensions, the resentments, the fears, the worries and the accumulated anxiety.

Exhale, deflate, release and let go.

Inhaling again, Gabe stretched his wings out wide. He stretched them out wide and then wider. As wide as they would go. Unfolded, unfurled and free. Expanded, extended and excellent.

Now that he was free, Gabe looked at his dimly lit reflection again. He looked at the contours of his image, at his wings, at himself. In this pose he was as no other human being would ever see him.

This was who he really was and no one would ever know.

Gabe stood tall and straight with his wings expanded proud and he held this position for as long as he could. He tried to remember to breathe. And as he breathed into the pain he tried, with each breath out, to stretch his wings that little bit further. The pain was intense but Gabe was always determined to hold out for just that one second longer. His stamina fought an internal battle with the lower voices telling him that if he gave up now then he was a failure. An ugly failure. And that failure was all that he was capable of. Gabe told himself he was weak and unlovable if he couldn’t hold out any longer.

With every second, Gabe bullied himself, taunted himself worse than any other human had tried to. He pushed forward through the pain barriers until he was tortured. Until the pain threshold finally overtook the powerful strength of his rarely expressed and usually repressed anger and self-hatred. Until he started to shake, the trembles graduating to full body convulsions. Until it was physically impossible for Gabe to hold his wings out expanded for another second more... only then did Gabe collapse his wings down, exhausted.

He had broken a sweat and had to bend over, hands on knees, to support himself as he panted, red faced, trying to get his breath back again without retching. Gabe focused on the pattern of his rug and he tried to stare beyond the solid object in an effort to try and take his mind off the sharp as a knife, stabbing pains and agonising aches that he felt down to the bone. Way down to the marrow. Right down to the very core of his being.

Pain crossed Gabe’s back and it burned so deep, Gabe felt like he was on fire. As usual, he knew that he had opened some of the old wounds with his efforts. Gabe felt the sensation of the wet, colder blood trickling down over his skin; almost tickling in the reflection of the more intense sensation of the burning furnace beneath.

Gabe knew that he needed to exercise more. He really should make more of an effort to get some fresh air and natural light onto his back, shoulders and wings. He had been forced to mix with the general public for too long and it showed in his health. He needed to build up his strength and do something more about helping himself to heal.

But how exactly am I supposed to go about doing that? Gabe angrily muttered to himself. I can’t exactly strip off in the city and just start flapping my wings about!

Gabe shook his head and had a wry laugh to himself. It wasn’t that funny but Gabe was in no mood to cry about it today.

What was he supposed to do? If he exercised them, they got bigger and he didn’t want his secret getting any bigger. It was enough to cope with as it was. At least, when he let them wither, that despite the extra pain they were easier to bandage, to hide, to conceal and keep hidden. He was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t.

The only time Gabe had the chance to live with his wings out, was when he isolated himself away from the rest of the world in his art