Today is going to be the best day of my life.
A spike of anxiety quickly hit me in the chest when I closed the door of my dad's car. I watched him pull out of the Post Office parking lot, waiting for the chilly grip of anxiety to release me. After all, not just 5 months prior, I was walking the same path as I was currently everyday. But a lot had changed in those five months. I felt the last pangs of worry float off of my chest as I made my way across the street towards my old high school campus.
The game started at seven and it was only about five thirty, maybe six so I had a good thirty minutes to get in the stadium before any kind of crowd started showing up. I check my phone, partially to see if I had received any texts, also as a distraction to keep me from over thinking something as simple as going to a football game at a school I hadn't gone to in 5 months.
I bought my ticket (I suppose five dollars is worth seeing old friends but any other circumstances I would have called the high school football ticket prices absolutely ridiculous) and made my way inside the stadium. My first thoughts as I entered the football stadium of the school that i never wanted to leave was awe. They had done so much construction since I had left, it was mind blowing. There were proper walkways, decent gardening, and it simply just didn't look like the school I had been forced to leave behind.
I slowly made my way to the student section, looking for my best friend who had come to town for homecoming. Seeing as I had never been to a game, at this school or any other school I've attended, it took me about five minutes to figure out where the student section was. I ended up finding it, after I began looking for ridiculous amounts of blue and gold. My best friend was sitting in the front row, talking to one of his old friends. He had moved away at the same time as me, but instead of just moving a few cities over, he moved a state over.
It was weird at first. It was like going to a family reunion and hanging out with a cousin that you used to be extremely close to but over the years you fell apart. Except, unlike the reunion situation, the weirdness didn't last. Within ten minutes we had escaped the student section and where sitting up top in the reserved seating. We stayed there for the first half of the game, talking about our new lives, reminiscing about our old lives, talking crap about anybody that came to mind. It was like we were a trash talking machine, insults flowing from us like water from a faucet.
Around half-time, a girl that I had been talking to for a while texted me, saying that she was about the come in through the front gates. This night was beginning to get too perfect.
We waited at the gates for a while, she didn't show up after about ten minutes, so we headed back into the stadium. As soon as we were back in, we ran into her mom. She told us that her daughter was looking for us and if we continued walking straight, we would most likely find her.
So we continued on in the search of the girl. Our search was ended about fifteen seconds in though. She called out my name as we turned a corner.
I did a one- eighty and froze. It was as if just the sight of her froze my every muscle. I stood there like an oaf, finally coming to life when she came in to hug me. We exchanged pleasantries, I introduced my friend to her, see as she moved back to our old town when we moved away so they had never met.
The three of us walked around the stadium for a while, saying our hello's to old friends and making new ones. When the third quarter started and it was apparent that our team was going to win, my best friend and I said our goodbyes and left the stadium. We made our way across several streets towards the condemned building that had once served as our sophomore campus during the days of construction on the main campus. The old sophomore campus was in the outskirts of a bad neighborhood and doomed to be torn down within the next few years.
We went to the back of the building and I pulled out a pack of cigarettes, offering one to my friend.
He took it, although grudgingly and with a comment about cancer and how we really shouldn't be smoking these. I just shrugged and lit us up. Cigarettes in mouths and time to kill, we started chucking rocks at the remaining windows of the shell of a building. Each rock smashed into the targeted window, letting off loud gunshot like pops.
We did this for what seemed like hours; just throwing rocks, smoking cigarettes, and just having fun. When i went to pull out another cigarette, a loud pop rang off the building. I turned to my friend, wondering what he threw to make such a loud one but he just stood there, staring at me in shock.
I opened my mouth to ask what he was staring at but instead of words, gurgling came out of my mouth. All the sudden my legs felt weak and i tasted thick blood. As I went collapsing onto the ground, a shocking realization hit me as soon as the ground did. I had been shot. In the chest.
I'm not mad about it though. I'm strangely at peace as I hear another loud bang echo in the air and the thud of my best friend hitting the ground next to me. I'm still at peace even when my mind starts to get cloudy and nearly all my blood is on the ground under me. The crowd screaming the letters of my old school echoed into my mind, past the fog, past the ringing in my ears. I smiled, most likely the last facial expression I'll ever make. I smiled because I'm at peace. I'm at peace because after all, this is the best day of my life.
