Moonbow | Tyrus

Three

TJ's POV

"Hey, I can take a course on mysticism and the occult," Amber says in excitement.

My sister lies on her stomach with her laptop in front of her as she searches through all the possible courses she could take at the University of Shadyside, more commonly referred to as U of S, next year. While she occupies my bed, I'm sitting in the bean bag chair on my floor, tossing a miniature basketball between my hands. She often does this where she waltzes on into my room and decides to take it over, making me listen to whatever is on her mind at the moment, even though I rarely ever provide any useful feedback. 

"Amber, aren't you an English major?" I respond. 

"Yeah, but I could take it as an elective," she reasons. She continues scrolling down the website and says a second later, "I could take intro to logistics and supply-chain management."

"What even is that?"

"No idea." She furrows her brows as she reads a little more into depth. "Never mind. It involves math. What about existentialism? Maybe I could take all three."

"How many electives are you planning to take this year?" I question.

"More than last year," she replies, "which was none, because it was my first year, and I didn't understand how electives worked. Hey, maybe when you come to U of S next year, we can take an elective together. It'll be better doing group projects with someone who can't skip group meetings, because I know where you live."

"I'm not even sure if I'm going to university next year," I stop her. 

I'm not sure at all what I want to do. The idea that me, a 16 year-old kid, is supposed to make a decision about his whole life before February when the application deadlines for universities start rolling in is shocking to me. I could hardly decide what to eat for breakfast this morning. I ended up mixing Cheerios with Shreddies in one bowl. That kind of indecisiveness won't work for a career, but I have no idea what I want to do in the future. 

"Well, that's okay," Amber says. "The next year we can."

I let her assume that, even though I don't know if I'll know what I want by then either. A lot has changed in my life in just the past month, and what I once thought I'd be doing now is not at all the reality. What if I do make plans and then things change again? Will I be stuck living with a choice I regret? 

My phone busses on the carpet beside me, and I pick it up, seeing the main cause of all the recent change in my life flashing on my phone in the form of a text. 

Reed: Hey, man. Lester and I are taking our dirt bikes out once I'm finished at the food bank. You gonna come?

Almost four weeks ago, Reed did something really stupid. I mean, he always did stupid things before that too, like skipping class, getting high after school, and riding his bike on property he shouldn't have been on, and I wasn't exactly innocent of those things either. Reed, Lester and I were thick as thieves—sometimes literally, depending on the day. But then Reed took his dad's gun once to shoot watermelons with, and he was caught. Now he's serving 180 hours of community service. 

I was no hero in all of this. I wasn't the one who came forward, but after that, I haven't been able to just hang out with my friends like nothing happened. I guess the reality of the fact that life isn't just a game where I can mess up and simply retry became very apparent. Life is a game without a back button or a set of instructions, and I'm still here trying to figure out what the objective is. I used to think Reed and Lester would be able to help me with that, or maybe I just thought it was better to be around other confused people, but either way, I don't think the way I used to anymore. I've tried getting Reed and Lester to see my perspective, but they just don't.