Junior year hit me like a slap in the face. The schoolwork was relentless and I was busier than ever. A part of me was actually grateful not to have to worry about rehearsals and tours; I was already pulling my hair out from the stress. Whenever I shouldn’t have had anything to do, I always found something to keep me occupied.
Richie wasn’t much better off than I was, either. His classes weren’t quite as cutthroat as mine were, but he was still swamped with frequent tours. I practically lived at his house, too. My dad and I tried to spend one meal together about every other week, and I slept at home once in a while. Most of the time, though, I was spending my time studying or sleeping at Richie’s, even on the days when he was on tour; sometimes it felt like more of a home than my own house did.
It wasn’t as though I slept much to begin with. I got an average of maybe five hours of sleep a night no matter where I spent the night. I was up and running from the instant I woke up to the moment I hit the bed once again. My classmates were all complaining about how slowly the days were going by, but they were passing by far too quickly in my opinion.
One week flies by and Richie was on tour. Another week and I have two tests. Yet another week goes by, and Richie returns on the same day that a project is due. A few days later and Richie is gone again while I’m studying for a quiz at his house. A couple of homework-filled days later, and he is back; I help him catch up with his schoolwork. Days were blending into weeks, which were blending into months, and then first quarter was gone before we knew it.
The public hatred towards me was finally beginning to wear off for good. The band also underwent many changes at the coming of their freshman year. Nat’s voice was getting deeper and his lyrics more angst-ridden. Their style was switching from pop rock to something heavier and more like alternative rock. Even Alex was maturing like his older band mates. He had managed to skip sixth grade and get into seventh. Next year, he planned on skipping either grade so that he could be in high school with his brother. That boy could be a tiny genius when he wanted to be.
Well, maybe not tiny.
He was shooting up so quickly that he was already as tall as Nat. I wouldn’t be surprised if he reached six feet tall by next year.
Everyone was changing, including me. It was such a shame that I was too busy to take notice of it; Richie and I didn’t seem to notice anything anymore. I wasn’t sure what his motives were, but it seemed that I was taking my need for distractions to new extremes. Even after the hate subsided, I continued to bury myself in work for no true reason, and this was something I would soon regret very deeply.
It was just another one of those days. Richie was going to be gone for a few more days. I was driving from school to his house, praying that the traffic wasn’t going to be too bad. There was this one traffic light that had been having a lot of problems this past week and giving people a lot of trouble. It started when we realized that the light on both sides of the intersection had been red for almost half an hour. As I got closer though, I let out a sigh of relief.
It was green.
I was about to thank my lucky stars, but then I saw that the light on the other side of the intersection was green, too. Just as my mind registered what a dangerous situation I was in, an SUV came crashing into the side of my car.
