A Girl Named Drool & A Pack of Kools|| Book I

Chapter 2: Thunder Meets Lightning

I shove my hand inside my baggy ripped jeans and pull out my pack of Newport's and a lighter. The morning air is crisp with a light layer of fog hazing the air. I blow out smoke after taking a drag from my cigarette, adding to the foggy atmosphere. The sun is hardly up, making the sky resemble a Van Gogh painting being finished right before your eyes.

The walk to school is peaceful as I feel the light chilly breeze dance across my pale rosy cheeks and tangle up in the strands of my long straight hair. I grumble to myself, sucking my teeth agitatedly and kicking a pebble on the sidewalk as I walk. The sleeves of my black and red striped sweater slip over my thin hands keeping them warm.

My beaten-up bookbag, which I got at a thrift store when I was eleven, is slouched over one of my shoulders. It was my first day at a new high school in this town. It took a lot of fighting and screaming at Oscar for me to not go but it was to no avail.

The only thing I got out of that fight was a long lecture of how he didn't want me to end up like him, at a dead-end minimum wage job in the seventh-ward, or worse, our parents. I wanted nothing more than to drop out. I had the opportunity to for years but back then school was the only getaway from that hell hole of a trailer I lived in.

I've got nothing going for me after high school anyway. I was born and raised on welfare up until last month. I can't afford college, I got a small criminal record, and a live fast, die young mentality. The only reason I agreed to go today is that it's been almost a month and I've hardly met anyone or found any adventure outside of N.A meetings and the occasional cigarette run.

The only thrill I've had was meeting that guy named Scrim but he was a lost cause. I hadn't seen him since and had no way of finding or talking to him again. He was a ghost of a memory at this point. Yet, somehow he still managed to linger and slip his way into my mind at random times. I couldn't understand why someone I only spent a few hours with managed to have that kind of addictive effect on me. I felt drawn to him like a moth to light.

As I continue to walk I stumble across a small memorial at the bottom of a random chain-link fence. The bottom of my boots scrapes against the concrete sidewalk as I abruptly stop in my tracks out of sorrow. I look into the seemingly carefree eyes of the picture of a younger boy. His cheeks were round as he smiled wide showing off his adorable dimples. His dark complexion made his light hazel eyes stick out on his cheerful face.

The corner of my mouth twitches into a weak saddened grin looking over the fresh and dead flowers, candles, and handwritten cards surrounding his picture. It always broke my heart to see memorials like these every other day. It never got easier. I wonder about his death and the moments leading up to it. He looked too young for it to be gang affiliated but you never knew around here.

I've seen them as young as ten. It must have been a tragic accident, a wrong place, at the wrong time scenario. I sigh, turning around and crouching down to pick a few dandelions from the grassy spot by the sidewalk. I stand up before turning and bending down to place the dandelions by his photo. I give the boy one last glance before continuing on my walk to school.

I take a hit of my cigarette to numb the achy feeling in my chest. Just as I finish exhaling the last puff of toxic gray smoke I see the modest brick school building up ahead. I let the cigarette bud slip from my cold pale blue fingers onto the concrete. I step on it, twisting the sole of my fake doc martens onto it until I crush out the burning flame.

I take a deep breath, anxiously running my fingers through my long black hair before sauntering inside the building through the school's metal detectors. A blast of cool artificial air hits me as soon as I step through the heavy metal doors making a shiver swirl down my spine.