We always have a choice. We can choose to do the right thing or not. We can decide to act on whim or leave a thing undone. Some choices are simply the wrong ones.

The day I finally realized that was the day I stopped hiding behind the excuse. 

Oddly enough, if was also the day I stopped feeling guilty. Somehow taking the responsibility, owning up to a bad decision,  made it easier to live with. Seems ironic, but it's true.

Let me back up a bit. I'll put you in the picture. That way you might understand it. You have to understand if you're going to judge me. Yes, you will judge me. Everybody is judged. All I ask is that I be judged by all the facts. I want my side, as I see it, to be out there.

I was seventeen and friendless. Yeah, yeah, I know, sad story. No it's not. I was in a new town, sure, but the friendless part was mainly by choice. I was always a loner. Until I met him. The day I met him I was never alone again.

I don't know what his real name was. Probably nothing I could even pronounce, much less spell, so I'll just refer to him the way everyone came to know him eventually. Johnny. I never thought that suited him. He liked it though. Said it made him feel "accepted." Yeah, right.

I met him on the subway. I was sitting by the door, on my way into town to blow twenty bucks I'd come by. He got on and sat in a seat directly across from me.

The minute I saw him it was like I couldn't take my eyes off him. No, I'm not gay. Nothing against them, I'm just not gay. But there was something about him...something hard to define. It wasn't his looks, exactly, although he was strikingly good-looking in a pretty-boy  punkish sort of way. It was something else, like something around him -- like his aura or something. Yeah, yeah, I know, it's all a bit new-agey, but I can't put it any other way. 

I tried to keep my eyes on the advertisements, the windows, my own sneakers -- anything, but they kept landing back on him like a magnet. I worried that he might think I was gay or something, and, with his looks, that could mean trouble.

But all he did was put his head in his hands and shake his head slowly. When he looked up again he said one word: "Help." I more read his lips than heard him over the noise of the train, but I understood.

I looked at him questioningly, rather than yell over the noise. And he stood up and made his way, unsteadily, across to the empty seat beside me.

"Are you lost?" I asked.

"Not exactly," he said. He looked quickly around in all directions, as if he expected someone might be listening. He lowered his voice then.

"There's someone after me," he said. "I think they may be on this train, in the next car. Please. I can't let them catch me."

The look on his face was so imploring, so sincere, that I threw away my usual inclination not to get involved. For me, that's still the hardest part to understand. Normally I'd never go beyond giving directions or maybe holding a door for someone behind me. But here I was, willing to help this total stranger out of God knows what kind of trouble. Even in the moment I couldn't quite believe I was doing it, but I agreed to help and told him not to worry.

"We've got to get off this train," I told him. "At the next stop just follow my lead."

Minutes later the train screeched to a halt at an underground station and the doors opened. This wasn't rush hour or anything, so we had no crowd to deal with. I got up and off in one movement and he followed close behind. I walked quickly, looking all around me as I did so. I didn't see anyone all that suspicious get off the train. A couple kids and an old man with a shopping cart. No threat there.

I headed toward the stairs leading out to the street and spotted a Starbucks as soon as I stepped into daylight. I nodded toward it and he followed me there.

When we got inside, I told him it looked like he was safe. No one had followed us here.

"It's okay," I said. "Maybe we should get you to a cop or something?"

"No." he said, firmly, looking me directly in the eye for the first time. It was then that I noticed his eyes were unlike any I'd ever seen. They were piercing (and I'd never until that moment understood what the phrase really meant), and they were oddly colored. Blueish-green -- almost turquoise. I told myself, unconvincingly, they were probably some sort of high fashion contact lenses.

"I can't go to the police," he said. "They can't help me. But you can. I know you can." 

"I don't know what I can do," I said, "but I'll help if I can. It doesn't look like they followed you though. I didn't see anyone."

"But they have," he said at last, his expression becoming strained -- almost desperate. "They're coming now. They are just about to cross the street! they can see me!"

I instinctively looked over his shoulder out the window and did indeed see two men in black suits walking quickly in our direction. Funny thing is, though, his back had been to the window the whole time. It was almost as if he'd sensed them coming. 

The men looked every inch like government agents -- right down to the shades and the way they shifted their head from side to side as they moved. 

Frantic now, I searched for a back door to the Starbucks, vaguely feeling like I was in some bad movie. I didn't see a way out.

"Put your hand on me," he said. "I can't explain now, just trust me. Put your hand on me -- now!"

Without stopping to think how ridiculous it was, I put a hand on his shoulder, and watched as the two men outside suddenly stopped in their tracks. I mean they stopped dead in mid-stride. They looked this way and that, lifted their shades, looked at each other, looked around some more and then turned and went back the way they'd come. I watched as they retreated right back down into the subway. Not until they were entirely out of sight did I lift my hand from his shoulder.

"Thank you." he said, simply, all trace of worry gone.

"What was that?" I asked. "Either you're the luckiest guy I've ever met or something really strange just happened." 

"A little of each, I'd say," he smiled. "Buy me a coffee and I'll try to explain."