Maybe Memories

The next day I wasn’t exactly sure what I was expecting when the final bell ended and I had made my way out onto that bus platform. I didn’t really expect Lisa to be here waiting for me right? I mean I had my one moment to make myself feel cool for hanging out with a fourteen year old when I was only nine, right? I honestly wasn’t expecting Lisa to be there, her golden hair swaying in the slight autumn breeze. I didn’t expect her to smile at me as soon as she saw me either, or wave me over to her.

“Hey, Audrey! I didn’t expect you to show up! Ready to go?” She asked excitedly, not even giving me a second to breathe before she was pulling me in the direction of bus sixty-three. Later I would find out that was just her way, if she wanted something she would get it. Simple as that.

“Go where?” I asked skeptically as she pulled me onto a bus--which was my regular bus anyway. She didn’t stop until we were sitting on the very last seat there, and she was still smiling like a maniac. There was a glint of something in her eyes--which were a little glossy.

“To my house! Today I’m going to show you the most mind-blowing thing you will ever hear!” she exclaimed, staring at me expectantly. The way she stared at me was as if she was daring me to defy her.

“But what about my mom?” I mumbled, but it was obvious that I had already given up. For some reason, even though I was so young and up to that point done everything my mom has ever told me to, and was always being the “good girl” I was agreeing to do something I knew my mother wouldn’t approve of. Going off with strangers--and my mother would count Lisa as a stranger--to hell knows where before I even tell her was defiantly something she wouldn’t have approved of. But right there, under Lisa’s animated gaze I didn’t care.

I called my mother and left her a voice message explaining to her that I was at a friends house and I wouldn’t be home until later. My mother--not being the most…caring--wouldn’t really have minded much anyway. Looking back on it, with all I know today, I’m not even sure if she would have cared it I came home or not. When the bus pulled up to Pennsylvania Ave (my street) about eight blocks away from my house--it was a very long road--Lisa grabbed my hand and tugged me out of the bus.

I didn’t say anything, just followed her along until we got to her house. It was a huge house, with at least three stories to it. And it was stunning, just like Lisa. I don’t know why I thought it was okay to just go into her house, and up to her attic bedroom while there were no parents around, but I did. Crazy? Defiantly. But it felt so right that I didn’t even care. See, that was the thing with Lisa, she was a little bit insane but in the most wonderful way. She made everything seem so right, even if it was wrong. And I found myself doing whatever she wanted just because she said it would be fun.

That day once we got up into her room, which was purple with a poster of the same image that was on her shirt yesterday, and of a band called My Chemical Romance, the first thing she did was run over to her very stereo that sat on top of a little white desk. She hit played and changed the songs a few times until the red-glowing number read twelve. The song immediacy started playing and all I heard at first were drums and bass then the guitars kicked in and there was just a simple beat. I was listening to the song, really listening to it. Wondering why Lisa had just skipped to number twelve and hadn’t started the CD from the beginning. I studied the lyrics and really took them in.

You live your whole life staring at a wall, your mind goes blank sooner now you will fall.
You never learned the things you say to know now, but how?
There seems to be a difference, two different types of kids.
The ones who go out and the ones that are taught to live.
One groups taught how and the other group is taught why.
There's no need to tell you what's in my mind, but in the game of life I'm doing fine.
No reason to tell you which way to be.
Cause the streets have opened my eyes to see.
Look what's happening now.
What are the reasons why and how?
And don't you think it sounds stupid when someone's treated
different cause they're not the same as me or you?

And maybe it was just my young mind, but it was like she was telling me that she learned from life what kind of person she could be and she choose one path. And now she was giving me the same opportunity as her, the chance to choose the same path as her. It took me not more than a second to think it over, whatever path she chose I wanted to follow too.

Maybe it was the song lyrics, or the voice its self, the amazing guitars or the thumping drums and bass, but whatever it was I was hooked. I was hooked on Lisa, Avenged Sevenfold, and that lifestyle in general. It was like with that one three minutes song I had changed my life but I didn’t care. Because I knew that even if I didn’t know exactly what I had just done that I would never regret it. And I don’t.

From that day on, everything was the exact same. Lisa and I would ride the bus home together, I’d go over to her house and we’d blast Avenged Sevenfold CD’s while goofing around. We shared everything with each other, she told me everything about her life. How her dad left when she was three, leaving her with her coke-head mom. How her mom had married her coke-head, abusive step father, who took pleasure in raping her and beating her. How her mother didn’t care either way, and how in all honesty how much she loved Avenged. And she meant it. She would do anything for those five guys, give her life or take one.

Anything.

That’s something she taught me. My love for Avenged Sevenfold. That’s something we share. I’m not exactly sure when it happened but over the months we became very best friends, no one could break us apart. It was like together we were lost in our own little world. All we needed was each other and Sounding the Seventh Trumpet, the CD that saved us both.

Oh, if I only knew what track number thirteen on that CD would soon grow to mean to me. If only I knew that I too would be Shattered by Broken Dreams…