Chapter 2: I find my days ending the same everyday.

I am a big music lover. Everyone that knows me knows it. I find myself listening to some song at almost every second of any given day. Looking back I don't know what sparked the love but it came somewhere. There are about 10 songs I know of that are significant in my life, and the list is always changing. I think the illusion of escaping what I see as a subpar life is what does it. I feel like when I'm listening to a song everything stops and I just see the picture the artist is presenting. When i hear a song about love I feel like maybe my miserable love life so far will get better someday if not as I listen. I feel if I hear about a crazy party I can walk outside and live on the edge without a care or reason and the world won't care either. But the more I listen, the more I realize that maybe I should stop dreaming and try to do things. This reminds me of a time when I was just into high school, Freshman and Sophomore year I'd say. It was Freshman Year and I had only been in Jersey for about 10 months I'd bet. The change was suburbia to the 'hood was starting to get to me. I couldn't walk outside and skate for fear of getting shot or jumped, there weren't friendly strangers, only bums and crackheads. Living with my gramma was a blessing and a curse, I had gotten out of 8th grade after almost failing, but the house was too restricting, even moreso than my environment. I couldn't do much cuz my gramma was protective, and if I did I feared the stress would kill her, so I stayed on the straight and narrow for the most part. That is til I met her. Katrina Pearson. Honestly I didn't wanna even write about this part of my life cuz I stil hurt on some days about it, jsut my imagination punishing me with "What Ifs" and "Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda's.". Anyway I had 8th period Biology with Mrs. Norwood. it was about the 3rd day of Freshman Year and since I was so smart most of my 8th grade friends weren't in any of my higher classes, and if they were they weren't tryna do shit. I had met another new person in 4th period History named Jasmine Kenty. Damn she was fuckin fine. This was her first year in Jersey from Florida and I felt what she was. She didn't come from the suburbs, but she felt left out cuz she had a thick accent and didn't know if people liked her. Well me being the nice guy I am I became her friend, taking a big risk cuz she was bound to be the popular girl of the school, but at that time I jsut wanted someone to talk to. And strangely enough she took a liking to me. I don't know how a relationship would have worked but I did turn her down and I don't know why. Correction: I didn't know at the time. Y'see I was falling for someone else. Jasmine was a cool friend, and we'd still be friends if she didn't move back to Florida, but for some reason my brain was comparing her to someone else. So it was about the 3rd day of school and to get us to become more acquainted Mrs. Norwood put us into groups for a simple worksheet on each other. I got Katrina and her lifelong friend Jasmine Parker. I'd say th rest is history but that'd defeat the purpose of reading this book. So we were working and I just couldn't get ove how beautiful this girl was, and she was weirdly enough not laughing under her breath at me or shunning me off as a geek. Hell on the day i got my braces I rushed to get to school just to ler her be the first to see I had gotten em (I got em for her cuz I knew she didn't like hers), and by rush I mean I got there with 2 minutes left in 8th period. Or another time when she broke up with her boyfriend at the time and was hurt so I sat on the phone for about 12 hours just listening, not saying much of anything, just listening and trying my best to console her. I had fallen in love, but couldn't tell her. So i would go home and cry most days. I'd turn on "By the Way" by The Red Hot Chili Peppers and throw "Minor Thing" on repeat for hours on end and cry. I did this every day til October of Sophomore Year. It was October 17th. I don't remember much cuz I was so ecstatic but I know i had pissed her off REALLY bad, bad enough that she was talking to me. So i went home and wrote a letter to her. I told her exactly how I felt. I figured if she never saw me again I wouldn't go down without divulging months of pent-up feelings never to express them. The next day afterschool I gave it to her personally and expected her to rip it up, but she read it, right there in front of me...then she laughed. I swear that instant is still the worst moment of my life. Fortunately she was laughin cuz she played my like a fiddle, she was never mad and was fucking with me. But then she looked at me and said "You mean this? The letter?" and I said "Eh, why not?" and she just hugged me. We stayed there for about 15 minutes just embraced. That night she called and we were dating, but with a footnote. She is the kind of girl that likes to focus on one thing, so she'll try everything else out and goes back to square one. She did the same with relationships. She liked a boy named Terrence and another, a friend of mine, named Clint. I knew both guys and knew that she wouldn't mesh with either, she knew it too but just had to 'try' them. So I told her I'd rather see her happy then to question things and she dated both, and broke up with both. Now comes the twist. While with Clint there was another factor thrown in I didn't know about. As she was throwing signals at me (Which in my lack of smart I didn't catch), someone else did. So she was actually cheating on Clint with another guy, left Clint and as I went back in my spot was taken. I've never recovered from that, nor can I ever let it go. I'll never know what could have come, and probably never will. She's still with the guy, and they are happy, so I guess I shouldn''t care, but I can't stop caring about her. But I digress, I won't bore you anymore with Ms. Pearson. She went her way, and I went mine. We'll meet again sometime down the road, I can guarantee that, and things wil be like 8th period Bio with crazy ass Norwood. I could take my life and put it in 3 verses, and a hook and sell it as a single. But I don't hink the world would be ready for such a sad song.