By Your Side

Despite none of us knew which class we were attending first, since we hadn’t even looked at our schedules yet, we ran inside the big building, only stopping when we were inside, so we could look at our schedules.

“Music – Classroom 205” I said out loud, and Megan instantly started dragging me up the stairs, leading me to the classroom, I suppose; I saw Aden following us, tumbling up the stairs quickly, but I didn’t give it much thought; maybe he had his first class in a classroom nearby, or something.

“And here it is” Megan said, panting, stopping in front of the classroom where I had my first class; I sighed loudly, looking at her.

“Do you have the same class?” I asked, only then noticing Aden standing with us, biting his lip; I saw both of them nod, and sighed in relief.

Megan, then, stepped forward and knocked on the door, opening it without waiting for any kind of reply from inside; as soon as the teacher saw her, she rolled her eyes.

“Late on the first day, Megan?” The teacher asked with a slight tone of discontent adorning her voice; then, she noticed me and Aden standing awkwardly behind Megan, both of us biting our lip on the opposite side of our piercings.

“Oh, you must be my new students!” The teacher said enthusiastically, walking up to us and putting an arm around each one of us. “Raven and Aden, right?” She asked, and we both nodded; I, at least, was feeling a little bit nervous. “I’d like to hear you play… or sing, or whatever you wanna do!” She said, and I knew that my instincts never failed me; I knew I was nervous for a reason!

“Can’t we do both?” I asked, and she turned her head completely to me, smiling as she nodded eagerly, letting us go. “I don’t have my guitar here, though…” I said, and she dismissed me with her hand as she pointed towards a group of different guitars in the back of the room, lying immaculately there.

“Pick one, and then you can play and sing whatever you want, honey” she said sweetly, and I instantly went to the back of the room, picking up one black acoustic guitar that instantly caught my attention; then, I walked to the front of the room and sat on a chair that the teacher had put up there, motioning for me to sit.

I didn’t even know it was gonna be that big, but she managed to get a microphone in front of me, and I noticed that the guitar had already a microphone on it, and it all was turned on, waiting for me to play… And that’s when the nerves kicked in.

Taking deep breaths, I felt my nerves dying inside of me, as I thought about which song to play… The perfect song came up to me, making me ask someone for a capo for the guitar and putting it on its arm, and I instantly started moving my fingers on the guitar, playing the right chords, taking a deep breath before I started singing.

“I scraped my knees while I was praying,
And found a demon in my safest heaven.
Seems like it’s getting harder to believe in anything
Than just to get lost in all my selfish thoughts.

I wanna know what it’d be like
To find perfection in my pride,
To see nothing in the light.
But turn it off, in all my spite;
In all my spite, I’ll turn it off.

And the worst part is,
Before it gets any better,
We’re heading for a cliff.
And in the free fall I will realize
That I’m better off,
When I hit the bottom.

The tragedy it seems unending…
I’m watching everyone I looked up to break and bending.
We’re taking short cuts in false solutions
Just to come out the hero.

Well, I can see behind the curtains.
The world’s cranking, turning;
It’s so wrong the way we’re working
Towards a goal that’s nonexistent;
It’s nonexistent, but we just keep believing.

And the worst part is,
Before it gets any better,
We’re heading for a cliff.
And in the free fall I will realize
That I’m better off,
When I hit the bottom.

I wanna know what it’d be like
To find perfection in my pride,
To see nothing in the light;
But turn it off, in all my spite…
In all my spite, I’ll turn it off.
Just turn it off!
Again! Oh, God! Again!

And the worst part is,
Before it gets any better,
We’re heading for a cliff.
And in the free fall I will realize
That I’m better off,
When I hit the bottom.

And the worst part is,
Before it gets any better,
We’re heading for a cliff.
And in the free fall I will realize
That I’m better off,
When I hit the bottom!”

When I finished, tears were falling from my eyes, the power of the song kicking me inside and making my messy organs melt and crash against each other, destroying me slowly as uncalled memories started to flash before my eyelids; I saw my sister as she broke me apart, I saw the world before my eyes when I was standing at the top of the building I used to live, I saw my mom saving me, I saw that girl from earlier this morning, trying to kill herself.

Without even realizing it, my fingers had already torn off the capo from the guitar, and I was already playing another melody, a sad melody nobody knew but me; a sad melody I had composed the day after I started living with Megan. It was just a melody, no singing or drumming or anything; it was just a soundtrack to my previous life. It revolved around me, wrapping itself tightly around my thick body as it went on and on, making me float while standing on the ground, the tears coming in pairs as the song started to come to an end; I wasn’t really aware anymore that I had a whole classroom watching me, along with a teacher, hence why I got scared when they started clapping like crazy when the song was over.

I finally opened my eyes, only to see Megan and Aden on the front row, their expressions differing like the sun from the moon, even though their essence was the same; Megan knew exactly what that sad melody was about, and the tears on her eyes proved me that, and she also knew why I had chosen such song to sing, first; Aden, on the other hand, had no idea what I had gone through, but I could tell he knew just how sad it had been through the songs I had played, with his mouth opened, and a tears fighting to escape his black eye lined eye, trying to destroy his barriers, and his make-up. They were both clapping, just like the rest of the class, that looked stunned by what I had done; the teacher was probably the person who looked more amazed amongst everyone. She had shameless tears falling from her eyes, a big smile covering her face at the same time; then, she got up from her spot in one of the desks, and came to me, hugging me tightly before turning to the class.

“This! This is feeling the music… This is knowing deep inside what you feel, and how to show it… And I’m not only talking about when she sang so amazingly… no; the way she played the guitar is the way an artist paints what’s on his mind, the way a writer puts overused words in a sentence, making it seem new, yet adorning their feelings… The second song she played, she played it from her heart, not from her head. It was one of the most beautiful moments I have ever seen my whole life. Thank you a lot, Raven, for providing us with such beauty” the teacher said as I stood there, the attention being focused on me; even though I could see all of my classmates staring at me, I could not see them. I was lost, again.

I started breathing faster as I realized I was about to breakdown in front of everyone, and have another one of my big explosions of emotions and tears; I wanted to get out of the classroom, but I didn’t know how to. I was already too lost in my mind to be able to discern where to go, or what to do; I searched for Megan, trying to find her through the broken images that kept flashing in front of my eyes, but it seemed she had dived far away from me, and I couldn’t reach her. As I tried to dive and get her, I felt myself drowning; my hands went to my throat as my breathing pace increased, and I went weak to my knees; I couldn’t hold it back any longer.

Without a single warning, or a single fight back, a big horrible sob escaped my mouth, showing off to everyone that I was not okay; I felt drained out of boundaries as I started to punch the ground beneath me, the screams erupting from my throat before I could hold them back, straining them in my lungs.

“Why? Why me? What did I do to deserve this?” I screamed, my head moving itself on its own will towards the ceiling, my eyes seeing past beyond it; I could see the sky, heaven, even though all of the obstacles that I found in the way. “Come back! I need you! What did I do to deserve all this?” I kept screaming, feeling someone kneel in front of me, trying to bring me back to my senses; even though one side of me was fighting to let that person help me, the other side was so much stronger, and kept ripping itself away from the kind person that dared to try to stop me from bursting. “What did I do to be treated this way?!” I screamed, louder than I ever thought I could scream, my energy being drank away from my body, like a smoothie from its cup, as my body crashed onto the person in front of me; instantly, that person started to run their hand slowly on my back, tracing unseen lines through my shirt onto my skin, like they were tattooing me with transparent ink.

I sobbed and cried for a while, hoping to God that the person I was holding to wasn’t going to mock me for what I was doing; in fact, I was almost sure that the person I was hugging tightly was my dearest best friend, but I couldn’t really tell…

As my doubts took the best of me, I crawled out of the person’s arms, expecting to see a torn-up face I knew so well; I was hoping to find Megan’s curly black her, her beautiful greenish hazel eyes, her pierced plump lips… Instead, I was met with someone I didn’t expect.

Holding me dearly in his arms, there was Aden, his deep blue eyes staring incessantly into mine like they knew everything; I could feel a fire burn deep in them, and I could almost catch it… All that was missing was just a sweet touch, and that fire would be trapped in my eyes forever more.

Unfortunately, that touch never came, because my insane self got scared of all that, and decided to throw the guitar onto the ground, and run away; run away from Aden, Megan, my classmates, my teacher, my new school… Mostly, it was running away from that appealing fire.

A fire which flames were growing dangerously, yet it didn’t burn.