Forever Cursed

“We’re gonna be seniors!!! Can you believe it!?” My friend Jenny screamed as we all sprinted out of that wretched building and to our saviors; the cars that would take us home. People were everywhere yelling and hugging their friends, promising that they would hang out over the summer, and that their summer jobs wouldn’t get in the way.
I was so ready for summer. I really don’t think I could’ve taken any more of school if tried. Darn teachers and bombing us with tests and homework at the last minute. “You ok Lil’?” Jenny asked bringing me back to reality.
“Huh...oh yeah, fine,” I replied “just thinking.” She shrugged and then continued to go on about how awesome it felt to finally not have homework or assignments to worry about.
Now I know that I said earlier that I didn’t have friends and I tried my hardest to avoid people; and I do! Don’t get me wrong, but I mean come on, you try to make it through high school without any friends!
When I started to shut people out all my friends from middle school just kinda ditched me after a while and I went through most of my entire freshman year without one friend. That is until it was the 4th quarter and I had to take gym.
I absolutely hate gym with a burning passion. It’s not that I don’t like to exercise but I just really feel like I’m wasting my time playing kickball and doge ball with a bunch of aggressive guys who take games WAY to seriously. I’d rather just have an hour to work out on an elliptical or an hour to just swim laps in a pool (as if I don’t already do that enough though, thank you swim team). So anyway I never really “participated” that much in these games. Well one day I was standing next to the bleachers, avoiding the ball at all costs, when the new girl who had just moved here came over and joined me. She was pretty nice and had bushy, curly, red hair that as I got to know her more I found out was always frizzy, pale skin and freckles...a true ginger hahaha. Ever since then we’ve been pretty good friends!
When we first started to talk I tried as hard as I could to try to distance myself from her. I didn’t want to hurt her or her family in any way because of my stupid problem. If she would invite me over after school, I’d make up some lame excuse and that sort of thing but after a while it just got too hard to that. So I gave up on that and just became her friend.
I know it sounds kinda selfish, but I needed a friend badly. I couldn’t keep calling Jason every time I had a problem or I got scared because of something that I saw. He was a loving brother and would sit there and talk to me every time I called and sometimes even come back home. But I could by the tone in his voice that he had a million other things to worry about with college work and I think he had just started dating some girl and I knew he couldn’t keep trying to console his little sister every night.
I know that he was greatly relieved when Jenny and I became friends, and so was I. It felt great to let someone know what was going on with me other than my brother. I know that she honestly didn’t believe me at first when I told her, but that all changed the day she found me in the bathroom. I can remember it like it was yesterday…
Jenny and I were walking to gym class. It was a Monday but at least it was the last week of school! We got changed but I told her to go ahead, I had to use the bathroom. She said okay and walked out into the gym with the rest of the girls. That’s when it hit me.
I was standing out on the street outside my school when a car swerved around the corner. There were two men in the car, the one on the passenger side hastily rolled down his window and pulled out a gun while the driver continued to press down on the gas pedal. The man in the passenger side quickly pulled the trigger and continued to drive away as I watched the bullet fly straight into a window of the school. It caused the glass to crack open and send the shards flying, one embedding itself into an innocent girl’s chest, killing her instantly. I ran to the window to try to help the girl, shiny red blood now starting to pool on her green t-shirt and soaking the colorful flyers that she had been hanging up. I tried to scream for someone to come help but that’s just the thing with these visions no one can see or hear you, all you can do is just stand by and watch.
That’s other thing, you can’t control when they come. They often come in a dream while your asleep but its happened to me more than once while I was awake, I just seem like I’m daydreaming…which I guess i kind of am.
When I woke up out of my dream like state, I started to shake as the tears streaked down my face, I now recognized the girl. She was in the grade above me, a sophomore. I recognized her from band; she played the trombone I think.
I sat and then began to wonder how long I had been in here. Crap! I thought, Mr. Boast is gonna be so mad! No I shouldn’t be worrying about freaking gym right now! I need to go try to help this girl! I can tell him tha- My thoughts were interrupted by the door opening.
“Lily! Are you okay?” whew it was only Jenny.
“Jenny! We need to get out to the lobby now! A girl is about to be killed by a drive by shooter! We have to get her out of the way!”
“Lily what in the world are talking about!? We have to get back to gym class, Mr. Boast is gonna kill us, and especially you if we don’t get back there now!”
“Oh screw gym class!” I yelled as I grabbed her hand and drug her out to the lobby of our school, still in our gym clothes, blue shorts and a plain gray t-shirt. As soon as we walked in I saw the girl hanging up flyers for the end of the year musical.
“GET OUT OF THE WAY!!!” I screamed across the room to her. She just stood there gave me a look of complete confusion and was about to say something when we heard the bullet shatter the glass and the same scene that I saw in my dream played out into front of us, only this time I could scream for help.
People came running just as I heard the screech of the tires of the run-away car turn the corner. That’s when I started to mentally kick myself. Why didn’t I at least look for a license plate number!?!?
Jenny was gripping onto my arm, to shocked at what she had just witnessed to speak. After answering many many questions to the principle and then the police the question “What were you two doing out of class?” came up. “What the heck!” I thought,” a girl was just killed and you’re worried about something as silly as “why we weren’t in class”!? Whatever.” We told them that just before gym I felt like I was going to be sick so I stayed in the bathroom and when Jenny found me, she insisted on walking me to the nurse’s office and that’s why we had been in the lobby when it happened. “Yeah ok we’ll go with that” I thought to myself. Jenny quickly nodded her head to agree with me, that that’s why we had been there, now realizing that she hadn’t said anything.
And ever since then she’s believed me, although I’m certain that it greatly scared her at first, and I don’t blame her. She had just watched a girl get killed in the exact way, at the exact time that I had just told her moments before. I think it scared her that something like that could be real when before when I would tell her these things she just kinda said “yeah okay” and believed it as much as if I told her that I turned into a dragon at night. But after that she believed every word I said about it.
So now here we were on the last day of our junior year, still best friends. W both hopped into my red Honda Civic turned and cranked up the stereo. I’m Not Okay (I Promise) By My Chemical Romance. A huge smile grew across her face.
“Oh you know me so well!” We both laughed and started to sing along as loud as we could; gaining some awkward stares from anyone who walked passed our car. Oh yeah that’s the other thing about Jenny, we both absolutely LOVE My Chemical Romance! Continuing to sing along we pulled out of the school parking lot and headed for my house, music blaring.