The Girl Behind the Light

Prologue

"One day can change everything."

That's the most important thing I've ever had to learn at my time in Fountain Valley High School. My sophomore year was the year I ended up learning that, both the easy way and the hard way, and going into my senior year it was a lesson I needed to remember...but sadly I chose to neglect it, and I paid the price for it.

There were two times in my life I had to face that reality though: the first time being the "easy way" to experience it. It wasn't necessarily the easy way as it took a traumatizing experience to learn it, but the end result made it worth it. One Friday afternoon in November of my sophomore year, a broken wrist had lead to a relationship that has lived on longer than I ever could've imagined. If I was never with my girlfriend Tori the day it happened, things would've been different, truly different.

The second time I experienced this was truly the hard way. The Saturday after that Friday was one that probably should've never happened. A group project brought a story of a huge mistake and an untimely coincidence leading to the death of our friend Freddy months after. His best friend Moe had ended up betraying him by dating the girl he had feelings for, and I took away the girl he gave up to pursue the girl Moe started dating. After losing all trust with people in general, he shut the whole world out from there, and his bitter loneliness got the best of him. If he didn't avoid us so well, we might've been able to stop this, but sadly there was nothing we could do, especially as that Saturday determined his fate long before we could anything to stop it.

The people I've surrounded myself with since have allowed me to move on from this tragic incident. Of course, there's my girlfriend Tori Webb, now a young Junior Colorguard captain. Despite her petite size, she stands out in a big way talent-wise, especially on the field where she looks like the biggest performer out there. Although, if there was one thing though I think is special about her, I'd say it's the smile. Whenever I see it, I'll notice how much more her eyes glow chocolate brown, and how much more shiny her graceful brunette hair is, and how much smoother her pale white skin looks. When I see this, it gives me the sense that everything is going to be okay, and that's what I love about her.

She ended up introducing me to her friends who I got along with quickly. All of them were either in Colorguard or in Marching Band. The first one I ever met was Dillon Brown, who was a junior when this story was taking place. He was a pretty scrawny kid, and he had a blonde bowl-cut and acne smearing his cheeks. His blue eyes were very pale, but his teeth glowed of the brightest shade of white I've ever seen. He played the baritone, which despite the fact that it's not a huge instrument, it weighed like one (well when you marched with it at least). I was surprised he could hold it, but he said he also struggled with it, but he loved playing it and it was worth the pain. He convinced me to join his section in marching band Junior year, and because of it, I was able to hang out with Tori at her competitions more often. If it weren't for him, Tori and I may not have been as close as we were.

I later got to meet her best friend Caroline Jeffery. She was a junior who was awfully tall compared to Tori. She was white and had dirty blonde hair and brown eyes that showed the introvert inside her. She was in Colorguard with Tori, and despite being the biggest person there, she was like a mouse compared to all these cats on the field. She was super afraid of disappointing her peers due to her lack of skills she has yet to develop, and she was always afraid of talking to most of them because she worries that they'll retaliate against her. Tori was the only one to reach out to her and be her friend, and from there Carol, as Tori likes to call her, had found comfort in hanging out with her. They reminded me of Freak the Mighty in a sense, and I thought that it was a good thing that they paired up together so well.

The last friend I ever met that she hung out with regularly was Nathan Kau, again another junior. Nate was a fun one, as he was the best jokester I've ever seen. Tori and Nate were friends back in kindergarten, and when they reunited many years later in marching band, they would hang out together once again. He was of Filipino descent, with a bang running across the left of his face. You could only see the one brown eye, and many people believed that he covered up the other because he was born with a different colored left eye. I never bothered to ask him if that was true, but even if it was it didn't matter.

He was the one who met Dillon, back when they were Freshman. Nate played Clarinet not baritone, but with how goofy they both were they were destined to meet. It was because they became friends that Tori became friends with Dillon. Because she met Dillon, I decided to join the band. It was fun to hang out with them and enjoy my time there with them, even though I was never really good at playing an instrument or marching around a football field.

It would be because I joined the band that I met the person who took me away from Tori. I never thought I would have to undergo such a reality, but this person was truly something different. They showed me otherwise that a series of days can change history, not just a day. It was also because of this I almost singlehandedly changed everyone's fate with my decisions...

[The following chapters are excerpts from my personal Journal]