Chapter 1: Pessimism

A Chapter by Elicia

1. Pessimism

Where was he? We only had an hour until the game started, and he had our tickets!

I tried his cell phone, but it went straight to voice mail. I might as well leave a message.

"Jess? Where the hell are you?! The game starts in an hour-YOU HAVE OUR TICKETS!!! WHY DON'T YOU KEEP YOUR (…) PHONE ON?! UGH!!! "

By then, I was screaming and cussing into the phone. This always happened when I went to a soccer game with Jess. I'd go with my boyfriend, but he was captain.

And, It was just soccer. Our high school games, to be specific. Never anything else. He always showed up for my track meets and any other sport we went to together. Except soccer.

Just as I was lingering on that thought, there was a knock at the door.

I was about ready to yell at him when I answered to door, half-expecting to see a smug look on his face from hearing my message.

My expectations were wrong.

Jess wasn't even looking at me- he was staring at something behind me- I turned around to see what was so amazing in my home that the had to stand there and gape at it. He was staring at the vase of now-dead flowers my boyfriend gave to me for our 3-month anniversary 4 months ago, which were sitting on the windowsill in the kitchen rotting away. He had an expression on his face as if he'd just seen his mother murdered before his eyes.

This frightened me.

"Jess…?" I managed to choke out a whisper. He didn't seem to notice.

"Jess," I could talk now. This time he did hear me, because he snapped out of the trance he was in, and then smiled at me. It didn't touch his eyes.

"Hey." he said.

"Hey," I said back "you're a half-hour late. Where've you been? I practically screamed at you when I left you a message.”

"Yeah I heard." He wasn't smiling anymore. His expression almost looked hurt.

"I'm sorr-" I started to say, but he cut me off.

"Chrys," He smiled again and it still didn't touch his eyes. He pulled out two white slips of paper from his pocket and handed them to me "I can't make the game tonight. Think you can find someone else to go with you?"

Someone else? Why? We'd always gone to games together, and he never bailed on me before. Not once. Even if he was late for a few games.

It was still our tradition.

"Wh-" I tried to say, but he cut me off again.

"Chrystal, I’m sorry. I gotta go." He smiled the smile that didn't touch his eyes, kissed my forehead, and then walked to his car. Jess doesn’t kiss me anywhere when he says goodbye, unless he was going to be gone for a long time.

"Where?" I said, too late, watching as he drove away, just standing on my front porch, two soccer tickets in my hand.

I closed the mesh door behind me and then the door, glancing at the time. 5:57. Kick-off was at around 6:17. I only had about 20 minutes to get there, barely late, and the drive was around 30 minutes.

I wouldn't make it.

Not without being extremely late, begging the guard to open the gate to let me in (yes, our school had guards). Then, drawing attention to myself, distracting the players, so that they run into each other, one player brakes his leg, and they have to stop the game.

No. I would stay home tonight and maybe order a few movies. I needed a night to myself, anyway.

|***|

The Movie I ended up choosing was(…)to keep me awake (laughing) till when my dad and brothers got home.

It worked.

I was about laughing to tears when I heard our garage door open, more laughter from my two brothers. Then came my dad's recognizable heavy footsteps climbing the stairs and closing the door.

“Chrys?" he called out.

"In here."

He walked through the arched door to come into the room.

Our house had a lot of arches. All of them designed by my mom when she and my dad first moved in. She was an artist. He told me stories about her, like how she'd always call him "Davie" when she was working on a piece, and never at any other time. She was beautiful. She had long, flowing gold-brown hair (really, gold, not the fake blond-gold) with stunning liquid sapphire eyes, thin lips (like mine, except much, much more pretty), a fair nose and chin she always held up in the air, as if to say, "Life, bring it on". Well, at least that’s what my dad said. She was tall, too. Only a few inches shorter than my dad, who was 6'3. Her name was Clarisse Melissa Aarons, and became Clarisse Melissa Trentford when she and my dad were 19 years old, madly in love. My dad started a music store that taught classes, then he met her, a guitar teacher he hired, and both having no idea that somewhere along the road they would fall in love. Then came me, Chrystallina Clairaluna Aurora Trentford, a little less than a year after they were married. Then another year later, came my brother, Trentford, and then 2 years after Alex, came my other little brother, Lucas Christopher Trentford.

But she was dead now, and I barely remember her. She died when I was 3, while giving birth to Luke. My dad is probably the youngest dad at the PTA meetings at our schools. He's 37. Actually, he hasn't changed much since he and my mom were married. Maybe a few wrinkles show up by his eyes when he smiles, but you can't even see them unless you're up close. My brothers tease him every so often about getting old (but what kid doesn't?) although-even my dad knows but he won't admit it (because that's just the modest, sometimes irritating man he was)-we all know that he's in good shape for his age. Even our principal swoons over him now and then. Its disgusting. Of course, it's easy to see that he's never gotten over my mother. Everywhere you turn in our house, there's a picture of her. EVERYWHERE. But can you blame him? He lost the love of his life when he just 25.

My mom also painted all of the doors different, BRIGHT colors. The doors are probably the first thing you notice when you walk into our house. She made her mark in this house. No house would ever be this colorful.

Our house was the type of house that you would see in a private neighborhood. Well, the outside, at least. It was surrounded by hedges with pretty purple flowers twisting through them, along the garden my mother started, and my aunt continued. Surrounded by the garden was our backyard. Inside the house, the floors were white marble, always kept shiny by my brothers (since polishing was the most dreaded chore, it became a punishment, and they were constantly getting themselves into trouble). The walls were all mostly painted by my mother, every room a different color, except for the upstairs main hallway, which was wood (also kept polished by my brothers). There's a big chandelier hanging on the ceiling up above you when you walk in through the front door. Each candle-bulb-thing was a different color, or shade so it looked like New Year’s all year. We had 5 bedrooms, and 41/2 bathrooms, one of which was mine, another my dad's, and another my brothers shared.

All in all, our house was pretty big. It would make anyone question how my parents afforded it when they were still teenagers.

"Hey, sweetheart," my dad came into the room and kissed my forehead, glancing at the TV and looking at me with a puzzled expression "I thought you hated this movie"

"I do. But it’s so stupid it’s funny. I love watching sophomores break into a song every 5 seconds” I smiled

"You guys didn't do that? Wow. What are they teaching you kids these days?"

“Wow, dad.”

“What?”

I laughed.

"You sound so much like your mother." He let out a heavy sigh.

“Thanks,” I smiled, awkwardly.

“So, why aren't you at the game?"

“Jess bailed on me. I would've been late anyway," I glanced at the clock on the wall above the plasma TV. 8:13. "It's almost over. And, besides, Matt'll be here soon."

"All right." He squinted his eyes for a second, then he let out a sigh, and walked upstairs.

* ~ * ~ *

Matt came by at around 9:30 that night.

I opened the door and, there he was, all sweaty. He must've come straight from the game.

"Hi!" I said, then leaned up to kiss him.

"Hey..." he said back, his lips still pressed to mine. I pulled away, smiling at the pout on his face when I did. I wrapped my arms around his neck, and he wrapped his around my waist.

"Sorry I'm late," he said, smiling again, then kissed my forehead "I thought you were in the stands, so I waited a half-hour. Guess I was wrong."

"Sorry I wasn't there. I wanted to be, but I got so delayed I just couldn't make it."

"Delayed how?" curiosity filled his sparkling green eyes. I'd always loved his eyes.

Matt was tall and pretty buff from playing soccer and weight training. He had brown curly hair, and stood about 6'2"-ish. I was only 5'5", so I had to stand on my toes to hug him.

"Jess -"I started to say, but Matt cut me off at his name.

"Oh," he said. “that explains it.”

Jess and Matt never liked each other from the moment they met, which was when I first started going out with Matt. It may also have something to do with the fact that our school was divided into classes (as any other high school is, ours being a private one, located in the town of Killingly, Connecticut [I know, weird name, and, as ironic as it was, Killingly was listed in the top 3 cities with the worst homicide cases. Although, now every part and neighborhood is fenced with strong metal, our high school's entire massive campus covered in a huge shatter-proof, bullet-proof, everything-proof dome]) Matt was in the "populars"(I was the ignored girlfriend), as for Jess, he was, well, not necessarily goth but he was one of those guys that always had a guitar within reach, strumming away at any free moment they have, and generally misunderstood—but was still smarter than most everyone at the school. And he was really, really deep. And he loved reading. That's what I loved about him. He had scruffy, so-dark-brown-that-it-looked-black hair was cut to just below the top of his ears, with blue-green eyes and stood a good 9-10 inches taller than me, and could finish reading a good book in 5 minutes. He played hockey, but had to quit because he slammed his knee against one of the lockers and couldn’t skate after that. That's when we discovered his amazing talent for music, and I've been nagging him to try out for American Idol ever since. He never will, though.

We'd been friends since preschool (when my mother was alive), and he's been with me through (almost) everything. We were even friends during the "ew-you're-icky" stage most boys and girls go through. But, to me, he was only a friend, and I was sure he felt the same way.

"Wanna come in, maybe?" I asked. Matt and I had been standing there, our arms wrapped around each other for, like, ten minutes now and, as cold as it was, I was sure my body temperature was probably above 100 degrees.

"Yeah, Sure," he looked and sounded as dazed as I was.

“Ladies First.” he said, and stepped aside so I could go in.

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