The Outcast (My Life in Ten Short Chapters)

My life growing up in suburban Mid-West America. I developed friendships and they all seemed unstable. However, today, I have many friends. Simple. Yeah...

Before You Read:
To everyone who is mentioned in here, I merely use your mentioning to prove a point that I had trouble making friends and that you were either really or somewhat close to me at some point in my life. Some of you were/are critical to my future friendships. Sorry if that creeps you out, or whatever. I hope not, but people are people. Moving on...

Prologue:

Hello, my name is Jordan. I'm going to take a few minutes of your day, if you so desire to take the time read my short story, to tell you about my life. I've had many friendships that all ended in disaster. None of them seemed to last. None of them seemed stable. Until I met one friend that opened the door to so many more friends. I won't take much of your time. I just feel the desire to express my story in some way. So sit back and enjoy! Also, I chose to only name them by their first name, for personal reasons. They know who they are. Thank you. Now, let's begin...

Chapter 1, My First Friend:

When I was about 3, or so, I met a young girl named Dakota. I had just moved from uptown and she and I became neighbors and close friends. To this day that house brings back some of the best memories I have ever had.  But I digress. She and I played video games all day and night. From Zelda: Ocarina of Time to Super Mario Sunshine. However, before I met her I had little to no social skills. You don't develop social skills from your parents, you develop them from your friends. I had no previous friends. She taught me all I knew. Yes, it wasn't the most masculine, as you could expect. I could talk to girls better than guys. Granted, for a teenage boy, that's a very desired attribute to have, but I was 5-8 years old when we hung out. Bottom line, she taught me all I knew.

When I was 5-6, or so, I started kindergarten. I met someone named Taylor. He became my close friend throughout that entire grade. We would remain friends until this day, but we were closest in kindergarten. However, this was the start of my long line of friends that would leave my side.

Chapter 2, Moving Away:

In first grade, I met a kid named Patrick. He and I were real close, but he moved to Texas before the year ended. I never had a chance to really be his friend. However, I needed to move on. Taylor and I were still friends, but he was moving on to other people. I needed another friend. I began hanging out with a kid named Dylan. He was really close to this other kid named Andrew, but I still hung out with both of them. Dylan would be my closest friend in second grade.

In second grade, Dylan left for Los Angeles to become a child actor, which he would succeed in. Last I heard he had a prime time sitcom called "Awake" and was the rhythm guitarist and co-vocalist in a band. His name is Dylan Minnette. Maybe you've heard of him? However, his leaving left me without a friend again. In third grade I started hanging out with Dylan's old friend Andrew and another kid named John. Those two would remain close to me for years to come.

Also, in second grade, I met Spencer. He was from another school. However, he'd become my best friend for years. Currently my longest standing friend.

Lastly, in second grade Dakota moved away. She had left too early. I was still socially awkward. I hadn't learned everything I'd need yet. However, John and Andrew would teach me more.  But, they, too, would leave me.

Chapter 3, Stability:

In fourth grade I became friends with another kid named Jacob. He would become my second longest lasting friend. I am still friends with him. However, our relationship would be a strange one. Well, he was embarrassed to admit I was his friend. We constantly pestered one another. We were in an eternal competition to see who was better. But, yet, he would not admit I was his friend.

You see, I was an outcast. All the other kids aside from the ones the I befriended saw me as awkward, weird, quiet, and shy. But, I didn't care. Mainly because, in fourth grade, I was ignorant to it. Hell, I was ignorant to just about everything. I was all of those things and more. I am embarrassed of who I was. I'm sorry, but it's true. I regret a lot of what I did and wish I didn't portray that image of myself. It would restrict me from a lot of people in the future and designate my position in society. I was a nerd and a geek. I was, yet again, an outcast.

Anyway, I would keep these friendships with John, Andrew, Jacob, and a return with Taylor until sixth grade. No interesting movements in either direction occurred in this time. But, John left in sixth grade.

Chapter 4, The Schism:

At the end of sixth grade, John moved to another school. At that time, he was my best friend. His loss was the hardest one I'd ever had. I'd continue hanging out with him until about late seventh grade, when I decided to quietly break it off. It was becoming too much of a hassle.

Also, in sixth grade, Jacob kind of "stole" Andrew from me. They started hanging out and Andrew kind of stopped hanging out with me. By late seventh grade, we weren't really friends.

You see, in sixth grade, I hit mental puberty. My eyes were opened and I had an epiphany of who I was and I needed to decide what I wanted to do in my life. I grew up those last three years of grade school. I needed friends; I needed social status. I realized how despised I was and how much of an outcast I had become.

The breaking of friendship with John symbolized my breaking of friendship and relations with my grade school. I knew that if I was going to get any friends, I would need to look outward, at another school. I mean, it was seventh grade by this point. I needed social status higher than where I was, rock bottom. I cleaned up my ways, and I became nearly 100% logical. I was good at deductive reasoning, but I wasn't very book smart. I became someone. By the end of seventh grade, I befriended a very important teacher. Mr. Austin was his name. He was new and I was the student that welcomed him. We became close. Not like a friendship, but a teacher-student relationship. He trusted me. I could tell he really did like me.

Mr. Austin would give me pep talks and encourage me to be more outgoing, since he noticed my being a loner. This the was first relationship I had ever had with an adult. It proved that I was maturing. But, I needed to go on and make real friends. That summer I started my first year of marching band with my ever so untrustworthy friend, Jacob. That year I met five people that would play the biggest role in changing my life. Their names are Brandon (a year younger than me), Peter (a year younger than me), Bridget (a year older than me), James (my age), and Andy (three years ahead of me). The drumline. My "family". They would each play a major role in my life. Best of all, none of them were from my school and none of them knew many people from my school. I could start anew.

Chapter 5, That One Important Friend:

I made the decision to try and befriend Brandon. That was... ok. But we weren't really close. We were acquaintances at best. I was somewhat close to another temporary member of the drumline, Jantzen. He'd leave the following year, so nothing transpired from that. By the end of the year, I had Jacob and a kid named Matt. That's it.

Now for the possibly the most important time period of my life: the eighth grade. I didn't hang out with anyone from my grade, save Jacob. I was ready to cut myself off from my grade school. I was a new person. In eighth grade, my social life existed outside of school. I participated in a little after-school band program I had been doing since sixth grade. I made one friend. His name was Jarrett (a year ahead of me), but he went away in seventh grade, so it doesn't matter all to much. In this program, eighth grade year, I hung out with James, from drumline. We just talked for almost half a year, I got to meet him. I didn't think much of him before.

I remember one part of the first conversation I had with him. I don't know why, but I can just remember we were walking down a hallway and he was talking about how he hated that his initials were identical to Justin Bieber and the Jonas Brothers.

That may not have seen like anything, but that may have been the first time someone actually came up to me and talked to me, instead of vise-versa. It gave me a new-found confidence. He didn't know my past. I had a new record and I could start fresh.

It's weird how that works, but without even trying, he became my newest friend, and, easily, the most important. I made my first successful out-of-school friend and, to this day, one of my best friends. This was the big hit I was looking for. He showed I could move on outside of my grade school. He introduced me to the second most important friend in my life, Allen. That made up my only friends outside of my grade school, aside from Spencer, who I started to drift from. However, this only planted the seed I needed to continue to make many more friends.

Also, one thing to note, Jacob was going to attend a different high school than me. I would still keep in contact with him through Skype and whatnot, but he would not be at my high school. I needed friends.

Chapter 6, The Pad:

That summer between grade school and high school was huge. marching band started back up. That year I roomed with Peter at band camp. I'd be lying if I said I made any push of friendship in that time. I mostly just spent my time with two other guys, Adam and Aaron. I encountered them through following James into their room, which they called "The Pad". James was friends with Adam and so I worked to be friends with him too. Adam was friends with Aaron who, ironically, went to my school. I was never really close to Aaron, at all. Regardless, I befriended both of them. We formed a social group called The Pad. It did everything together during band camp.

The main four members were Adam, Aaron, James, and me. Two minor members that kind of spent time with us were Brandon and Allen. Either way those four became my best friends. After band camp, we still spent a lot of time together. Adam and Brandon slowly began drifting. Allen slowly became closer to us.

Also, Jacob started an anti-Pad movement at his high school called the "Dap". Needless to say it was a failure. At the current time, he's the only member...

Chapter 7, Another Important Friend:

That freshman year, before a band practice, James and Allen were running around acting like idiots. They were chasing each other with a sticker, I believe. Either way, I said sarcastically during that, "These are my best friends in band..." That seemed to affect Allen. He sat down and asked if I saw him as one of my best friends and I told him, "Well, in band anyway." I had figured he didn't see me like that at all. I figured I lost him.

However, it ended in quite the opposite. He came to be an awesome friend to me. For the first time ever, I had a friend that went to me, instead of vise-versa. He wanted to do things after school with me. I never really asked him to do things. Best part, for that semester, we shared four classes. He introduced me to many, many people. Almost all of whom would become my friend for the year ahead.

To name a few, in biology class I was introduced to Isaac. He would become my longest standing friend that I would make through school alone. He'd also be one of my closer friends, if not my closest non-band friend. The next one was in theology class. His name was Ryan. He remained friends with me for the remainder of the semester, but we kind of drifted. Allen would also revive my friendship with Taylor, again. Allen also introduced me to a group of girls named Anne, Christie, Melissa, Kelly, and one very important one, Harley. From the moment I laid eyes on her (yeah, you knew it was coming). No, but seriously, we'll tackle that in the last chapter. All you need to know is that Allen introduced me to her. You can also see why Allen was probably my best friend during this semester. James Aaron and Adam were still up there, but Allen had kind of risen up the ranks a lot.

I was also introduced to a former home-school kid named Tommy. He and I started out as weak friends, but I took a liking to him. He was well-rounded, intelligent, and funny. However, he never saw me as more than Allen's friend. Before the Christmas dance, however, he'd invite me and my friend/date, Hazel, over to his house. That was the beginning of my friendship with him and someone else... Alex...

Ah, these two. I've had more arguments than agreements with them. They were inseparable. They were both insane conservatives (still are). I was liberal. We were friends. See where trouble arises? Well, anyway, they would become my friends. Mainly during gym class second semester. But we'll tackle second semester next chapter.

Chapter 8, School Becomes Fun:

After making so many friends, I now had social status. But I didn't care anymore, I had so many friends and people who cared about me, I was a completely different person. The young child was gone forever. Only I remained.

As eerie as that sounded, it's true. I was acting with more confidence. I was spending more time out of the house, trying new things. I had a life!

Moving on, that semester Allen and I had one class, band. He took a radical decline. He began dating a girl, ironically, named Jordan. While she was awesome and a friend of mine, he began hanging out with her and her friends, who were not my friends. He left marching band to join football. He, honestly, left us practically all together.

That semester, I had five classes with James. I'd be lying if I said James didn't take Allen's place. James and I worked on projects, talked during class, etc. We became really close. I also became a lot closer to Aaron, and drifted farther away from Adam. My two closest friends became James and Aaron. I used to have Allen, James, and Aaron over, but it soon dwindled to just James and Aaron.

However, with all of those friends, school became fun. No joke. I now miss some things about school. I have good memories. It's amazing what friends can do. They can change your life. They can make what was dull into entertainment.

Chapter 9, Breaking Valor:

During a Winter Drumline competition, Allen, James, Aaron, and I were joking about forming a band. It had started when I brought up the fact that Jacob and I were in a cheap little African band called "The Cheap Little African Band". We had a profile on Rock Band called "Steel Valkyrie". We wanted to bring it to life, with Allen on bass, Aaron on guitar, James on drums, and me singing. However, it got moved around a lot. We decided to have Aaron as rhythm guitar and Andrew (yes, the Andrew from my childhood who I lost in sixth grade) playing lead guitar, since he was an amazing guitarist. We also threw Jacob (yes, he remained my friend since fourth grade) as manager. However, Allen didn't have a bass. Aaron offered to play bass. We were going to have Andrew be our only guitarist, but then Brandon offered to play rhythm guitar. Allen said he'd provide tenor sax in random parts. Also, Matt (yes, the same Matt from earlier) offered to play alto sax. However, we actually decided to be serious. I was really excited. I was going to fulfill my childhood dream of being in a band.

So, our line-up became me on vocals, Andrew on lead guitar, Brandon on rhythm guitar, Aaron on bass, James on drums, and Allen and Matt on saxes. We decided to let Matt go. We needed to clear space and Jacob could play alto sax. Also, Alex and Tommy offered to join. Alex could play guitar, so we made him our acoustic guitarist. Tommy offered to play piano. We accepted. Also, Isaac offered to do some stuff, like a co-manager with Jacob. We had a total of ten people in our band.

Our first practice was a bust, since we had no idea what we were doing. But it was a start. Our next three practices would be completely pointless and utterly worthless. I got to getting music via Guitar Pro 5. It worked. Practices became more structured and we actually started to get stuff done. Also, I began to get really close to Brandon. I actually started to revive my friendship with Andrew again.

Then, one day, Brandon got a job. He also began to show a lack of interest in the guitar. After all, he was a drummer. After a short dispute in which I tried to swap James and Brandon, Brandon left. James wouldn't leave the drums, and I don't blame him. Brandon texted me the official announcement first and then proceeded to tell everyone else. We needed a new rhythm guitarist. It would be Alex. A very experienced guitarist and a massive step up from Brandon. But losing Brandon was hard. He and I were just starting to hang out. However, he offered to stay with our band, hang out at practice, and be our "mascot".

Then came the drum set. We need a set for James. Brandon offered to sell an old one of his to us for $125. We raised the money after three months and gave it to him. However, in that long time, he realized we didn't get anything done and we weren't necessarily the most trustworthy band. He severed all relation with us, and, as a result, me.

Also, on a short note, Allen left our band, too. It actually only happened a little over a week before I write this. He showed up only to the first practice. He never did anything and showed no interest. His loss was sad, but, unfortunately, expected.

Either way, Breaking Valor became my new "Pad". They were/are my closest friends. We are still practicing, I am now writing music, and we are moving forward. I am excited and nervous about what the future will hold for the little band of seven: me on vocals, Andrew and Alex on guitars, Aaron on bass, James on drums, Tommy on piano, and Jacob on sax. Will we make it in the big time, or will we break apart senior year. As likely as the latter is, I hope to use this band to keep us together. Even through long-distance.

Chapter 10, Final Words on My Friends:

Second semester, I befriended Nick, Russo, and Rory. Near the end, and I'm talking the literal last two weeks of school. Rory and I became really close, kind of randomly. Nick and I actually became really close that summer when he started dating Harley's friend Anne (yes, the same Anne I mentioned once earlier). We went on double dates and Nick and I would usually be the ones to contact each other when we both wanted to go out with our girls. We were all friends, so to ease tension, we decided to double date. Nick would usually text me.

Also, Isaac and I settled a mixed up friendship. It started well, then strained when he spread stories about me. But I didn't really care. He just thought I did. Second semester, we revived what had been lost.

Those last few days of school resolved everything and set everything in good standing. However, one issue I'd been having for a while was that I had a severe lack of respect throughout the (school) band. Everyone else in the drumline was chosen over me to play the drum set for the school musical. My efforts to smite them by playing an auxiliary part, ended in failure, but James, who was chosen, agreed to stand down so I can prove my worth by playing drum set for the rest of my term at school.

Also, I started lessons with Brandon's dad, and the head of the drumline, Scott. He had faith in me and wanted me rise up the ranks. If I had to choose one adult outside of my family that I respected the most, it would be him.

Lastly, the seniors. That class was an amazing class. When they left, I was devastated. Andy (yes, the one from drumline) was my closest senior friend. Of all the upper classmen, I probably respected him the most. He was in the top two students at our school and won a free scholarship to the most prestigious college in our state. But he was a lot of fun and easy-going. He was the best drummer my school had ever seen and probably will ever see. Minus probably Brandon, who is the best damn drummer I've seen for someone who's not even fifteen yet and hasn't hit six foot yet.

Either way, all of the seniors in the band were great guys who supported the young kids, like me. Especially Josh and Clay. They were my friends that I hung out before Winter Drumline practices. Clay's a junior, but Josh was a senior. Losing him is saddening.

Today, I can safely say my closest friends are Jacob, my cousin Lauren, Allen, Spencer, and my two best friends, James and Aaron.

Author's Note

Don't focus too much on the entertainment factor. I know that's VERY important, but this story's reason for existence is to convey a certain theme. Feel free to judge the grammar and whatever, but I know it's probably boring. This is a predecessor to my future book that I am currently in the making of.

Thanks!

Reviews

[MoriartyMesa]

Do plan on expanding each chapter and adding more detail, please dont think Im some jerk kickin you in the nuts for no reason, but it did feel rushed. My advice, break this up into each story, than link. Lot of good points, lots of them. But it does have that "read now move along".

Take your time, this is one of those stories you could turn it into a short story series. In all eleven chapters, each chapter can be its own story.