Love Bites; Bullets

When I First Met Ryan

The first day of Senior year, and I couldn't be more excited. Excited to put myself out there this time around, and possibly even get enough confidence to join the musical this year. Last year I backed out last minute and disappointed a lot of the theatre kids, but this time I decided to make a commitment to them and I won't let them down now.

Been pretty anxious to see all two of my friends, yes, all two of them. And I only really hang out with two people, because they are the only ones who seems to actually understand me and put up with me and all my crazy obsessions. It didn't seem to care how long I went on with the topic of discussion, or even what topic it was, they listened and nodded.

My mother on the other hand loves me, but doesn't understand the things I love and what they really mean to me. Sometimes I think she could care less, and maybe she really doesn't and that hurts a lot. I will always love both my parents, because despite their difficult marriage and threats against each other; they are still together.

I often think about love, and what in the hell does it even mean? Teens our age only see lust, yet they don't even know what that means. Prom is a good example for this. A boy finds a certain girl attractive, then he makes a cheesy promposal, and boom they are losing each others virginity at the end of the night. So, what does it mean? Is that what all boys are searching for? Or do they eventually grow up and find a woman to fall in love with.

Regardless on the topics of love and lust, I was still getting ready for School before I run out of my bedroom door to greet my mother in the kitchen still cooking breakfast but now for herself.
"Your pancakes have gotten cold." She has her back turned to me.
"Sorry, I had a hard time finding my clean clothes." I explain while scooting up a chair.
"Maybe if you looked after your laundry more often, we wouldn't have this problem huh?" She said sarcastically while grabbing her plate.
She then makes her way to the living room and begins eating on the couch rather than at the dining table with me.
"Where's Dad?" I ask when I pick up my fork and dig into my breakfast.
"At work." She says with a mouthful of food.
I don't even bother to carry on a conversation, I just quickly finish my pancakes and run out the door and I barely missed my bus at the end of the road.

As I approach the inside of my High school, everything felt almost the same as if no time has gone by since summer vacation. Although, I did notice plenty of new faces. I walk around until I get into the hallway where my new locker was, before soon bumping into one of my two best friends.
"Ivy!" I shout as I jump into her arms making her laugh and hugs me back, she eventually puts me down and we talk.
"How was your summer?" Ivy asks.
"Boring.. Well, I guess it wasn't that bad." I say.
"How was summer camp?" I continue to ask.
"Awesome! I even got a boyfriend.." She lowers her head slowly while blushing.
"You're kidding me!" I say in excitement.
"I'm not! I met him over at the boys cabin late into the night." She adds to the conversation.
"Wow, you are so willing to take risks." I smile and giggle.
"I know, we weren't supposed to be over at the boys cabin but I couldn't help myself!" We laugh and talk for a few minutes, before we see Lindsay notice us and run up to us, now we all hug and enjoy each others company for a while.
Our conversation consisted of summer, boys, hobbies, etc. Everything that girlfriends like sharing. I really needed this, considering how Ivy was away at camp all summer, and Lindsay was on the other side of the state.

We talked and talked and looked through our schedules before quickly realizing that we weren't in any of each other's classes for the whole year. We were bummed out, but realized that now it's not summer, we still have plenty of time during and after school to get together.

Bell rings, all three of us girls separate into our own classes. Ivy goes off to Chemistry, Lindsay is in Visual Arts, and I go to Music class. I love Music, it's my thing. It might not be my first talent, but I certainly have a huge love and appreciation for it because I also really love to sing.

When I walk in the room, I am greeted by my other fellow theatre kids from last year. They come up to me in their enthusiastic ways of greeting people, when I turned around to hear the door open and I see a brown haired boy walk in with his head down. But something about this boy caught my attention, and I found myself looking over the shoulder of a theatre girl while she talked straight to my face. Until eventually, she noticed I wasn't paying attention.
"Who is that?" I whisper.
She looks behind me to see who I was talking about.
"Him!?" She says loudly while pointing.
"Shh! Yes.." I shush her and she nods.
"That's Ryan." She whispers back after getting my hint.
I don't know what it was about this guy that got me attracted to him, I mean, I could barely even see his face. His hair was just long enough that you couldn't see it with his head down, and he wore all dark baggy clothes. Most of all of the elements that made him stick out, is that he was the only one in the classroom that was not talking.
"I've never seen him here before.." I continue glancing over upon my no control.
"He seems to come and go, very mysterious if you ask me." She says and then walks away to talk to someone else, leaving me hanging, I began to think about what she said very carefully. And then, something inside me was compelled to go up to him and talk to him as he was sitting on the opposite side of the room of everyone else.
Before I could do anything, the teacher comes in the room and starts the class.
As the class goes on, we are made to do our first project with paired partners.
"Ryan.. Ryan!" The teacher shouts to get his attention as he seems to be drawing or writing.
"What." He quietly replies.
"You will be paired with Casey for this project okay?" She asks, and he doesn't respond.
This was my chance to finally talk to him, especially now that everyone had commenced to their own groups of two or three.
As I walk up, he doesn't even look up, until I swallow my breath and speak up. I had absolutely no idea why I was so damn nervous about.
"Hi!" I try to say in a cheesy welcoming manner.
And he finally looks up and runs his hand through a small part of his hair.
"Hi.." He looked just as anxious as I was.
"Can I pull up a chair?" I ask, he nods slowly.
"My names Casey, but some people call me Case too." I say out of nervous energy.
"Case?" He says sarcastically.
"Yeah." I fake a smile.
So I decided to sit in front of him, and he paces quickly to put his notebook in his bag that didn't even look like a school bag.
"What's that?" I ask, he doesn't answer again. And fixes his hair this time while trying but also struggling to look at me.
"I'll start." I grab a sheet of paper and my good pen and begin to write out our names and copying some of the info from our project onto it.
"Do you like projects? I hate them.." He says with some anger, and I stop writing immediately to look up at him with some anxiety now turning into the feelings of being threatened.
I couldn't describe how it felt to be around Ryan, he gave off an eerie and calming vibe. Yet at the same time, I felt driven with a passion in my soul to know more about him and be more around him. Because, there seemed to be more lying beneath the surface..