Chapter 1
The daily drone of alarms could cause many to slid into a monotonous life of living on the whim of those so called schedule keepers. Most times they wail for hours until any reasonable person comes along to turn them off. Each morning an external alarm wakes me up. Each morning I drag myself out of bed to attend school. Somewhere over the blaring of the alarm clock I hear the incessant yapping of my dog. The small chihuahua always seems to hear the ringing alarm clock and has the audacity to bark alongside it, waking up the rest of my family. I heard my dad say something about the dog then almost immediately fall back asleep.
The life of a retired man must be so difficult, I think to myself. He never wakes up before eight, anymore.
I look over to the alarm clock which is still blaring in my ear. In it’s light blue coloring, it read 5:26 AM.
I sigh and finally turn it off. Whatever made me think to set an alarm so early before school deserves to be killed. I pick my phone and turn it on. The wallpaper makes me think of an inside joke held between my bestfriend Logan and I.
Just then, a text comes to the screen. My heart skips a beat when I see who its from. The contact name says Don’t Bother but that’s just because I continually tell myself that I shouldn’t bother with the person. The person is a girl who I’ve been infatuated with for over a year now. Her name is actually Cheya. She was a senior at my school when I was a sophomore and like the dumbass I am, I fell in love with her. I can’t tell you why it happened. It just did.
The screen turned off as I sat and thought about her. I woke from my morning dream, turned the phone back on, and unlocked it. The message read: Hey! I hope you have a great first day of senior year!
I wanted to die.
‘Maybe you should die.’
Oh yeah and I should mention I’m probably insane. I hear voices, or a voice. I took to calling him Carl.
I took that as a joke from the stupid voice.
It had been a while since I had talked to Cheya and the text took me off guard. I had come to a position where I almost hated her but if she suddenly confessed her love for me I’d run away with her in a second. I have never quite been able to get over Cheya. Logan has told me time and time again, “Cut off contact”.
I have never been able to do it though. Every time I think I’m over her, she’ll text me and I end up back at square one. It’s unhealthy. It has to be. One can’t simply feel the way I do about Cheya and not be mentally safe.
I’ve had feelings for other girls, just not this intense.
The worst part about the entire relationship is that she has feelings for me. But she said she, “Isn’t ready for a relationship.” She’s told me she loves me, hell we even joked about getting married. I told her I would wait until she is ready but honestly, I don’t know if I really can anymore.
We can go weeks without texting then go weeks where we never lose contact. I’ve lost sleep over her. I’ve told her everything. Even my in depth sexual fantasy that involved her. She reacted amazingly to that by the way. Totally not what I was expecting.
I looked out of my window and saw the sun shining in. My phone rang again. In my trance about Cheya, I seemed to have started a conversation with her.
At the moment she seemed more than happy to talk to me. Right now she went on about how excited she was to be going back to college in the Valley. I asked her if she was going to be coming down to watch my football games every once in a while.
I finally threw the covers off and got out of the bed. I almost felt the covers reach for me but when I turned around they were as still as ever. My phone rang but I didn’t bother to look at it. The clock read 6:48. I wondered for a moment how so much time could have passed.
I tilted my head, cracking my neck, then took a deep breath. Today was going to be shit.
...
The sun peeked over the nearly burnt out house at the end of the street just a few blocks away. Every morning I went outside to take a breath of the fresh morning air.
It was chilly and I suddenly regret going out in my underwear. I hightailed it back inside before anybody could see me basking in my glory.
My mom walked out of her room in a black skirt and a black and white blouse I bought for her years ago.
“Nice shirt.” I said, making her jump.
“You little shit,” She started, her hand on her chest, stilling her beating heart.
“I’m bigger than you.”
“Then you’re a big shit.”
I kissed her on the cheek then walked back to my room.
The long hallway was decorated by pictures of my brothers and sisters, all of whom have already moved out. Now the house sported an emptier feel. My childhood room had been converted into a home office, and the room opposite was the guest room. My current room belonged to my brother, and my sister before him.
I wasn’t really old enough to remember any of my three sisters when they lived at home, but I do remember my brothers. They were twins and from what I remember never got along. Of course they loved each other, that goes without saying, they just fought constantly.
They graduated high school in 2003 and moved to the Valley where one of them went to school to do hair and the other became a model.
At that moment the dog started barking as I walked away from her and left her locked in the front of the house. You would think with all that space she’d be content, but no, she can’t go very long without human contact. I paused momentarily, thinking about opening the gate and letting her run about the house like a mad woman.
Instead I just yelled, “Shut up,” and went back to my room. The room was dark as I had forgotten to open the blinds when I left the first time.
‘Something something there’s a ghost,’
‘Shut up Carl.’
I opened the blinds and winced as the light flooded half the room. Like a true recluse I scampered to the dark side of the room, wishing I could escape the light of the day. In time I brought myself to open the other blind, once again I was blinded.
The clock read 7:04, and I finally deemed it was time to get myself ready for my first day of my last year of school.
I checked my phone and saw the text from Cheya I had ignored. I opened the phone so that I could read it. It said of course, with a smiling emoji next to it. I put the phone down after a response that seemed to be far to excited. I grabbed some shorts off the shelf of my closet. Once they were on, I grabbed a tank that matched the light gray color of the shorts. I turned in a circle trying to spot the gray vans that were hidden somewhere in my room. I spotted one behind my computer chair where I had spent playing hundreds of hours of the videogame, Skyrim.
“Where the fuck,” I whispered as I got on my hands and knees and searched under the bed for the other shoes. I lifted the skirt of the bed and was greeted by a crate of old Legos and the other shoe. Grabbing it, I made a move for the computer chair.
It creaked as I sat into and leaned back. I didn’t want this day to happen.
With every fibre of my body screaming I put on the two shoes. Where others could hardly wait to graduate, I dreaded it. I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. It seemed hopeless honestly. Colleges weren’t really looking at me for anything but track, and that’s great and all, but I don’t want to move all the way to Iowa.
I stood and looked at my outfit.
“Swagadellic,” I mumbled.
‘Where’s your backpack?’
‘In my old gaming chair where I put it last night.’
Sure enough the grey backpack sat in the red gaming chair, completely empty save for the pencils and pens stuffed carelessly in the front pocket. I looked in the mirror again.
“Here we go,” I said to no one in particular.
...
The parking lot of my high school, Daybrooke, was one of a particular oddness. Rather than be a simple rectangle with the normal two exits, it had a single gate, which was almost always filled with traffic of new teenage drivers and teachers in vehicles that were in considerably worse condition than their sixteen year old counterparts. The traffic at the gate was only compounded by the pedestrians who were forced to use the single gate to enter the campus on account of the schools lack of open gates that they could use.
The lot itself resembled an abstract “B” with a fork coming off that ran to the front door of the gym. The center of the so called “B” was filled with two rows of parking spaces reserved primarily for teachers and staff. On the north side of the parking lot was a row that many would refer to as student parking. The row ran up the side of the JV softball field, leading to several dented hoods during the height of softball season. Most of the students who parked here were among the popular crowd. Luckily I had a spot more or less reserved seeing as how I was a starter on the football team.
As I drove into the lot I noticed several new faces hanging around the cars of the more popular upperclassmen. These new faces were the new freshman, most of whom wore skirts that obviously broke the dress code, or pants that sagged far too low. I looked at these young people, so worried about what the rest of the world thought of them, that they worked with an untiring effort to impress everybody. Well, I wasn’t impressed.
Maybe that was my problem. When I was a freshman, I spent too much time not caring about anything to care about anything. I mean, yeah, I had good times. I got laid that year, by an upperclassman no less. I played varsity football. I did cool things.
‘Those things didn’t matter.’
Sometimes that voice that I hear can be insanely depressing. Though it can be a strain, I’ve never tried to get treatment. It’s almost as if part of me is actually part of Carl. If I no longer had him to talk to I wouldn’t have much. I’d have Logan, and he has problems of his own.
I was always the first of my friend group to show up to school. I think it comes with the deep fear I have of being late. It was instilled by my mother when I was young and hasn’t left. My dad has the problem of never being able to be on time for anything. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was late to my graduation.
I exited my car and went around to the trunk and opened it. The hinges of the old Mazda SUV creaked but the door stayed open. The back seat of the car was surprisingly empty, especially for me. Grass hadn’t been accumulated from the time I would spend on the football field. Because of this rare occurrence I made the decision to sit in the trunk with my music playing through the speakers. For once everything was alright. School hadn’t technically started so I could relax for just a bit longer.
Until I heard the distinct voice of one of my best friends, Dreu. His unmistakable mexican accent brought my attention back to real life. He had just parked the new car he had gotten that summer crookedly in a spot not far from mine and was saying something snarky to his younger brother of two years, Don.
“You son of a bitch,” the younger brother said.
“Ey, watch it! She’s a nice lady!” Dreu said almost too loudly.
“Dammit Dreu! Your disturbing the peace with that booming voice of yours!”
“Sorry mate!” The word “mate” sounded strange coming out of his mouth. It was almost as if the accent changed the meaning of the word entirely, making it a completely new word.
“Hey, Don, when you get taller?” I asked.
“During the time when you were working out and sleeping.” I honestly had no idea what he meant by that but I laughed anyway. Don left, joining up with his own friends who were just walking in the school.
“You heard from Logan?” I turned toward Dreu, who had just sat in the trunk of my car alongside me.
Almost as if he heard, the squeal of old brakes broke into the conversation. There, almost speeding toward one of the last remaining spots, was Logan’s old Dodge Durango. I’m sure the story behind that car is something that Logan himself could explain best but I’m sure that he and his father only kept it because it was the last thing that remained them of his mother. I’m still not completely sure about the story behind her either.
The brakes creaked again as he pulled in.
I looked over at Dreu, who had pulled his phone out and was looking at vines, chuckling at the good ones.
“Hey guys.” Logan said, his voice cracking.
“Hey senior,” I replied.
“Ey lil ‘oochie mama, how you doin’?” Dreu had to take it a step forward with his over-enthusiastic personality.
Logan, being the smallest of the group sat in between Dreu and myself.
After a moment, Logan asked, “Anything good happening?”
“Nah, just a couple vines and that’s it.”
I glanced from my own phone momentarily to see the black car of a particular girl Logan had an interest in entering the parking lot. Several people waved as, arguably, the most popular girl on campus drove through to find herself a spot to park. Logan moved, and I nearly felt his heart jump myself.
“I’ll see you guys in class.” He said, walking toward the building.
I wasn’t even sure he heard my response, as he was so deep in a trance.
“What do you think this year will hold Dreu?” I asked.
“Whatever it is, I’m sure it’ll be one hunnit.”
