Like It Was Yesterday

Part Three

“It’s so weird,” I said. “No wonder it always feels like I’m being watched or something, although I could just be paranoid.”

“That is kind of creepy, maybe you are being followed,” Rachel suggested.

“Yeah… there are also other things too,” I said, thinking back to previous events that I could never forget about.

Now that I thought about it, there were other things that have happened in my past that kind of made me wonder. Like the time I was home alone with my sister because my parents went to the store. I was sitting at the computer and I thought my sister was in the living room. I thought at first she was turning the TV up really loud to annoy me, and while I was yelling at her to turn it down, I realized that all that noise was coming from right next to me. Don’t know how I missed that.

Anyway, I looked over at the radio next to me and noticed it was turned up on its own somehow. The weirdest part was that when I went to turn it back down… I had to turn the volume knob even though I never saw it move in the first place. About a minute later my sister walked in and I told her what had happened. We both sat there freaked out and decided to tell my parents what happened when they got home. My parents thought it was weird too. My mom even said that something like that happened to her once. We decided to let it go and act like nothing ever happened though.

There was also this one time, where my parents went to bed before us, and my sister and I had to shut all the lights off before we went to bed and then make sure everything was locked. Well, the next morning when we woke up my mom asked us which one of us had forgotten to shut the lights off. My sister and I both looked at each other and told her that we were 100 percent sure that all the lights had been off when we went to bed.

I told all of this to Rachel and she definitely agreed that some weird stuff seems to happen around me, but after that hour, I figured I’d let it go. I was probably just imagining things, like ghosts are real anyway.

Later on in the day during the beginning of 5th hour I realized that we had an English paper due today that I forgot to type. I was doing a lot better in this class than I was in English last year, but recently, I kept forgetting to turn some things in. Now my grade is somewhere around a high D, not exactly where I wanted it to be. Somehow I was going to have to try and hide this from my mom and hopefully fix it before report cards came out.

While I was sitting at my desk I kind of zoned out. Our teacher was talking about the play we were reading, but I started thinking about Iliana. I know… I think about her all the time, but if you knew her you’d know why. She’s like the definition of the word perfect to me.

So, I was sitting down at the end of the hallway where the band room is, and she just happened to walk by. I figured for some reason that I should tell her I like her, so I did. At first she just looked at me and didn’t say anything and I thought, “Shit! She’s never going to talk to me again,” so I just looked down at the ground and tried to think of what to do next.

“I shouldn’t have just said that… I’m sorry,” I told her, hoping she’d forget the whole thing had ever happened and move on.

“It’s alright, doesn’t bother me, really,” she replied with a smile.

I looked up at her, a little confused.

“Seriously?” I asked.

“Why would it?”

“Because you don’t like me back,” I said.

I hadn’t expected it not to bother her.

“Of course I do, but I couldn’t tell you that before. Try and imagine if you found out I liked you, but you didn’t like me back. Wouldn’t that be kind of… weird?” she asked.

I smiled.

“I suppose you’re right.”

She hugged me good-bye and then left. I stood there staring out the door not believing what just happened. I was still zoned out and staring out the window when the bell rang for class to end.

Too bad I was just imagining that. You know how much I would give just to be with her.

Later on in the day during 6th hour I talked to Amanda again. I’m not sure why though. Sure she was nice and she claimed she was trying to help me, but honestly, she could kind of be an ass to me sometimes. She’s been that way since I started talking to her the year before and even though she made me cry and completely lied to me before, I still talked to her.

We sat the whole hour on the computers looking up random things and talking about how things were going. She was apparently happy because the guy she liked just admitted that he liked her back. And also that he and his girlfriend just broke up so they could technically start dating. Made me wonder why they weren’t now if he said they could. Whatever though, didn’t really matter to me.

“Are you even paying attention?” Amanda asked from her spot beside me.

“What… yeah. I was just thinking about something.”

She went on talking… and talking, while I went back to thinking about more important things. Like the fact that it was half way through the year and I really needed to get my grades up.

She kept talking the entire hour. I guess she was really happy… must have been nice. She never had to deal with all the crap I had to put up with every day.

When the bell finally rang I got up quickly to make it look like I was in a hurry so she’d shut up.

I waited just inside the doors to the school with Ashleigh until my mom came. Then another strange thing happened.

When we started driving away the music in the car started turning up really loud while my mom was talking. At first she thought it was me and asked why I was doing that while she was talking. I told her I didn’t move and that it was doing it on its own. She looked at me for a second and then turned it down.

“These things always happen when you’re around,” she said, giving me a weird look.

“I’ve noticed.”

Not only did they always happen when I was around, but they always seemed to be music related things too. I just… I couldn’t figure out what was going on.