A majority of Aubrey's adolescence was spent living a relatively middle class life under the guidance and care of a single mom and Aubrey's grandmother. Due to his mothers Ethiopian heritage, Aubrey's mother and grandmother were the boys only family growing up. The trio lived together for fourteen long, peaceful years in Toronto, Canada until Aubrey came into contact with his father for the first time, who at the time lived a luxurious life within the northern suburbs of Saint-Ouen, France, just six kilometers from the centre of Paris. He juggled life as both a professor in modern art and amateur painter, as well as a part-time music tutor for hire.
In only one month, Aubrey's father had managed to reverse an entire childhood of good, quality, healthy life lessons, morals and ideals that would ensure a healthy lifestyle for such a young and humble child. Aubrey was a living, pure example of the carefree life his father did not have the luxury of experiencing as a child. Where as the boys mother introduced him to all the good in the world, his father, more so out of spite of himself, introduced him to everything bad. This included all the most popular vices and generally taboo habits such as smoking, drinking, pornographic film (mostly french), and knowledge on a variety of drugs such as cocaine, marijuana, LSD, MD-MA, etc. all stacked upon distasteful habits and poor morals. Aubrey's mother was completely oblivious.
Although initially this type of exposure may seem toxic, Aubrey's father was not entirely a man reduced only to wicked morals. He was not heartless, merely open minded. Maybe too open minded. Although the subject matter was distasteful at best, the guidance that came along with it was mature and thoughtful, paying attention to every perspective. Aubrey, lured in by devilish habits and pleasant pastimes as well as a new found, rich way of living, spent the next two and a half years in France.
Two crucial events in Aubrey's life occurred during his time spent in France. The first, and most memorable of the two, was the young boy having fallen in love with a girl he met on his sixteenth birthday during a night out in Paris with friends. By absolute chance, her birthday landed on the day after his. Despite the fact she was two years older, the two purposefully shared their first kiss as the clock struck twelve. Often the young man will recollect that night, describing it simply as "The happiest time of my life."
Having met through mutual friends, the two inevitably had much in common, including Aubrey's new found passion for substance abuse and general mischievous behavior, among other, more personal relations. Mutually, they both agreed to only communicate with letters rather than in person under one condition; If they both received at least three letters a week every week until the end of spring, they had no choice but to marry one another. With only that holding them back, the coming months went by instantaneously (according to Aubrey) and by the beginning of summer the two were inseparable.
On Christmas, during that same year, as a result of a lifetime of poor lifestyle choices and bad habits, Aubrey's father was diagnosed with a variety of different cancer at different stages (kidney, liver, lung, and brain) only after he was found unconscious in the living room and driven to the hospital by Aubrey himself. After refusing treatment for an entire month, he was eventually hospitalized entirely, and a few short weeks after that, died in his sleep once Aubrey's lover had convinced him to discreetly euthanize his father.
A month after his seventeenth birthday Aubrey was already living back home in Toronto with his mother. His grandmother had passed during his time spent in France. Although his fathers passing had complicated his school, it more than made up for it. In his will, his father only asked that all of his belongings be sold, and what couldn't be sold, shipped back to Canada. He had practically erased his existence entirely, altering his presence to that of dollar bills that only sat in a savings account, building with interest, increasing every month as a result of royalties obtained from paintings. Above all else, the money sat still, waiting until Aubrey's eighteenth birthday.
Aubrey returned to school in Toronto that following year after having spent his summer making up schoolwork. Within a few short weeks, he found himself within a particularly mischievous clique only slightly similar to his group of friends in Paris. After having scored a fake i.d., the young man vanished entirely from both school and home for two weeks straight and had spent the entire hiatus in a haze of various parties, clubs, drugs and bedrooms.
The boys intense lifestyle and lack of attendance became evident to most of his peers by word of mouth and general gossip within a short amount of time, making Aubrey somewhat notorious in school (mostly due to his background in France) but more so at home. His mother had long ago regretted her consent in his moving to France, as it was clear there was no undoing the damage inflicted upon her son. Constant arguing, mostly as a result of comparisons made between Aubrey and his father, lead to the boy eventually leaving home and staying every night in a different home. This way of living began halfway into October and lasted until Novembers latter weeks. Often, Aubrey would switch between staying at a friends or spending the night after a one night stand, alluring everyone he knew with fulfilled promises of drugs and alcohol. He was almost always guaranteed a place to sleep if there was a party involved, that much he knew.
As December came around, Aubrey managed to find himself a temporary home within walking distance of the school. A close friend of his had convinced his mother the boy was already eighteen and had been kicked out of the house for smoking weed. Even so, she was completely oblivious to everything else the two had been getting themselves into. During this time Aubrey began to attend school regularly, albeit his vices at this point had become a weekly habit. Eventually this began to take a toll on his health, but did not discourage him. He only learned to pace himself properly, and in the meantime began to take a variety of smaller, less threatening substances in high amounts (Oxycodone, Adderall, DXM) and had even began to frequent cocaine, all while his grades plummeted without his attention, or care.
It was during a New Years celebration when Aubrey realized his excessive drug habits were all in an attempt to reach the greatest and most satisfying high of them all, that being genuine happiness. After the new year his habits had nearly vanished as the young man began to experience the longest and most somber come down he ever had the displeasure of going through.
At this point, paradise was no longer a desire, or craving the young man yearned night and day for, but a necessity.
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