Imagine being a teen trying to figure out who you are in the general way teens do. Imagine that your dad died and you have seen your mother mourn for the years since. Imagine your best friend moves away and you have been crushing on him for a long time so you kiss him before he leaves and it freaks him out, but being 11 you don't know how to handle it. Imagine your girlfriend kisses someone else and breaks up with you and you try to remain friends but you aren't sure how you feel about that or her. Imagine now that your 16 and starting your junior year that best friends comes back and is cuter than ever and you find yourself having feelings for him, while you think you may still have feelings for your ex-girlfriend turned best friend. And imagine that you have internalized your mother's loss and your break up and taken it to mean that it is better to avoid relationships and/or hurt before you get hurt because it will always end and end badly so why wait to have your heart torn out....
Now imagine all of that happening at once....That's Nate. He acts out, sometimes really hurting others (and himself), from a place of fear and anxiety. He isn't by nature a mean spirited person, he is just a shy introvert who is trying to figure out who he is, how to deal with growing up and falling love and being a good friend and son but also good and true to himself.
Life can be overwhelming in the best of times, but being a teen on the cusp of adulthood, trying to figure out your feelings, your sexuality, your ability to trust and live your life even when it is scary AF, that just makes it even more overwhelming. Nate gives hope though, makes it feel like even when it is dark and one feels out of control there is a way through it. He is aware when he acts like a nitwit and feels remorse. He may take awhile but he tries to make amends and is truly apologetic. He has a big and good heart. He isn't perfect but that is what makes him feel real and alive.
His friends also have baggage but rather than get lost fully in their own muck they try to be helpful and good to each other.
This was really an epic story, a love story yes, but not just between Nate and Ollie, but between Nate and himself. And that is a lesson we all need to learn and relearn all the time, that we can fuck up on a grand scale but we can work on an even grander scale to fix our mistakes.
(Finished 12:10am on Oct 19, 2019)
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