1992

chapter thirteen

graham

i had always been one of those people who prone to fall in love very easily.

drawing was probably the first thing i had fallen in love with when i was ten. drawing has always been such a huge interest for me and i always looked forward to draw everything that crossed my path.
my parents knew how much i loved to draw and so when march had rolled around, they gave me my first sketchbook as a birthday present.
i would spend most of my time drawing sketches, getting rid of some of them when i didn't like how they would turn out.
i would draw these beautiful landscapes i always liked to imagine in my head and i would always show them to my parents and the cycle would repeat itself.

when i was twelve, i fell in love with music.
i remember sneaking through the garage and finding this old collection of vinyls of some of my favorite bands my dad owned when he was younger.
he had worked in a record store and he would sometimes buy vinyls with his own money.
i opted to give a listen to "setting sons" by the jam.

i fell in love straight away.

i gave a listen to the rest of these vinyls. they were artists such as the smiths, the who, depeche mode, etc.
the emphasis on the melodies, the tougher sound, the sound of the guitars, everything- was enough to make me want to start to play guitar, and so when my thirteen birthday rolled around, my dad gave me my first guitar.
i immediately opted to learn some of those songs of that first album i listened to by the jam such as "thick as thieves" and "little boy soldiers".

when i was fifteen, i fell in love with a boy.
i didn't know his name, i only knew he was in the same grade as me and he was- he was such a gorgeous boy, the type of gorgeous that everytime you looked at him, would make you feel butterflies in the stomach, no matter how sappy it sounds.

when you're in love, you begin to think your beloved one is unique.

elijah.

when we began going out, i couldn't count how many times i had told him that he was too good to me, my face blank almost when i'd tell him and how it baffled me.

'probably not too good on the inside, though.'  he had told me and laughed.

it wasn't until i got to know him better with the time and realize he was actually being serious with his statement.

we would always meet home to walk to school together every single day of the week and we would always get early.

however, that didn't last long.

he began to show up ten minutes until 7am and we would always run late for school and one time, i got late to school due to elijah not showing up at all when it had been 7am already.

'why didn't you wait for me?!' he raised his voice.
'because you were late and i assumed that you had probably fallen asleep.' i said, quietly.
'so? you know you still have to wait for me.'
'but we can't be late for class-'
'don't talk back to me, graham. just do what i tell you, no more walking to school by yourself okay? you'll wait for me, i don't care if we're late. i don't want anything bad to happen to you.' he cut me off and held my hand.

i just nodded and didn't say anything.

i was getting late to class everyday now.
instead of meeting each other twenty five minutes before school, we were now meeting at 7am, when it was time class, or even fifteen minutes later than that.
i started to think he was doing this on purpose and was taking advantage of me.

how could someone like me think so poorly of him? he loved me and just wanted the best for us, right?  i thought to myself.

the teachers would always complain about me getting late to their classes, to the point where they had to call my parents several times saying i was sometimes half an hour late and that i even had missed a class, when that hadn't happened before.