For Milot, the following years were difficult, to say the least. Ever since his tenth birthday, his vision of the world changed. He was an adult, an immortal being living inside a child's body. It was a completely new experience for him and despite his urgent need to grow up, he decided to enjoy every day and see what this mortal life had to offer. It wasn't like he knew every little detail of human life and that what made life on the Plains interesting. He read history books, articles, scientific studies, and thesis and was amazed to learn about the things that had happened between his death and his rebirth. People and cultures were different too and it was interesting to notice how their lives, their social structures, and communication had changed. There wasn't a day when he didn't learn something new and life as a child and as a teenager brought him endless joy and happiness.
When it came to his parents, it was almost too simple to persuade them, and his request to get a new pet was easily allowed. Six months after his original idea, he got a well-insulated package in post that contained the newest family member. The tiny sling that emerged from the small deli cup looked incredibly cute and vulnerable. Pawie stuck its nose way too close, the sling immediately assumed a threat posture and the cat fell in love. When they were alone, it solemnly promised to keep the little guy or girl safe. During the course of the following years, Milot often woke up in the middle of the night when the cat jumped down from his bed and sat next to the enclosure. There it would sit, sometimes for hours, and talk to the little hairball inside. As time flew by, Milot got used to Pawie's quiet voice and its constant chatter didn't bother him anymore. Pawie was rather disappointed when it turned out that the spider couldn't talk but that didn't stop it from talking to it and hoping that one day it would learn and answer back.
As for school, it turned out to be a simple pastime for him. He didn't even have to try and he always got the highest scores and grades. He enjoyed school and he tried to support his classmates and looked at his accomplishment as something that had very little meaning to him. His friendship with Tommy deepened and as they became rowdy teenagers, Tommy introduced first of his many, many girlfriends to him. The couple dated for a month and then Tommy appeared behind his door with a bottle of vodka he snatched from his parents and they drank his heartaches away. The next morning was pure hell for both of them, but Tommy's heart was healed and he was clearly ready for the next adventure love had to offer.
Sometime later Milot's dad guided his son to the kitchen, offered him a soda, cleared his throat, and passed him a pack of condoms. Without blushing or stuttering in the least, his dad talked to him like an adult and covered topics all the way from unwanted pregnancies to sexually transmitted diseases. Milot loved his dad and despite being thousands of years older than him, he listened to him without interrupting, nodded his head, and then promised to be careful. Before he was able to get up and leave the room, his dad continued and said that he had to use protection no matter the partner. Milot froze and stared at his dad. "Just in case," his dad muttered and smiled.
He didn't really understand what his father meant, but a couple of months later Tommy came clean and told him that he was bisexual. It didn't take more than that for him to connect the dots. Tommy was into both men and women. He "liked to fuck them both", as he eloquently put it.
His parents must have known it. And so, Tommy's parents shared the information with Milot's parents. And since they were good friends, everyone assumed, they might do some "experimentation" together. Milot sighed and shook his head. He hadn't had any girlfriends nor was he interested in them. And when it came to conclusions, his dad was right. He was gay and guys always attracted him more than women. But he was not into his best friend Tommy or some stranger that passed him the street. There was a certain young man he was waiting for. Yes, Dorian had lived on the Plains for seven hundred years but compared to his immortal existence, he could be considered a young man indeed. But by the looks of things, he still had to wait for a couple of years and ultimately find out where he lived and what he did. He knew he could probably "invite" him for visit at any time but angering Dorian was not a good idea, at least for now.
Life as a mortal still took him by surprise every now and then and every time it happened, he just wanted to laugh because things didn't happen unexpectedly in the place where he had resided so many centuries. He knew every corner and every feeling of his own world, but life on the Plains was drastically different with so many variables and emotions that he couldn't anticipate them all.
He didn't expect that his tarantula to be a female. He was under the impression that tarantulas lived, like any other insects, a month or so, maybe up to two years until they died. After some research, he found out that his little lady could live up to be twenty years or even older. That's what you get for being careless, he told himself when he gently tapped the glass in the enclosure and its angry, hairy inhabitant raised up its front legs and stridulated its fangs. If he accidentally invited Dorian over and he'd start to bombard him with endless questions, he could just let his little lady handle him. But now he was stuck with his femme fatale for the next twenty years or so. Even if he gained Dorian's trust in the future and got him to visit without dragging him to his place against his will, he would probably drop dead as soon as he saw the cute little nightmare. But there was no way he could give up her now. Like Pawie, Esmeralda was part of his family. No matter how much she threatened and hated him with her very existence.
Milot and Tommy were the best of friends throughout their youth. They shared almost everything together, from their rowdy teenage parties to slow Saturday afternoons when they played video games and talked about girls, boys, sex, and all the things in between. Being with Tommy was easy and effortless. Tommy never asked him for explanations to all the things he just somehow knew and accepted him as he was. To Tommy, he was just Milot, the one friend he could talk about anything.
Then, one summer afternoon, things began to change. Tommy once again came to visit him after school. He seemed troubled and distraught and soon enough he said that his dad got a job in the northern part of the island and they would move at the end of the summer. He didn't want to move and he'd had a huge argument with his parents about it, but he was only fourteen, there wasn't much he could do about it. The boys sat together in the backyard, drank a couple of sodas, and talked about all the years they spent together. It was one of the last times they saw each other in years. When Tommy and his family packed their belongings and left at the beginning of August, Milot didn't know would he ever see his friend again.
They wrote some emails, sent messages back and forth but eventually as days turned into weeks, the messages and calls grew further apart until they faded away completely. Milot understood that Tommy found new friends because in his last messages he mentioned some of them. And it seemed he also found new girlfriends, not just one but many. Milot lost count after the fifth one. Slowly but surely Tommy adjusted to his new home. Milot missed his friend terribly, but ultimately Tommy's picture began to fade and he didn't think about him daily anymore. Eventually, he found some new friends as well and although none of them ever replaced Tommy, years ate away his image. And when Milot's eighteenth birthday rolled around the corner just after Christmas celebrations, Tommy's name didn't even cross his mind anymore.