When the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school commandeered the streets of Washington DC to march for their lives last year, Anthony Borges was still in a Florida hospital, fighting for his.

The soft-spoken 15-year-old, then a freshman at the school in Parkland, had been shot five times during the onslaught of violence on 14 February 2018, which left 17 students and teachers dead.

Anthony came close to becoming the 18th. His wounds were horrific. He spent more than two months in hospital, the longest of any survivor from the shooting. His family are still stunned he survived.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Anthony Borges poses for a portrait in his home in Coral Springs, Florida. Borges was shot five times during the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school shooting on 14 February 2018. Photograph: Alicia Vera/The Guardian

Now, 13 operations later, Anthony and his family spoke to the Guardian in their first extended interview since he was released from hospital last April.

While the Parkland massacre became the focal point for a new generation of activism, fronted by a group of outspoken Marjory Stoneman Douglas students, Anthony’s plight slipped away from the public’s imagination. He has no association with the movement and does not want to be asked about it.

He has not returned to the school, just a few miles from his house, since the shooting. The memories are still too vivid and traumatic. When we meet, in a bright, open-plan living room at his home in a gated community, I am under instructions not to ask him about the day of the shooting.

It has been two months since his last surgery, when a colostomy bag was removed from his abdomen. Anthony has learned to walk again and recently did away with the crutches he had needed for support.

“It was like being born [again] … being a baby. Having to learn to walk, to redo everything,” he says. “I don’t have words to describe how hard is [the] past. Every day was painful.”

He recalls the moment he woke up in hospital for the first time. “When I opened my eyes the first thing I see is my leg open, and metal [from a brace] busted through it. It was crazy. [But] the most horrible things were the dreams,” he says. He dreamt of the shooting most nights. “It was hell.”

The precise details of how he escaped that day are still not clear. But Anthony and his family have resisted the media narratives that describe him as a hero. His father, Royer Borges, a property maintenance manager, has gleaned some details over the past months.

His son was on the third floor of building 12 when the 17-year-old gunman entered. Anthony was shot first in the leg and hauled himself into a classroom, keeping the door shut by propping his back against it. There were around 20 other students inside at the time. The gunman then opened fire through the door, hitting Anthony a number of times in the back, before moving on.

Royer was out buying flowers for Valentine’s Day when he received a call from his son, still lying on the ground in pain.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Anthony and his father. Photograph: Courtesy Anthony Borges

“He called and tells me: ‘Dada, I am on the floor. I have a bullet in my legs and others in my back.’” He dropped everything and ran to the school. He thought his son was dead.

“I don’t know how he made it. There is no answer,” Royer says.

Anthony is now in homeschooling, taking classes in the morning; maths, English, science and history. He says he enjoys learning here, in the safety of home, more than he did being in school. He still hangs out with a few friends from Stoneman Douglas when he’s able to go outside. He has a new girlfriend, too.

The family, who had lived for most of Anthony’s childhood in Venezuela, had moved to Parkland because the school was the best in the area. But now they are suing the school district, the county sheriff, the gunman and his former carers, citing a litany of failures identified in a state review of the incident.

It is a move that is not without controversy. But Royer is insistent that the gunman should only bear half the responsibility for what happened to his son.

“Who was this Nikolas [Cruz, the gunman]? We didn’t know his history. But they knew. The school knew. The police knew. I don’t understand why they created the environment for this guy to go to school and shoot so many people.”

Parkland parents channel their grief at children's deaths into advocacy Read more

When the litigation is done Royer plans to move his family away again. Perhaps to Spain, perhaps Italy or Dubai. Parkland is full of too much history.

I ask him to describe how the events of the past year have changed his son. Royer thinks for a while and says: “It’s made him grow up very fast. He’s a man now. He’s more serious. No laughing. No more a teenager. He hears more of what you say. I got a different son right now.”

Anthony does not want to know what happens to Cruz at trial. He does not want to talk about the March for Our Lives Movement or discuss gun control. Instead, he is focused almost entirely on one thing: being healthy enough to play soccer again.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A memorial in the garden outside of Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school commemorates the school shooting victims in Parkland, Florida. Photograph: Alicia Vera/The Guardian

A lifelong Barcelona fan who idolizes Lionel Messi, it was the thought of striding onto the field, taking up his place as a centre forward and striking a ball into the net, that pulled him through some of the darkest times of the past year.

He is still a while off being able to play. He has yet to regain full feeling in one of his feet, which doctors came close to amputating. He will forever be taking shots for vitamins his body can no longer process on its own, after 10cm of his lower intestine was removed. He only has one fully functioning lung, after undergoing a lobectomy. Why is the prospect of playing soccer so important to him?

“I feel free, you know? On the pitch all the stress, all the problems. They’re gone.”