My Life With Styx

A Long Awaited Letter

Nearly two whole weeks later my letter from Chicago State University came in the mail. I jogged it up to the house to open. I handed the rest of the mail to Tommy but kept my single envelope and took a deep breath before I ripped the top open. "is that your acceptance letter?" "how can you think I even had a chance of being accepted? there's so many more deserving people out there" "well with that attitude you won't get in, but they probably looked at your IQ and checked your school records" I rolled my eyes and tore the letter out of the envelope. I skipped to the important part...

Mrs. Augusta Shaw,

We are pleased to tell you you've been selected as one of the students to attend Chicago State University... blah blah blah.

"oh. my. God!" "you got in?" "yes!" I jumped up and down with excitement. Tommy got out of his chair to hug me and I jumped into his arms. "this is such great news! pretty soon I'll be a band teacher and I'll be able to support both of us and pay for the house bill! this is so... perfect! that's the word!"

~~***~~

I stayed at home since the college was only a couple minutes away, instead of staying in a dorm. I became friends with a girl named Kaitlin in my Music History class and she came over often to work on memorizing the composers and their music. I think she had the hots for Tommy but I didn't wanna ruin our friendship over something so insignificant, so I kept my mouth shut about it.

~~***~~

"Gosh this is so hard!" I put my head down on the table and Tom came and rubbed my back. "you'll get it don't worry. it's all memorization and last time I checked, your memory is on point" "Thanks" I put my head on the table once again and resumed drowning in my misery.
"Here I'll help you. it's simple, you'll see" I waited for him to say something else about how great he was with music history, or how he got all A's in band class when he was younger, but he didn't. "okay so see how it's just an artist and it's song?" he asked while studying the paper the names were written on. "yeah" "well, who sings Dream On?". "Aerosmith" "there! simple as that!" "Wait what in the world! explain this Aerosmith logic you have going on here" I couldn't help but giggle at what I said. "well you see, you know the Little River Band sings Lonesome Loser, and Journey sings Wheel In the Sky, so why should there by any reason why you can't remember that Franz Schubert composed The Unfinished Symphony?" he really DID have some logic behind the statement! "that makes sense! it's still gonna be hard as hell to remember though" I looked down at my lap. "will you help me? like quiz me?" "of course babe! with my help you're gonna ace this class"

~~***~~

Tommy suggested I take a break from my hard studying, so we took that time to make flashcards. He wrote the song title on the blank side, and on the lined sign, I wrote which song they composed and a little about the person themselves. it got real old real fast. "okay, only twelve more to go" "twelve?" I moaned. each flashcard took two to three minutes, so I had a reason to be whining. "only thirty six more minutes" I said sarcastically. "oh come on. this hard work will pay off. you'll see. In the meantime, shall we put on some tunes?" "Yeah!" I immediately brightened up.

He stood up and went to the record collection we had. He grabbed a faded yellow one off of the shelf and got the needle into the groove on the record. (groove meaning: indent) "what song are you putting on babe?" "you'll see" he did that devilish grin and I raised an eyebrow. "better not be any modern junk!" "They don't even make their stuff on vinyl anymore" "whatever" I set my head down on the table and fell asleep to... Turn, Turn, Turn by The Byrds. 

In the morning it was basically just breakfast, a little television, then back to studying. I wanted this job SO much and I would study all night if that's what it would take. Tom kept telling me to take it easy and take a nap every once in  awhile but there ain't gonna be no naps for Augusta Shaw until I get that job... which is in four years if I'm lucky. I guess all I needed was to get a hundred percent on this test and I wouldn't have to worry about much for awhile. Tommy really started to take control and do something about my obsessive studying when I collapsed onto the table, crying. He leaned his head down towards mine and kissed my tear-streaked cheek. When I looked up at him I saw that his cheeks were rosy. "I haven't done that in awhile"  he said, obviously noticing the look of pure confusion on my face. "you need to go lay down for awhile"   "but I'm not-"   "I don't care if you're not tired. take some sleeping pills or something. you were exhausted yesterday and I can tell you still are"  "fine" I sighed and dragged my feet, which felt like bricks, to the sofa and plopped down. I tried to switch on the tv but Tommy took the remote out of my hands and set it on the coffee table. "get some sleep. you're gonna need it" he kissed me on the forehead and walked from the room. Can't he just leave me be in peace? can't I just study a ton so I can end up getting the job I wanted? I guess not. At least not with Tom around all the time. He just doesn't understand the importance of me getting this job. I mean, he's a rockstar, and what do rockstars do? play music... I can't criticize them because I was one once long ago... at least it feels that way... and I never needed to have any math, science, literature, or history skill at all. I just needed to be able to read music and understand what notes had which beats. Tom would never understand. I'm gonna study no matter what. as soon as he goes to bed... out come my flashcards!

Thanks for reading everyone. I won't be updating as often because of school aka prison... but I'll try to update when I can. thanks:)