I Can't Be Without You

Monday's...I hated Monday's. I hated them for a number of reasons. One, I had to get up and go to school. Two, I'm not a 'Monday morning' kind of person. And three, as Marque so pleasantly pointed out to me one day, 'Monday's were invented to suck the life out of teenagers. And not the good kind of sucking either! The BAD kind!'. That was a visual that was stuck in my head the rest of the day.
Mornings and Mondays are my least favourite things in the world.

"Jaws, are you done yet?" Airin pounded at the bathroom door. I spit the toothpaste residue out of my mouth.

"No. Can't you go use the other bathroom?" I said.

"MY DEODERANT IS IN THIS ONE!" I looked at the glass cabinet infront of me and opened it, finding Airins deoderant. I opened the bathroom door and threw it at him. "Hey, fuck you Josline!" Airin tried to say with a straight face.

"Keep your deoderant in your room!" I laughed. Airin stuck his tongue out at me and walked back down to his room. "And put a shirt on!" I called after him.

"You love my bare, hairless man chest!" Airin replied.

"DO NOT!" I yelled at him.

"Josline, Airin. Stop it!" My mom yelled at the both of us.

"Sorry mom." Airin and I chorused together. I went back to brushing my teeth and then got into my school clothes. I decided on lime green skinny jeans (an odd colour for me to wear) and a black long-sleeved shirt with a white tank top over it. It was still warm enough outside to not have to wear a jacket, but was cold enough that I couldnt wear t-shirts.

For some strange reason, I decided to curl my hair that day. It was strange, because my hair was naturally straight and I rarely did anything with it.

Airin and I decided to walk to school that day. We met up with Jazz and Marque along the way.

"Oh, my gosh! Josline Marie Jaulby, since when do you curl your hair?" Jazz asked, 'sproinging' the curls that framed my face.

"When does your hair ever curl?" Marque asked, doing the same thing. I swatted their hands away from my head.

"I don't know. I wanted to try something different." I shrugged as we continued our walk to school.

"She's trying to impress her new boyfriend!" Airin sang. I smacked him in the arm. "Hey! Just saying!"

"Josh isn't my boyfriend." I said, a hint of dissapointment in my voice. Jazz caught that.

"Well, why don't you ask him? He OBVIOUSLY likes you. He did kiss you after all..." Jazz looked at Airin, then to Marque. Neither of them knew. Airin looked at me, then at Jazz, then at Marque. Marque just looked confused.

"What? When did this happen?" Airin looked suspicious.

"On her date, obviously!" I shot Jazz a 'shut up' look. She looked down at her feet sheepishly. We remained quiet until we got to Esso, where we got our morning coffee. Airin payed for all of the coffee, despite Jazz's protests of 'me and my brother are not charity cases!' Airin ignored her for a while, and then threatened to not let her have her coffee. Jazz immediatly shut up and took her coffee, sipping it as if Airin would take it back at any moment.

Once we all got to school, Airin turned the other direction to get to his locker. Marque, Jazz and I all travelled down to the other end near the shop for our lockers. Marque had to go a bit farther down to get to his, but was still relatively close to us. As I spun the dial on my combination, Jazz made one swift movement with her lock key and unlocked her locker.

"Show off!" I said, sticking my tongue out at her. Jazz pushed her locker door over my locker so I couldn't get into it. "Bitch, move your door." I said, pushing it out of the way. I quickly opened my locker and pushed my door over her opened locker. This went on for another 2 minutes before Airin came down and stood inbetween us.

"Now now girls. There is NO need for all this rage." Airin said, trying his best to keep the peace between me and Jazz. I stuck my tongue out at Jazz, who in return, did the same. Marque walked over and looked very serious.

"I will take your guys' coffee away." He threatened.Both Jazz and I pointed our fingers menacingly at him.

"No." We said in unicen. Marque put his hands up in defense, laughing.

Jazz and I decided we should stop fighting over our lockers and called a truce.
As we were just starting to walk down the hallway, Marque had the balls, or stupidity, to say something to me he would obviously regret. "You know Jaws...in comparison to Airin...you're tiny." Both Airin and Jazz looked at Marque, then at me. Jazz cowered against the bank of lockers, Airin slowly making his way down the hallway. Matt has just recently joined with Josh at his heels. They looked at my two cowering companions.

"What's going on?" Josh asked.

"Marque...Jaws...tiny." Josh had a horror-struck look on his face, Matt just booked it down the hallway. I was now fuming.

"I, am NOT TINY!" I screeched at Marque. "Just because you're 7 inches taller than me, gives you now REASON to call me tiny! I will punch you in the balls the next time you say that!" I glowered at him, and Marque was backed up against the opposing bank of lockers. "You would have LEARNED after Josh called me short when we were in Vancouver, wouldn't of you?"

Josh was re-disorganizing the CD's on his shelf that Jazz fixed for him. I found a Queen CD case hiding under a chair and I picked it up, putting it back on the CD rack. I had to jump slightly to get it up there. Josh snickered at me. "Shorty." He muttered.

I had a thing with people calling me short. I was, as what Jazz called me, a 'ticking time bomb'. I looked at Josh, a dead-serious look on my face.

"What did you just call me?" I growled at him.

"Shorty." Josh repeated. Airin, Matt and Jazz all gasped.

"You did not..." Matt said.

"He did." Jazz said.

"Oh shit." Airin concluded. "Everyone take cover." Josh looked confused.

"I am not SHORT!" I yelled at Josh. I probably looked very un-appealing at that moment in time. "You better be FUCKING glad there are instruments around! Or you and your man-hood would be in some SERIOUS pain!" I could feel my eyes burning a hole in Josh. He looked extremely frightened, like he didn'y know a little girl like me could hold that much anger in her.

I felt a pair of hands pull me back away from Marque. I looked around, and Josh had wrapped his arms tightly around me, so I wouldn't break free and punch Marque. "Come on babe...calm down." Josh whispered in my ear. I stopped wiggling my arms around and looked at Josh over my shoulder.

"What did you say?" I said, my cheeks turning a slight shade of pink.

"I said...calm down." He said slowly. He held onto me for a few seconds longer, before deciding I wasn't going to kill Marque. Airin had his arms wrapped around Marque protectively.

"I'm sorry Marque. I over-reacted." I said. Marque, Airin and Jazz all looked at me strangely.

"You over-reacted? When do you..." Marque nudged Airin in the ribs. He made a light 'oof' sound, I giggled at them. They made a sweet couple. I remembered the first time Airin had ever said something sweet to him.

"Hey, hey, Josline! Don't kill Josh, he didn't know! He's a newbie to your anger stuff!" Marque said. I was still fuming at Josh, and I was right up in his face. My arms were locked by my side, my hands balled into fists. I never got this angry at people, only if they called me short. I knew I was a small person, but it bothered me when people pointed it out.

"You tell her babe." Airin said, stretching out on the small couch Josh had, yawning loudly. I stopped, looked at Airin, then at Marque who was bright red.

"Aww!" I said, unclenching my fists. Everyone laughed at my reaction and at Marque's embarrassed face.

'Shut...yeah, aw." Marque folded his arms and turned his face away from everyone.

Matt had inched his way back down the hallway, still keeping a fair distance away. "Is it safe?" He inched closer to Jazz.

"Yes sweetie. It is." Jazz said, holding her hand out to him. He took it and stayed close to her.

My last class was math 10. I was in grade 11, but I was taking math 10 over again, even though I passed with a 64. But I needed a 67 or higher if I wanted to be a forensic scientist. Josh was taking that class with me, I dont know why, but he was. He sat right next to me, and bugged me constantly.
Another girl, Cambria, who I had met in my grade 10 year, but hadn't talked to much, sat infront of me. She asked me for a pencil sharpener, and then we started talking a bit more. I discovered she was from Calgary and she played guitar and sang. I knew we'd get along great.

I had to work after school that day. I worked at 3:30, so I just waited around the school for my mom to come and pick me up. I sat in the normal corner I sat every morning, working on my chemistry homework. I got sidetracked at one point and started writing a song. When I had finished the first verse, I started humming lightly to myself. There was no one around except teachers and the custodians, and they were used to my random-ness.

When I was about 12, my dad bought me my first guitar. I HATED the guitar when I first started out, and would constantly neglect it by shoving the case under my bed (where it just barely fit) or 'misplacing' it. Then, when I got into grade 9 (a crazy year. That was the year that Airin went to a different school, and the year that Airin went to rehab) I was in the 'rock band' we had in the school. Now, I had been really shy about my voice up until that point. I would only ever sing when I was by myself. My best friend at the time, Mariah, she always told me I had an amazing voice and I should sing out more. I didn't believe her, of course, but then we had our first performance, and I got so many comments, I started to believe people.

Mr Logan, my music teacher, he was always bugging me about my guitar. He said that since I sing so well, that having guitar to back it up would be great. I decided to give that a chance. I was a stubborn person, so I got fed up most of the time. I kept pushing myself though.

Then and there, when I was writing my song after school, I realized, that if I pushed myself to play the guitar, even though I hated it...what else could I do?