You Found Me

Chapter 2

He stares at me for a few seconds, his face void of emotion. Breaking the silence, he clears his throat.

"I guess you can stay here and practice. I will be over here."

He drifts over to the farther desk, leaving me forgotten.

Inside my head I'm doing a little victory dance.

My thoughts subside  as I flip to the next song. I wrote  a ton songs in the last 6 months to 'express' myself, as Mr. Stroufield called it. This song Out of the Woods was about Mark. Memories flash through my mind, stringing together as if it were a movie.

Me bumping into him at school, Stella's arms safely laced around my leg, her ridiculously long raven black hair brushing her ankles. She didn't want to go to school. At school people laughed at her and were rude. 2nd grade was proven to be no better. Mark made her laugh and helped me get her to class. Then he started chipping away at me.

First, he sat with me at lunch. It took Mark over a week to get me to smile at him. We naturally grew closer until we were best friends. We did everything together. He found out not to ask about my family. Then we started getting closer than friends. It was magical and perfect bliss. He taught me the outside world and I taught him the beauty of serenity. We would dance around his room and watch movies. Mark had this metal chain around his neck that had a strange symbol on the pendent. When I mentioned it, he said it was his great grandfathers. He swore he would tell me one day, when he was ready. He never got the chance.

Mark was nothing special. He wasn't model material but to me he was beautiful. He had clear caramel skin, thanks to his Hispanic roots, that complemented his buzzed black hair and brown eyes warm with laughter that twinkled with mischief. He was 5'5 and his size always annoyed him. He swore he just needed to grow, that he would end up to be easily over 6 foot. His family wasn't the wealthiest so he wore the nicest t-shirt he could buy with his money, old jeans and discounted shoes. He never looked ragged or used, Mark always made sure his outfit looked nice.

Mark had the biggest dreams. He wanted to go to Princeton and become a writer. Then travel around the world to help the less fortunate. He would write down his stories and hopefully motivate others to get up and change the world. Mark was an incredible writer. I am sure he could've changed the world.

I remember the day I had my first kiss. We were sneaking into a fancy yacht party being held near our old houses in Maine. We went to Goodwill and bought a suit and tie and a nice dress. We pretended to be a prince and a duchess. We had everyone fooled and I laughed so hard I cried.  It was an amazing evening. When we were walking home he pulled me into him and kissed me under the moonlight of a million starts. It was perfect.

Then the night of the car crash. We were going to go to the Valentines dance together. I was so excited I couldn't keep still. Mark was borrowing his Dads car so he was extra cautious. He ended up stopping early and getting in a crash. He needed 20 stitches in his arm. I only got a slight bone fracture in my foot but it was enough for the doctor to alert my Mom. She had thought I was asleep in my room. I was waiting for Mark in the waiting room when in came my Mom, red faced and swearing. She dragged me out of there faster than I could blink. Before the door closed my emerald eyes met his smooth chocolate ones and I can never forget that look on his face.  When I saw Mark on Monday he was fine but what happened put a dent in what we had. We brushed that night under the rug, nver fully understanding what had occurred that night.

Months later, in the middle of sneaking out in the thick of the night to be together, countless punishments from my mom because Marie seemed very informed in my social life, shielding my younger sister Stella from all this nonsense, and writing some small songs, we found love.