“Trails of Our Lives” excerpt
Anonymous
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For the past 8 months, I have been working on a novel entitled "The Trails of Our Lives." Set in 1991 rural Indiana, it centers around a 14-year-old boy named Westly, who endures journeys of self-discovery, love, and friendship, under the cloak of a family and community that doesn't accept him. It is told through multiple perspectives, and over the course of 5 years, as he struggles with love, and freedom in contrast to the expectations of who he is supposed to be. Segments are told by his love interest, Jacob. His one and only friend at the start of the book, Amber, who deals with her unrequited love for Westly, the death of her father, and the psychotic breakdown of her mother. Along with her being a person of color in a small midwestern town. Her sections are written exclusively in poetry. As well a friend Westly discovers on the starting day of the book, Roe, who is a transgender man, and the first person Westly comes out to. Which is written in journal entries.
And although they split apart throughout the years, we still hear about their lives as a portrait of what it truly means to grow up, as well as to keep a center and a tether onto who Westly used to be in contrast to who he becomes throughout the book. As Jacob is sent to a conversion camp, as Amber is separated from her mother, and as Roe struggles to find a community. Westly starts a new persona at a new school and starts to revert back to the person everyone wanted him to be, before rediscovering himself once again.
The excerpt I am submitting is from the first 60 pages of the book, set in the first year the book is told, which is at the time where Westly knows himself but has to hide. And although he has feelings for Jacob, he is confused about Jacob's feelings for him. Jacob invites Westly to things and seems increasingly warm despite what his popular friends might think. But Westly is grappling with the idea of what it would mean if he liked him, and how it affects his future, past, and the idealized idea of Jacob he has. And Jacob is dealing with feelings for Westly has hidden from himself. This moment happens after their first real kiss, and both boys are at odds with the expectations that are put on them. For context, Brooke is Jacob's previous girlfriend who broke up with him, and with whom he is getting back together with. As Jacob struggles with expectations and his repressed love for Westly, he uses her as almost a benchmark of who he should be. He wants himself to be the kind of guy that Brooke would fall for. And this is why there is a sense of difficultly getting back with her after the boys' first kiss.
I decided to start writing the book because I was struggling with my own sexual orientation, and I felt I couldn't find enough LGBTQ+ teen lit that made me feel like I belonged.
I started thinking about the book, long before I even started writing it. And the title came from the original story ideas I had. There are a set of trails around my house, and when I was thinking or pondering about myself, I used to take my dog for a walk and think about things. One day, I looked at the surroundings and had the idea to use the trails as the idea of a safe haven throughout an LGBTQ+ story. And with that starting point, my story developed. I used to lay in bed at night and think of it, develop the plot in my head.
Because in some ways I was scared to actually put pen to paper and make it real, make it true. I felt in doing that, I was coming out, and accepting myself in ways I wasn't ready to yet.
But eventually, my need to write, and to let the story out of my heart superseded my fears.
Many of the characters represent different parts of me. I am not fully Westly, I am not fully Jacob, I am not fully Amber or fully Roe. But they each have parts of themselves that live inside me. And in that way, the book lives in me and has always lived in.
So please. Enjoy the excerpt, and take into account that this is not my favorite part of the book or even the most influential or pivotal part. It is just the section I thought best fit the limit and was the best representation of my story in a short excerpt.
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To me...creativity means breaking and expanding on the bounds of what was once deemed possible. Living your life searching for your own path, rather than the path that others may choose. Being with the intention for change. And shedding previous limits of possibility.
