Scented Candles and Car Radios

1 - I Liked It Better

"And now I just sit in silence."

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So there I was, in the middle of nowhere.

My name's Athol Coburn, and there's no way I could survive back then.

I was on my way to school on a Monday, and the autumn season was kind of wearing out around where I was, and it started to get colder than it was before. In 11th grade, everyone else gets to school early, or on time, whilst I have to drive downhill, park my car somewhere hidden on the school grounds, and pretend to have rode a bike all the way, since we're obviously not allowed to drive. Yet.

I wasn't late to wake up and have a decent breakfast, thankfully, and I always do my homework, so there's nothing very scary when it comes to academics. But something terrible is that I have to power up my car every school morning, and it was actually fine by me.

If the roads weren't crowded. Or sticky. Or bumpy.

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After the summer holiday, I was no longer a freshman, and my father had the brightest idea to bring me up on a fucking hilltop for the rest of my school years, just before university came along. I was expected to get top-notch grades and be as fit as possible, all while living atop a fucking hill that was just a perfect place to stay whilst studying in a school just hundreds of metres away!

People never really cared to feel any pity for me, not like it would matter. But I hated it the most when people would say, "Athol, you live metres away! We all live kilometres away, in different cities, even!" Because, what does that change? You all have shortcuts. You have maps for them. You got them given to you by the school's policy reservatives. I didn't get that, and nobody knew about how I had to go to school everyday. Infuriating, really, but getting straight back to the point.

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I was stuck in the middle of nowhere. And it a worse situation than it already was. Why?

Because my car radio wasn't working. Oh. My. God.

Of course, any in-their-right-mind-ed person wouldn't be using their phone constantly, so I never did. But throughout my tough times, I guess I could say that music would be the thing keeping me sane, the concept that would let me breathe a bit.

It was also not uncommon for people to come banging their way at your doors in the dark, mostly motorcycles, and I had to wait for that to pass by with music as well. Those people weren't just civillians all the time, either. They could be terrible. They could be known for killing, they could be known for curing cancer, but no matter what, if they hit your doors or busted your wheels when you went to school in the mornings, they don't like you. Especially if they don't say sorry. It's even worse when they look back, grind their teeth and just stare at you with cold eyes.

It wasn't rare at all. It would happen almost everyday, and if it didn't on a certain day, it would be so glorious anyone would've probably written it in their journal or something. Unless they were an assassin. They'd take notes for their hitlist.

But again, music: I was trying to focus on the road more in the winter, since autumn had fallen behind already, and roads were getting thick, chilly, and lumpy. If I didn't go early, at least 10 of those door-rammers would have bumped into me. Music was what kept me on track, what kept me distracted. Everyone at my age that had their looks slightly changed and had started driving would obviously be terrified without some kind of distraction.

But music was my distraction. Without it, I was lost.

In the dark, icy scene, I couldn't help but scream in my mind. To be honest, it was more than being just scared, or better yet terrified. I was mortified. I had nothing to depend on, I had nothing to rely on, and I was stuck.

The worst thing at that moment was the fact that I could get out with a chance of still being extra early for class, but I just wouldn't.

I didn't care about my features, if I looked strong and buff, if I looked sharp and quick-witted. I didn't care how much I was threatening people with what I dressed like in the winter. But I cared about the things that I hadn't been able to care about when I didn't need to. When I still had a rythmic beat with full surround sound in my car. When there was music.

I was scared of the real world.