A/N- This is a dual poster. I'm posting this story on Myspace and on FP at the same time. I kinda figured, hey, why not write a nice little story for Valentine's day. Anybody who is a fan of the Drifter should stick around because this story is very reminicent of it. It is very much a romance, and an action story. This is also my first epic story I have ever written in first person, so it'll be something fresh for most of you. Enjoy!

Krist

There I was again. I was inside my own little dream with her right beside me as always. Who? Oh, I just call her by what she is, “her.” I’m not quite sure if that’s exactly what her name was, but something always told me that it was somebody I knew. In life I can say it was the girl I love, but in my dream it wasn’t her. We usually found ourselves somewhere new every single time I went to bed. Today we were out in the country, it was right near this river on a moonless night, but the clouds were gone so we could both gaze up at the night time sky. The stars were out tonight. Since we were out in the country I could pretty much say that you will see more of the stars in the sky. But besides having a hard time seeing her, the stars reflected on the black river in front of us and she was pretty much captivated by it.

“.thginot thgis lufituaeb a s’tI” She said, but in gibberish.

“I know.” I replied. I mean I knew I could understand her, but my ears lied to me. Why does somebody as beautiful as her have to talk in gibberish? It kinda drove me nuts. Then again I can’t really understand women much, so I guess it makes sense in some crazy fucking way… I didn’t get to kiss her or even throw my arm around her like normal, I woke up too fast. As soon as my eyes opened to that blazing morning sun I had to turn my heads and wake up. It was only 6:30, and school wasn’t for another hour. I had only three days left. This was my last full day, but I had to last two weekends, and then go through two boring as hell exam days… but I’ll manage! Today was a big day. Me and my girl, we’ll I hadn’t quite asked her out yet--I’m working on it, we’re planning on going out to the trail and smoke. Hell, it was my last full day so I had to do something exciting with her. After slinging my legs out of bed I decided to not practice on my bass this morning. I had to prepare to ask her out because I knew that if I didn’t get her today I’d never have her.

What’s rushing me? Well my brother wanted me to move in with him, so me being a fifth year senior and getting to move out this early would make me the youngest to move away. I know I’m gonna have to cut a few friends off, but fuck it, I’ll make more. Am I being selfish? Well probably, but my brother always told me that sometimes it’s best to just make decisions for yourself first. In this town I have nothing but a few friends, my bass guitar, and an amazing girl. I really wanted to stay, but I guess when you have what you want, you don’t want it anymore. I really wanna go, but I have to make 100 sure me and this girl are together. I gotta be with her. I can’t tell my brother I decided to walk out on him just because I’d rather date some chick and score. You know it didn’t really bother me if I didn’t get some, I just liked her so much I wanted to be there. I was living a dream right now. It was a dream so good that if I just suddenly woke up from it I’d be so fucking pissed because then it wouldn’t be real. That would be such a depressing thought and if this was a dream, you’d probably see me on the news as a man who went over the edge and killed a few people.

I’d spent a few minutes in bed just trying to wake up before getting up to go smoke my morning cig. Both of my legs sort of felt numb from how I had slept last night. Walking across the carpet floor to grab my newly opened pack of Marlboros seemed a little bit awkward. I wasn’t used to this. So anyways, my clothes were already set up, so I decided then to just take a shower first and let it warm up outside before I go smoke. I needed to save some for the walk out on the trail later. Um, well nobody wants the icky details, but I take 20 minutes in the shower every morning. No, I don’t jerk it or nothing, I just take a while. Nobody wants to hear about that. Well, maybe some of the gays and the lasses might, but you lucked out… pervs.

After drying off mostly, my hair usually stayed a little soaked because I hadn’t cut it in a while. Unless I was wearing my headband or if I had brushed my hair, I was legally blind. My hair always swayed in front of my eyes, which kind of gave me a little bit of a hippie look. I normally brushed it so I could see through one eye, but it looked very emo, and I fucking hate emos. Honestly, who enjoys being that depressed? And half the time they act all jumpy and hug each other like they’re all part of Alcoholics Anonymous. I think they’re retarded, so that might explain the hugging. As for the bad poetry, the stupid look, and the pussy attitudes, I’ll just say they’re fags. Whoa, I trailed off. Sometimes I just walked around the house without even putting in thought or even questioning what I’m doing. Right now I had found myself outside still partially asleep with my coat on, the cold winter air brushing against my face, and even the shakes from where my cold feet touched the porch. I didn’t where shoes when I smoked, I just wore my cot because I hated having to wear socks and shoes hours before school started.

Take this from me, if you have to sit in a hot house a few hours before school, don’t wear socks. Don’t even put your shoes on, just be a hippie or your feet are gonna be the funkiest thing in the world by the time you take them off. I gazed at the dead ground around me. It was too cold to snow, we needed to get a heat wave first, and those are hard to come by. I heard it was snowing in Texas, but when it comes to snowing here, mother nature says, “Tough shit, I don’t wanna put out today.” That kinda drags onto my theory that father nature isn’t around because Mother Nature doesn’t wanna do what he wants. SO anyways, by that he became an alcoholic and she put a restraining order on him. Maybe Father Nature is in space or on some other world just having a ball with life. He must be happy because nobody ever talks about him. If philosophize about this it’s an indication that maybe you smoked way too much reefer. I put my cigarette out in the ash tray a bit early because months earlier I had quit smoking and I’m trying to ween myself off.

Let’s jump ahead, my life is boring. You have to meet my friends. An hour later I was in art class without most of my friends who all looked up to me. I didn’t like my fellow senior group nor the junior group. I don’t quite know the sophomore group, but for the record their a bunch of tenth grade fuck offs like I was when I was in that grade. When I was in the tenth grade I was such a druggy that I ended up failing all my classes and having to repeat that year (hence why I’m a fifth year senior). I wasted high school. At the moment it was five minutes before class started, so I was alone with only some of the goodie two shoes of freshman. When I was in the ninth grade I was hated, but I wondered why. I love freshman. When you put the fear into them (and I didn’t do that, they were just afraid of big guys like me) they’ll either not talk to you or try to be you. I had two students with me that were just total assholes, but I always had to straighten them out sometimes. Everybody else liked me, and lots of the girls thought I was cute. But I didn’t care about them, I wanted my girl, and there she was. She walked in with her naturally dirty blonde hair, her smooth curves, and that cute skirt she just loved to wear. When she saw me and gave that cute wave, I smiled, waved back, and tried my best not to blush.

“Hey Krist,” Jordyn said to me as she sat down by my table, “how are you?”

“Good, you?” I replied.

“Same.” She was the doped out hippie friend of my girl. I remember having a crush on her at one point in time, but she’s only 16 and my girl is 14... And I’m 18. Yes, I have a crush on an underage girl, but I promised myself I wouldn’t do anything that could get my ass sent off until she was old enough to be considered a responsible adult. Wait, what the fuck am I talking about? I’m about to take her smoking. Jordyn started to draw as soon as she got to her seat, but that’s when she came. My girl’s name is Amie, she’s an angel. I couldn’t see myself in the future without her. Just before people call me a ladies man, I hate a lot of people. I’m not sexist or nothing, to me we’re all equally worthless. I just don’t like dating because lots of girls I know are either perfectionists, assholes (I don’t like using the slang terms), or they just don’t like me. Finding Amie was like striking oil except without the messy oil part. She sat next to me, and this was rather uncommon for me.

“Hey Krist.” Amie said with her sweet, quiet voice.

“Hey.” I said with a much faster voice. If I couldn’t even have a convo with her, how am I supposed to ask her out on the trail later? Fuck it, I’ll work with it.

“Whatcha’ doin?”

“Nothing at the moment, I don’t really have anything left to do in here. Today’s the Christmas party, so I’m thinking of fuckin’ around and playing with my dick.” Bad line! NO! Amie held her mouth and snickered while I blushed and just broke out laughing. To even acknowledge that she liked me, I always wondered what she saw in me. I had just a little bit of a gut coming on, and I didn’t even shave often. Maybe it’s my hair, chicks dig my hair.

“Are you still planning on going to the trail?” Amie asked.

“Why yes I am. I brought a pack,” I quickly lifted the top of my pack out of my coat pocket, “of Marlboros. I hope you like menthols.”

“I love menthols.”

Oh thank God! “I like ‘em too. I can’t stand full flavors. They taste so gross whenever you smoke them, especially for breakfast.” I said too much, she’s probably thinking I’m a chatty one… NO!

“I don’t really like them, I just smoke them because my mom normally buys them.”

“See, I’m like that too! I used to only get a hold of them from friends mainly because it was that or doing dip. And I never wanna try dip.” I just lied… I used to only pinch dip as a young teen.

“You two have so much in common it’s amazing.” Jordyn said with a blank tone.

“Thank you.” Amie and I said before smirking. We really were a lot alike. I think that’s why she likes me so much. Maybe it’s the fact I play bass!

“Ok kids!” the art teacher spoke out quickly. I was immediately silenced, but I quickly looked at Amie just to see what she was doing. She placed her hand on my left arm and rubbed it slowly.

“You’re so soft.” She whispered. I laughed.

“We have no work today, but if you still have some overdue, you can take this time to make it up.” the teacher said before taking a seat.

“I’m not gonna even bother.” I said back.

“You’re kinda lazy anyways, so why bother?” Jordyn asked again.

“Ouch, that hurt.” I replied with a laugh. Amie didn’t laugh, I think she failed to see the humor in it.

“Have you ever been out on the trail?” Amie asked quickly.

“Plenty of times.” I replied. Another lie, I used to always walk across the street before school and just smoke my lungs out before going in buzzing from all the nicotine.

“That’s good. I just don’t wanna get busted.”

“Me niether. Me niether…” I nodded. Class just went on with us throwing back and forth random bullshit questions because we were both too damn nervous around each other. She never liked to talk much with me. No, she didn’t hate me, she just was too nervous to talk to me. Whenever she called my house, I’d spend a good two or three hours telling stories and she listened. I could never get her to talk. First period and many failed opportunities to ask her out just went by. I remember it was near the end of class, and she had sat on the opposite end of the table from me so she could play around with Jordyn. I knew well the two were bi, I was too sure of that, but it didn’t bother me.

“So what are you doing when you graduate?” Jordyn asked.

“I dunno. My brother asked me to come live with him next week.” I said boldly. I kind of wish I didn’t, because when I said that, Amie sort of turned pale and then looked a little somber.

“Well are you gonna go?” She asked with her quiet tone.

“I really don’t know. I may, or I may not. It all depends I guess.” I replied with a somewhat depressed tone. Her eyes twitched and she just sat with a cold blank stare as she tried to finish drawing. I think I said something bad, but at the moment I didn’t really know. Was she sad? We’re not together, so would she be sad if I left? I couldn’t really decide. The bell was about to ring, so I grabbed all of my folders and blurted out, “I’m gonna go put up my shit and smoke a joint…”

Amie kind of giggled, but she still seemed a little sad. As I walked out of my seat and past the table of girls that all probably had a crush on me, I looked back and saw Amie turn to Jordyn to talk. In less than 20 second, I had my stuff put up, and then I saw Amie and Jordyn walking around on the opposite end of the storage room. Jordyn was saying some quick stuff to Amie that I couldn’t hear, but the two kept looking at me, so I ignored them before heading back to my seat. There was another two minutes left before the bell rang, so for a minute and a half I just sat blankly trying to look occupied while Amie and Jordyn were in the storage room behind me talking. They came around to my desk and just stood up while talking about random shit while I stood up and clenched my pile of books in my right arm. The bell rang, and Amie turned to me with a blank face asking for her normal hug. Clenched my left arm around her and held her close while she hugged me a bit more gently. She felt so warm, and she was so little that it felt weird.

“You’re just so cuddly. I love you.” she whispered to me. This was it, so I decided to speak out now.

“I love you too.” I said quickly with a quiet tone.

“What?” She asked while looking up at me with a somewhat surprised face.

“I love you too,” I kind of shook her and looked at her with my blank stare, “I do.”

“Amie!” the art teacher spoke out, killing the moment. We both separated and stared at each other. She blushed and just walked off while I sort of followed her. After we got to the art teacher’s desk, she looked at me and said, “I just need to talk to Amie.”

“Oh, ok. I’ll see you at lunch.” I said to Amie. She smiled and waved bye before blushing. I think I did it. I felt so good I needed a cigarette, but I had to wait. Instead of waiting for Amie like I should’ve, I decided to kinda keep my distance and hurry to my second period class. You have no idea how obsessed I am over Amie! I couldn’t remember second period because at the moment I was so euphoric from this natural high that I couldn’t even take a second to not think about her. Time passed by of course, so by the time third period came around, I rushed out of that classroom and off through the hall way so I could hopefully run into her. Well I was lucky that she had sort of rushed to meet up with her two other friends and Jordyn instead of taking a few minutes to talk to my good old pal John. The second I walked up to them, they all went silent and not a single person talked to me, not even Amie. Something told me that they were disturbed by the thought of me being there, but I didn’t really care. Most of Aime’s friends hated me anyways.

“Hey, you still wanna go to the trail?” I asked.

“Oh yeah, of course I do!” Aime replied.

“Well as soon as the bell rings, I want you to meet me in the lobby, we’ll walk to the trail from there.”

“Ok.” Aime said with her smirk before walking off with most of her friends. John’s other friend Justin, whom Aime was just talking to, just stood there and looked at me with a somewhat disappointed look.

“What?” I asked.

“It’s John.” Justin said to me.

“What about him?”

“Man, I really don’t think you should stay in this town.”

“Why?”

“It’s about Aime. She likes you, but what you’ve just done was bad.”

“What the fuck are you saying?” I asked with a pissed off tone.

He then turned away and walked off as if the whole world was about to come to an end. Fuck that ass… I ignored this and just walked towards my third period class. I was exempt from the exam of this class, so this was the last time I’d ever have to walk down these fucking halls ever again. Once I sat down inside that classroom, it was only ten minutes later that I’d have to leave again. All of the students around me respected me because I was the oldest of them, and they all thought me and Aime were together. With her looks I guess they’d have to respect me because I’m probably the last dude they all thought she’d wind up with. I’d met up with Aime and walked her off to the trail. We were both just talking about random shit while going out there. I don’t think she quite got the message when I told her I loved her, but she didn’t once mention it. I guess to her this morning didn’t happen. Damn it, I don’t get it! It’s like as soon as I walked into second period and left her alone for that whole hour everything just went to shit and I ended up meeting a newer Aime.

“Well anyways, I hope we don’t get caught. This is the first time I’ve smoked with you, so why not?” I asked with a little smirk. After handing her a cigarette and seeing her light it, I suddenly lost all of that emotion. Right now I wasn’t really obsessed with her. I had her, so now I actually felt like leaving. But if I left I guess I’d be insane… fuck it! I lit up my cigarette and didn’t really talk. I just tried to hotbox the fucker.

“I like how you smoke. It’s cool.” Aime said.

“Thank you.” I said before laughing. “If the anti-smokers heard you say that, they would shit themselves. Smoking so makes us look cool.”

Aime nodded. She took a drag of her cigarette and looked at me with a confused look as I stared at her. I turned my head and I guess from here she knew something was wrong.

“What’s the matter? You seem different.” Aime said quickly.

“Uh, I’ve kind of been meaning to say this for a while.” I said back as I tried to come to saying it. I was ready. This was it! But like every build up in my life, it always went to shit. Before I could say those words, I could see the J-ROTC cadets coming onto the trail to run the PFT. It was like the exams, except it was for checking how fit you were. I remember being in that class and taking that test (which I failed miserably at of course). “Fuck, it’s them! Let’s get out of here!”

We both kept puffing our cigs and walking out towards the woods and down into the creek where they couldn’t see us. I hot boxed the rest of that cigs and slung it into the water before telling Aime to put hers out. She stubbed it on a rock and from here I didn’t see what happened. I leaned up against the side of the creek and watched the cadets run past before trying to relax.

“It’s funny when you hide.” Aime said quickly with a smirk.

“Shhhh!” I snapped back with an angry look. She kind of frowned, but I then settled down and looked back up towards the trail. “I think this is our sign to get the fuck out of here.”

We both got up and walked back onto the trail to check if the coast was clear or not. It was thankfully, but Aime walked towards me and asked for my lighter. I instinctively handed it to her and saw her pull out that cigarette butt before lighting it.

“Do you wanna cut it?” she asked.

“Sure, but let’s hotbox it. I don’t wanna test fate again.” I replied. WE both passed it back and forth, but she tried to relax and smoke it while I just hot boxed it. Maybe it would’ve been a gentleman’s thing to let her smoke it all, but I guess I’m not so gentle. As I took the filter hit on it and stomped it, I exhaled a huge cloud of smoke before turning to see the J-ROTC instructor step out onto the trail. “Oh shit.”

“What are we gonna do?” Aime asked.

“Just play it cool, we’ll face him.” I replied. We walked down the trail towards the instructor who was just looking at me. “Well, I’m sorry for getting us busted.”

“No, it’s ok. I hate school. I wanna drop out.”

“You don’t wanna drop out, that’s a bad idea. If he asks what we were doing, don’t say anything. I came out here to smoke and I forced you to come. I wont mind spending another six months in this hell hole.”

“You could do that or we can say we were making out.”

“Yeah,” I laughed, “that too.”

We went to face him. The instructor hated me from the start, but he did respect the fact I’d never been busted, so I had one clean record with this school.

“Hello there. Well,” the instructor said before stepping up to my face, “what are you doing out here?”

“I don’t know sir. It was my last day here, I just had to think of something fun to do.” I replied.

“How old are you son?”

“I’m 18.”

“Well tell me what you plan to do when you get out of high school?”

“Well I wanted to become a bassist,” I said before looking off in the distance, “but first I’m gonna probably move in with my brother.”

“No!” Aime spoke out with a quiet, yet sympathetic tone.

“A bassist you say? Tell me, when did you start?” the instructor asked.

“It was about a year ago. I’m getting good! I’m really wanting to become famous some day!” I replied.

“Well I entered the Marines and I make lots of money, you could try that.”

“I always had an interest for joining the armed services. You get to see the world, get lots of women, and blow shit up of course!”

“You know, you’re a good person really. I know you’re an adult, I hope you make good choices,” he turned to Aime, “now I know you’re not 18, so you shouldn’t be out here. Now I’m not gonna turn you two in, you just get back to class and never let me catch you out here again.”

“Thank you sir, you’ll never see me out here ever again! In fact, I think the next time you’ll see me is on TV when I hit it big with my band.”

“Ok now, Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.” I said back. Aime and I hurried back towards the building and she held onto my hand. I kind of felt nervous and we got back inside the building where she separated from me and we just walked. At this point she was starting to act a little cautious about something. Whatever it was, I wasn’t sure. So I laughed about what just happened and added, “That was pretty fun…”

“Fun?” Aime asked.

“Yeah, you know in like a fucking horrible not at all fun kind of way.”

We both continued on through the school before I met up with my friend John who was just stepping out of the bathroom. Aime ignored him and tried to get me to follow her while ignoring him. But after that mess we got out of, I decided to turn around and talk to John.

“Hey man!” I exclaimed.

“Hey, what are you two doing?” John asked with a somewhat shocked, but overall calm voice.

“We just got busted smoking out by the trail.”

“Oh, that sucks. I got busted smoking a doob once out there.”

“Well hey, the bell is almost about to ring, I haven’t hung out with you two at the same time, let’s go walk somewhere.”

Aime seemed pale, but she walked with us up the hall. I tried to stay with her while John kind of went ahead. He seemed a little disappointed, but Aime, damn! I didn’t know what was up. She lifted both of her arms, closed her eyes, and then just walked ahead with her head down while kind of stumbling left and right. It almost seemed like she had been overcome by something. I ignored it and just walked ahead before she caught up and tried to catch up with John. Instead of lagging behind I tried to keep up. All three of us made it to the lobby where Aime ran into one of her girlfriends while John stood still. He kept giving me weird looks, but I didn’t pay any attention to what they were talking about. Aime stood close to him and almost ignored the fact I was there with her. Once I saw John throw his arm up around her, I felt like knocking him out, but Aime always seemed a little more than friendly with her friends so I didn’t suspect nothing. She looked at me with a frown before I heard her friend speak out.

“So how long have you two been going out?” she asked. I laughed and hoped to hear Aime say no, but that’s where it happened.

“Oh a few weeks,” John said before Aime put her arm around him and held her head close, “I don’t know, I was too high to remember.”

I was pissed. My own friend had betrayed me. I told him I had a crush on Aime, and here he is with his arm around her. If I was just a little more violent than I normally was, I would’ve punched him, then shove him to the ground where I’d kick him a few times, and when Aime would try to defend him I’d slug her right across the face. I wanted them both dead. That smile she gave me pissed me off so damn much that right now I was anxious to run home and call my brother.

“Has the bell rung yet?” I asked.

“Yeah, it did a few minutes ago, didn’t you hear?” Aime replied with a louder than normal tone.

“Oh. Well fuck, I’m gonna get out of here.”

“Bye.” She waved with her little twinkle fingers like always, and that pissed me off. I just gave a peace sign, turned around, and then walked off laughing. I hate myself. I hate her. I hate John. I wanted to die.