Stuck

Chapter 3: Didn't See That Coming...

Getting up for school was never fun.

So I tried reassuring myself with the knowledge that all I had to do was survive one more year of school.

Well, high school anyway.

My dad was always on my case about college this and college that!

I used to just ignore him. Now I see that in his own obnoxious way he was only trying to help me.

Mostly.

Of course he claimed to know exactly what I wanted out of life. And apparently that meant going to business school, like he had, and becoming happy and successful. Like he apparently thought he was.

Well, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, just what I didn’t want to do. And anything my father suggested went automatically into the latter category. 

         So anyway, senior year. On the Basketball team, relatively popular, good grades, living the dream..right?

Wrong.

I cannot describe my life in any other way other than boring.

My life was completely stagnant. And I hated it!

I guess I never realized how unhappy I was with my unchanging life until it, well, changed.

And it started to the moment that girl, Jade, moved into town.

  I’ll admit that most of my initial attraction to her was based on the fact that she was so different- and that seemed exciting.

I thought that she could give me that much needed boost of adrenaline in my life.

I’d like to point out that I did not see her as a make out partner; she seemed exiting in the same way that spray painting graffiti is exciting.

In an undisciplined, unexpected, and potentially dangerous sort of way.

Looking at her, defacing public property seemed an entirely plausible scenario.

                                                **********************

        It had been about a week or two since the new girl moved in and I was riding my bike home and I decided to stop by her house.  She had already caught me randomly creepin on her house, so I figured actually going up to the door like a normal person, was an entirely reasonable approach.

I rang the doorbell, not really knowing what to expect.

Then she opened the door and said, “I thought you would stop by.”

I was a bit unsettled by her comment. Partially because it wasn’t a comment I had thought of a response to, and also because It made me feel predictable or something.

Was I that obvious?

I was going to tell her I came over to welcome her to the neighborhood, but clearly that was out now. She walked back inside and since she didn’t shut the door or anything I took that as a hint for me to follow her.

As I walked behind her through the entry way and down the hallway leading to her kitchen I took a closer look at the stains I had seen earlier on her walls.

Shocked I realized that they were not in fact stains at all, but intentionally drawn doddles in black sharpie.

Some seemed to have been freshly drawn, their permanence still gleaming on the other wise bare walls.