Beneath the Lights

Break

Curiousity can be considered one of the strangest things. It can be defined as many things. However, in my book, curiousity's defintion is lying awake at night pondering the many things that go unexplained. Curiousity is exploring things that contain more than meets the eye.

Weeks had gone by and I laid awake every single night, my mind racing as too what was the deal with this Calum guy. I knew absolutely nothing about him except the fact that he had his fair share of problems. Even so, I had no idea what his problems consisted of. Maybe it was family, maybe it was an ex-girlfriend, or a current one.

Either way it bothered me because in reality I didn't want to stay awake thinking about who he was and what his story was. I would much rather get some sleep to attend an early class the next day to only daydream anyway and not listen to a single thing about political affairs and people critique art from the 19th century.

No matter what, I needed to get this kid out of my head because thinking about him scared me. The fact that I couldn't stop wondering about him scared me. He didn't matter to me, so why was he so intriging? What made him so interesting? Why was he such a mere distraction? I didn''t know, and I most certainly did not want to find out.

The end of the day bell echoed loudly through my ears, pulling me from my thoughts as Mr. Welsh closed his Calculus manual and disconnected his laptop from the projector. Kids around me gathered their things and shuffled out the door, eager to pow wow around their lockers and talk about the big parties and ruthless existences they are leading themselves up too. Me, I just gather my things, more quietly and slowly than the rest and drag my feet below me. I was never in a rush to get home, if it wasn't already blantantly obvious as to why.

I wave goodbye to the few good friends I have. Fortunately, I found out who my true friends were early in highschool, I was blessed to get most of the bullshit out of the way early and to not have people stabbing me in the back later. Every day I walked home from school. I didn't have a car and there was no way in hell that I would ever step foot on the bus. Seventh graders blasting Cobra Starship through their neon pink beats and hysterically laughing through heavy eyeliner was not my cup of tea. I would rather walk, it gives me time to think and look around.

The walk only takes about fifteen minutes and it's only that long because it takes so long for the lights to change to halt the heavy traffic. I always recieve a wave of relief when I see both my mom's and my stepdad's cars are not present in the driveway. Our house was really seventies, but I didn't really mind it. I spent most of my time in my room anyway. I dragged my feet up the brick steps, reaching down to get the mail before unlocking the door and stepping inside. I was surprised when I stepped inside and was immediately overcome with the obvious smell of cheap weed. Faint muffled music could be heard coming from the basement.

My brother is a freshman in college and he was currently home for break. Of course, he invited some of the friends he made at school to come stay with us for a few days. His school was only thirty minutes away so I had no idea why he came home as often as he did. Jonah and I used to be close but when he started college things sort of changed. I guess it was the independence, the freedom, the parties. He didn't have time to deal with his little embarrassing sister, he barely noticed that I wasn't so little and wasn't so embarrassing anymore.