today was good
let's see... just got home from band practice, and it was better than usual. we wrote a new song that makes me smile. not like the excited-happy smile i normally have, but a mellow-life-is-good-and-i'm-glad-i'm-part-of-it-and-the-band kind of smile. the lyrics in the beginng (cuz that's all we have) are:
"Just as the sun went down, I fell asleep in your arms, not worrying about the next day (sing me to sleep, sing me to sleep) take me away"
it's really cool and i think it'll be the song that everyone really likes and relates to. i think.... lol this saturday i don't work and mike sam and my brother are supposed to go the movies. andrew isn't with emily anymore and that should make amber happy since she thinks that somehow andrew and are gonna get together. she's so cute lol Joey wants to hang out saturday too, so i'm trying to decided which i cutie i wanna spend my day with, my afternoon with, and my night with. :D if any.
let's see.... what else.. oh if you read this tonight or tomorrow, please pray for the city of oxford. we might have snow days if the weathers bad enough. but the superintendent seems to have a plot to kill the teenage population of oxford, since in the mornings the roads are horrible and i can barely see out my windshield when ITS CLEARED and somehow and for some reason we still have school. it's an evil evil plot and I have respect for the mind that thinks up these crazy plans.
Dane's still mad at me, but what's new with that. I miss my amber, as always. oh, Ryan and this girl Joleene might go out, but I'm totally cool with it. It's what i needed to move on. Like, i thought i was over him, but always went home and cried. and now it's like, good for him. he should be happy. and so should i. right? right. i talked to him about it today and i told him i was okay with it and that i don't want him to feel like i'm gonna be mad or something, cuz i'm not. (sincerely.) and i hugged him and told him that i know he's always here for me, and that goes for me being there for him too. and he hugged me back and i think we're finally gonna be able to be friends now. not just ex's pretending to be okay with each other. ya know?
well... here's the beginning to my story. I figured it was kinda dumb to get a whole new journal, so here ya go if you're bored and feel like reading another 10 pages of crystal's writing :) It's based on a lot of stuff that's happened to me, but obviously i add stuff that i think should have happened or should happen in the future. :D that's why its fiction.
later
Before
“I love you,” Bryant said touching my lips with his index finger. He smelled like aftershave and laundry detergent, but I liked it.
“I love you, too.” We were snuggled in his bed under this giant blue cover, holding each other.
“More than you’ll ever know,” he said staring into me. “I’m so lucky. Sometimes I think I’m dreaming, and I never want to wake up from this. Ever. It’s so perfect. You’re so perfect.”
I smiled into his chest, feeling his bare skin on mine. “Marry me,” he said.
I looked up to his eyes and cocked my head to the side and smiled.
“Spend the rest of your life with me.” He slipped my hand from around him and twirled the twenty-five cent ring he bought for me from a gumball machine. “I’ll get you better one, but for now…”
I nodded, understanding that I was wearing an engagement ring, a cheap one at that, but still an engagement ring.
“September twentieth,” Bryant said kissing my forehead. “I get to pick the date, and it’s September twentieth.”
I sighed and we pulled each other closer as his clock clicked to 11:22 pm. I had to leave soon and get home by midnight, or Mac would flip out. But it was too perfect of a night to just get up and leave. Suddenly I felt how cold it was in his room. The ceiling fan was spinning slowly, and Tar, his black lab puppy, was lying on the foot of the bed gnawing on something under the cover. It was perfect. I never wanted the moment to end; I knew it would eventually, but I enjoyed it while I could. It was the best feeling a person could have: the feeling of being in love and having someone love you back just as much. Little did I know, this feeling would come to an abrupt end for me before I even knew it.
After
“Amber. Piper. Do you have something you’d like to share with the class?”
I slipped my eyes out from behind my eight hundred page biology book and smiled at Mr. Truly.
“Nothin’ I can think of thanks,” Piper rolled her eyes at me behind her hand.
We laughed as quietly as we could. Biology 1 was the most boring class I had ever taken. It wasn’t mandatory, but it was the easiest science class there was to take that we didn’t take in our first three years at Oxford High. It was this or physics, and neither of us were too outstanding in the math department. Truly said something about having the last five minutes of class to talk and Andrew spun around to Piper and I.
“You girls, I swear to God. If you talked any louder-”
“What? Truly would have a heart attack?” I said slamming my book shut as the rest of the class gradually grew louder.
“If only,” Piper chimed in. I laughed loudly, but no one was paying any attention to me, not even Truly, since the whole class was suddenly very loud and obnoxious. At last, the bell rang and my friends and I sloppily pushed our things into our hands and stumbled out of the classroom as quickly as possible. The halls of our mediocre high school were layered with posters about SADD club, the next dance, class rings, and so much more crap no one noticed. I noticed them though, but that’s because I was in ‘So Close,’ the band that played at every event and everyone at our school knew of and liked, but never thought would go anywhere. We, in my opinion, played our own style of music; we didn’t sound like any other band out there.
“We have band practice today?” Andrew asked as the three of us walked towards our lockers, all conveniently located in the same hallway. I nodded as I propped my stuff against the locker and my hip, and twirled the lock this way, that way, and back so my locker opened with a tug.
“’Till when?” I heard him say from his locker on the left.
Piper glanced up from the inside of her backpack buried deep in the garbage she piles in her locker day after day and gave me a suspicious look by raising her eyebrows.
“Until about eight I guess,” I said returning the suspicious look to Piper.
“Cool. I’ll be there around 4:00, ‘cuz I hafta take care of some stuff around my house.”
After about thirty seconds, I found the pen I had been searching for in the bottom of my locker and Piper and I left Andrew to go to Choir.
“He likes you,” she said shaking her head at what seemed to be nothing.
I kicked her right in the ass. “He does not, you moron. He’s my best friend. He’s the bassist for the band. He’s got a girlfriend who he loves. I’m fuck outta luck,” I finished.
“You have got to be the most naive ever.”
“Indeed old chap!” I said in a British accent.
“Bloody Americans. Think they own the world.” Piper retorted.
We wandered into the choir room laughing a few seconds before the bell rang. “That was too close,” Piper said making our way through the rows to our two seats. “Payner would have had a heart attack if we were late again.”
“No way. Mrs. Payne loves us too much. We’re the only ones here who care about this class.”
“True. Very true.” Piper swiped at the blonde bangs that were falling into her face, pushed it to the side for just a second showing both her hazel eyes before they fell right back down into her face. She left them there.
“Alrighty,” Mrs. Payne said walking down the steps to the piano. She was short and a little pudgy, but was the most spoiled and adorable teacher I had ever had. She had light pink glasses with short natural dirty blonde hair. Typical sixty-year old choir teacher. Today she was wearing white cotton shorts with matching shoes and a shirt. She always looked coordinated, unlike me. All I ever wore were torn jeans, black T-shirts, and orange Chuck Taylor High Tops. Oh, and my hair attracted a little attention too: it was at short as a guys. I used hair glue to make it stay in place wherever I wanted it. Gotta love that rebel age. You gotta do it while you’re young, ya know?
Mrs. Payne sat down at the piano and started warming up the filled classroom. Mostly girls, but there were about ten or twelve guys in the middle who were part of the choir. A lot of people thought it was a blow-off class and joined, not realizing how important it really was to show up, do your theory, and pay attention. If you didn’t, you could actually fail choir. How embarrassing would that be on a college application?
By the time the class had finished warming up, I had to pee, so I raised my hand and asked politely if I could quickly use the restroom. Mrs. Payne gave me a fun you’d-better-hurry look, since I was the only Alto in the school who could hit high C’s and D’s and swished her hand for me to go. I thanked her and jogged out of the classroom, 99% of the people laughing at the jokes I was making as I left. Oh yeah, by the way, I’m the comedian of the class.
“Hey, Sparky.” I had just made it to the drinking fountain when someone said my nickname. I turned to find Adam heading towards me.
“Hey. Anything new?”
Adam shrugged. “Nothin’ really. Just got out of Truly’s class for bit. Told him I had to whiz real bad so he let me go.”
“Truly lets you out of class? I’d have to have a doctor’s note saying I had a bladder the size of a pea to get out of there.”
He shrugged again. “I guess the old geezer likes me.”
I laughed. “He is an old geezer.”
“So anyway, I just wanted to make sure you were comin’ tonight.”
I nodded and I took a drink from the fountain still having to pee. “Yea, I’ll be there after I go home and finish my homework. I’ll call you when I leave. But for right now, I’m the one who has to whiz real bad.”
“Sure.” We slapped hands and went separate ways. The rest of the day went quickly since all I had left were the rest of Choir, and then Composition and Grammar.
“Ooo, you were almost late, young lady,” Mike said as I plopped into my Comp and Grammar seat an hour later.
I turned around in my desk and tapped his forehead three times. “You’re a dork.”
He squinted at me and then nodded. “You have a gig this weekend, don’t you?” he said, the bell ringing in our ears, almost drowning him out.
I smiled and nodded. “How’d you know about that?”
“Nic gave me this,” he said handing a small piece of paper to me. Sure enough, it was an invite to our gig. A bunch of bands were playing at one house, (actually in a barn), and obviously they had made fliers to get more people to come.
“I didn’t even know we had these,” I said handing it back to him.
“How does it feel?” Mike said leaning closer to me as I turned around to face Mrs. Corbett who had began to talk in her timid voice.
“How does it feel to what?” I asked leaning backwards so he could hear me better.
“To know you have a gig this weekend that hundreds of people are going to show up for?”
I felt my stomach turn. “I hadn’t really thought about that,” I said almost whispering. It also made my stomach do a little flip knowing that Mike was coming to one of our gigs. Now that Bryant and I weren't together I was allowed to notice the little turn in my stomach every time Mike made eye contact with me.
“Break into your groups!” Mrs. Corbett said snapping her fingers like we were in salsa dance class or something. We were supposed to be proofreading our practice college essay applications. I flipped myself around in my desk, finally able to have a decent conversation with Mike. He was playing with his black hair when he asked, “Is Bryant going?”
I shrugged knowing exactly what the answer was. “I don’t think so.”
Mike shrugged back at me. “He’s a stupid guy. But don’t let stuff like that go.”
I rolled my eyes at Mike as I took his paper and started to read over it.
“I can’t wait,” he said obviously just skimming over my paper. “Music is such a part of what I do, I just wanna see what other people come up with on their own time.”
I looked up from his paper to see his dark brown eyes lock with mine. I instinctively smiled. “Ditto.” I knew he was into music. MY kind of music for that matter. But he was the kicker for the Varsity Football team, on the Varsity Baseball team, used to play Varsity Soccer his Freshman year, and is, needless to say, a bit of a popular guy. I’m the center of attention, but I’m not popular. At least, not as popular as Mike.
“I’m gonna come and show my support,” he said tapping two fingers on his chest. “Fo’ shizzle.”
“You’re so dumb,” I said matter-o-factly.
Mike jokingly glared at me. “You’re paper looks fine,” he finally said.
I shook my head at the all-star. “You didn’t even read it.”
“Did so!” he held my paper in the air and smacked it with the back of his hand. “It was excellent.”
“Right…” I said handing his paper back to him with corrections everywhere. “Yours was good, but you have some grammar and spelling issues. Fix those and you’ll be fine.”
“I’m already fine,” he ran his hand through his hair like Fonzie.
“Yes… yes you are,” I said laughing again.
We sat for the next forty-five minutes talking about the gig, and ran into the topic of Bryant a few different times. I kept bringing him up, but I couldn’t figure out why.
“So Bryant’s at least going to try and come isn’t he?” Mike asked about the gig we were having that Saturday.
“No, Mike, he isn’t,” I said to him as we packed up our stuff.
“Really?” he was unwrapping a piece of gum. “Why wouldn’t your boyfriend to come to one of your band’s gigs?” Mike pushed the stick of gum into his mouth and began chewing.
“Because he’s not my boyfriend anymore.” I wasn’t making eye contact with Mike. It was awkward enough as it was.
“What?”
“You didn’t hear?” I asked stepping away from my desk.
He shook his head and looked confused.
I sighed at him. “Bryant dumped me, Mike. Last week. He won’t be coming to anymore gigs.”
Mike raised his dark eyebrows at me. “I’m sorry.”
I shrugged at the kicker for our football team. “It doesn’t matter.” But it really did, because on the inside I was dying from heartbreak. One day, Mac would wonder why I didn’t get up for school. He’d come in my room, completely pissed that I wasn’t awake yet, and yell at me, and shake me and hit me, but I’d never open my eyes. Ever again. I’d be dead. I would have cried myself hysterical, then I’d of died of heartbreak. And that’s what would happen.
Too bad God decided people can’t die of that.
“Well, half the school is gonna be there. So I’m sure your mind is gonna be preoccupied anyway.” Mike winked and elbowed me lightly with his left arm as we made our way to the door, with half the other students in our sixth hour.
The bell rang setting us loose from the hell-hole we all loved to call school. Now it was off to band practice where I would practice with the guys for a few hours, make something good, record it, then call it quits, just like every other time we all got together.