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The College Years (Chapter 2)
By Vader
THE COLLEGE YEARS
Entry I: The Beginning
Continued from Chapter 1 . . .
CHAPTER 2
After the meeting in our place of worship was over, commotion began as all turned from their seats to begin talking with each other. Some of my greatest friends I had found when first meeting them in this place, and I looked forward to seeing them all again every week.
Heavy breathing, eerie upon first hearing it’s echoing, haunted my ear drums from behind.
I spun around, only to see a person of about 23 years old, black hair, thin, wearing a suit. “Ha ha, what’s up? Like my Vader voice?” the man smirked.
“Wow, that’s really scary, Josh,” I sarcastically remarked with a laugh. “Sounds like you’re looking forward to that midnight premiere. Sucks I haven’t really had time to prepare a costume with all this school stuff going on now.”
“Oh yeah, how’d that test go?” The casual aura of our conversation suddenly seemed to turn heavy with sorrow. I gulped, my eyes drifting elsewhere.
“Good I guess,” I mustered an answer. My thoughts began to float as I looked up to see my long-time companion giving me a worried stare. I wasn’t yet ready to divulge my feelings, and instead resorted to masking them with a simple chuckle.
“So hey, I’ve got a question for you: Do you like Rachel?” That question came out of nowhere. I felt completely put on the spot. I hadn’t let out my true feelings for this girl to anyone else before. Sure, probably many could tell I was infatuated, but she was the only one that understood how deep my feelings ran for her. Besides, I had no idea of why Josh would so quickly ask that blunt of a question.
“Why do you ask that?” I nervously more stated it than poised question.
“Rachel told my wife you liked her.” My heart must have skipped a beat right then.
“Really?”
“Yeah. So is it true?” I was incredibly hesitant to tell the truth, but I realized how honest Josh had always been with me in the past. I mustered up the courage to pour out the truth for the first time while I fidgeted my fingers in my pockets.
“Well . . . I . . . . . . yes.” Josh coolly raised a single eyebrow.
“I see.” Josh smiled and patted my shoulder. “You remind me of when I was your age. Don’t worry – your secret is safe with me.” And just his simple words in saying that felt so down to earth, I knew they were truth. “Want to invite her to the Chili’s with us?”
“Yeah . . . alright,” I clumsily shook my head, taking a deep breath of relief that confession was over.
Josh turned to go and grab some of his other buddies to head out for a night of party, while I turned back towards Rachel, standing there, talking to some of her girl friends. Her long, brown hair glistened, her shapely figure encompassing the scope of vision, her hazel eyes carrying a seemingly endless galaxy of sparkles within, her perfume intoxicating me. I had talked to her so many times before, and felt so comfortable with her each time, yet whenever I started to approached her, I still felt unexplainably and unreasonably nervous.
Perfect timing – her friends had just turned to leave as I came up from behind. As she saw me out of the corner of her eye, she turned her beautiful face to flash one of her mesmerizing smiles, putting her hands behind her back in a cute posture. “Hi!” she greeted. My nervousness vanished so quickly, it was almost funny.
“Hi,” I smiled back. “How are you doing?”
“Pretty good. You?”
“Good, good.” For just a second we stared at each other. Just when it seemed like it was about to turn awkward, she spoke again. Impeccable – she knew I had a hard time with words sometimes.
“Whatcha been up to?”
“Not a lot. I took my test today.”
“How did you do?”
“Fine, I guess. It’s just . . .” my smile began to whimper into a frown. Automatically, Rachel’s began to slowly do the same as she took on a more serious tone.
“I know,” she simply put. I looked back up again, and without warning, my eyes turned glossy with tears as I tried my best to hold anything back. Before one of them could have any chance to drop, Rachel’s delicate hand stretched out to lightly drape her fingers across my cheek. “I know how you must feel. Don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid to move on,” I tried to sound more heroic, but failed miserably.
“We’re all afraid sometimes, whenever we have to take big steps.” There was one more pause. “I’ll miss seeing you at high school every day, though.”
“Me too. I don’t feel ready for this.” Without realizing I had actually done it, I’d told Rachel the truth without even trying. We stood there, just inches away from each other, sharing that one tender moment, when everything outside our sphere seemed to freeze.
“Ready?” the sound of Chris’s voice rang in my ears just behind us. Rachel lowered her hand, causing her smile to return as she rubbed the back of her neck while clearing her throat. “Jack, are you ready to leave?”
“Huh?” I dozily questioned. Then it registered. “Oh yeah, yeah, I am.” I turned back to Rachel and made a small smile. “Want to grab a burger with us?”
“Sure,” she nodded. All my friends turned, heading out the door together in a commotion, all glad that the weekend was here after a long week. As we turned, Rachel patted my back one more time, which by itself was one of the most reassuring things she could have done. That was one of so many reasons I loved her.
* * *
It was the morning of May 17th, 2002. Just like six days before, there had been frequent weather forecasts that it would rain at night, causing me to continually sleep under numerous covers the past few days. Just like before, rain never came. Just like before, I decided to finally abandon my hefty comforters and just sleep with a sheet, going against what the weatherman continued to predict. What do you think happened?
It didn’t rain. I was right. Fooled you.
I had been awake till 3:00 AM in the morning the night before, due to the event of the midnight premiere of the new “Star Wars” movie. My remaining ticket stub was left atop my stereo sound system, which I had set to wake me up every morning by turning on the radio after the ‘unfortunate’ demise of my old alarm clock, (may it rest in peace . . . in my blasted garbage). However, I’d forgotten to change that alarm on my stereo the other night, since I’d wanted to sleep in the next morning. It shouldn’t have been that big of a deal – in the morning, my favorite radio station always played soothing, soft songs. Once 5:00 AM hit that morning, it turned on:
“Good morning and welcome back! This is D.J. Jeff, and today marks the beginning of our Aerosmith marathon, when we’ll be giving away tickets to see them live in concert at the Coors Amphitheater! Get ready to rock!”
The sound of electrical guitar, pulsing drums, and Steven Tyler’s screechy voice pounded out of my speakers as I was awoken with a jolt in bed. “Ugh,” I mumbled, “This is perfect.” I reached out a smacked my remote to turn the system off, but instead pumped up the volume to maximum. “No!” I grumbled as I moved to get out of bed, only managing to gracefully fall with fantastic coordination out onto the floor with a thud.
Lying there, I reached out and shut the system off. I was heralded with both silence and a pile of CD’s tipping over from atop my subwoofer to land squarely on my face. “Jeez . . .” I let out an irritated gasp from in between clenched teeth. Just then, a knock came at the door.
“Jack! Can we come in?” my father’s voice resonated.
“Yeah!” I responded, rubbing my forehead. The door slowly opened as both my parents stepped in. “Sorry about the noise,” I apologized, climbing back to up to get in bed.
“What were you doing on the floor anyway?” my Mom asked.
“Just an accident.” They both shook their heads, afterwards pulling out a letter and dropping it on my stomach. “What’s this?”
“It’s from the school. It must be the results of your test,” my Dad winked with a grin, his arm around his wife’s shoulder. The same emotions I’d felt the day I took it returned in stronger form than ever before. I took a deep breath, ripped the envelope open, and read:
Dear Sir,
We are pleased to inform you that you have passed the California High School Aptitude Test, and have graduated the tenth grade with the equivalent of a high school diploma . . .
(More to come)
12/11/2002 12:21:16 AM
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