Chapter 2: September 19th, 2010

The day his life fell apart.

September 19th, 2010
Tyler.



These things just happen,

 

You act on an impulse.
Thinking about what’s going to keep
 you out of trouble right there and now.

Not future consequences,
or if anyone finds out later.
No, you have to think about the present.

Sometimes you end up doing
something stupid.
Something regretful, something unethical.

But it doesn’t seem nearly half as
 bad as it really is at the time.
The adrenaline racing through your veins,

Sweat beading on your brow,
Anything that’ll keep you out of trouble
seems perfectly acceptable at that point in time.

 

But once you sit down,
And think about what you’ve truly done.
Problems begin to arise.

Especially when more than
one person is involved.
Lies become inevitable.

People get upset; slowly turn against
each other, to save their own a*s.
But this is why secrets are in existence.

You all agree to keep it to yourselves,
And pretend it never happened.
 But that doesn’t always work,

You begin to become afflicted with
 memories, painful thoughts.
You covertly keep things to yourself,

Until that ball gets bigger and bigger and
you hurt so much, you might explode.
Well, I didn’t know that feeling at the time.

But if I had, or if I had known it was coming,
I would have prepared myself
for the worst of suffering.

 


 

 
It was one of those too normal days.

 

Mum was nagging as always.
Pop's sitting at the polished oak kitchen table,

fresh newspaper in hand, steaming coffee.
My bratty sister ranting about another

  pair of shoes she just had to have.
I turned on the shower, still half asleep.

 

After I finished the usual routine,
 I grabbed my car keys, wallet and backpack.

Raced down the stairs, snatched an apple off the
cluttered table and kissed mum on the cheek.

"Don’t be home too late."
With a nod I pulled on my Nike 6.0’s and shoved the door

open; the wind slamming it shut behind me.
Squinting towards the driveway; the wind

yelling in my ear and blowing my hair around.
I jogged towards my silver Honda civic, floundering.

I finally reached it and threw the door open,
tossed everything " including myself " inside.

I jammed my keys into ignition and
backed out of the driveway.

Sitting in Calculus,


the class before my spare,
Jeremy turned to me.

"Bro. We’re thinking of
reaching the community center

 

when it’s closed and going for
a swim, you down?"

"Yeah man. Who else is going?"

"You, me, Justin, Jacob,
Alex, Raven. Aurora, Emily--"

My brain stopped processing
names after hers.

Seeing her would make me feel sick.
I wouldn’t be able to have a good time.

"Something wrong man?"

‘Nah, I just " don’t you think
 Emily is acting weird today?’

Jeremy raised his thick, dark
eyebrow and laughed loudly.

"You would notice. But
I don’t know, you tell me.

You spend every
possible second together."

I opened my mouth to speak,
before being cut off.

"Besides the classes’ you

don’t have together.

 Which isn’t much.
 But whatever dude,

 don’t sweat it. Just come.
 There’s gonna be more

 than just you two there."
I nodded, looked back down

 at my paper, and began to ‘sweat it.’

 

 

 Have you ever asked yourself the question,


‘Why did I do that?’ Did it ever cross your mind? The vows you made, and swore, things you’d never do. Since when does your mind have the right to go against those promises, and convince you to do it anyways? While you’re sitting there hiccuping in fear because you, somewhere in-between your ears, you are self aware and know what you’re doing, but the working part of your brain seems to be somewhere else, not paying attention to the foolish actions you are proceeding with. So what happens then? You continue, of course, and then when you’re finished you ask yourself that question. Does it make anything better? Nah. You know it won’t, but you stupidly question yourself anyways. You interrogate yourself to the point of frustration and pain, trying to convince your mind that your actions were realistic and correct, when really you know they were not. I confused myself just thinking about it. Little did I know the thoughts would have much more relevance in the near future.

My hands were thumping my thigh rather roughly when Jeremy stopped my drumming with his hand.


"Feel free to sit here
all class and beat yourself up."
He jabbed his finger
towards my hand, flaming red

from severely beating
my own leg self consciously.
"Oh. Right. Did the bell go?"
"About 10 minutes ago,

 I figured I’d go to the washroom
 then come back and see
 if you were still beating yourself up." 
I laughed at myself, half in embarrassment

and half in amusement.
I gathered my books together,
slinging my backpack over my shoulder
and pushing the chair in.


"Are we leaving now?"
Jeremy nodded and hurried
me out the door. We took
a detour at my locker so

I could dump the extra weight.
"No homework?"
He looked at me in awe, his
jaw falling slack. He looked as

though a light had shone
 over my head and
I had grown a double
d sized chest.


"Doesn’t mean I don’t have
homework. Means I’m not going to do it. "
Jeremy considered this
and his eyebrows furrowed together.


"Right, ‘because you’re white,
 and I’m Chinese. I get a B
and it’s suddenly World
War 3, I wonder what would happen


if I decided to just not do my work!"
He stomped off dramatically;
chin in the air. I laughed briefly
as I closed my locker and


jogged after the angry Asian.

Author's Note

I'm sorry if this chapter is a little flat.