Love Seems to Find a Way

My eyes shot open at the sound of my dad’s yelling.

“Well if your lazy ass were to get a better job we would be in this mess!” The sound of papers getting ripped and tossed could be heard coming from the hallway, then my mother’s crying. Oh joy must be Tuesday.

I grabbed my phone off the bedside table only to find it was an hour past since school started. I groaned inaudibly, once again I had tuned out my alarm in my sleep. I rolled out of bed and got ready. When I was done I made sure my dad was completely out of sight before making my way down the hall to the kitchen.

“Honey what are you still doing home?” I turned around to see my mother with a garbage bag in her hands.

“I overslept though my alarm.” I mumbled slipping my shoes on quickly.

“Don’t let your father see you, he’s not in the greatest of moods this morning…” Yeah when isn’t he…

“Here let me take that for you, I’m leaving now so …” I said motioning to the garbage bag still in her hands. She handed over the garbage to me with a soft smile.

“Thank you, I’ll see you after school.” She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek before I left. I stuffed the garbage in the trash can out back before retreating to school.

No doubt when I got to school the office gave me shit for being late again.

“Next time you’re late without a doctor’s note you will be assigned a detention.” I rolled my eyes in agreement before walking to my class. Part of me was grateful I overslept, I didn’t feel like dealing with Jack’s bullshit for our book report.

I slipped in hoping to go unnoticed when, Mrs. Owens, my social studies teacher, glared at me. So much for that idea. She finished her lesson about something I was to bored to pay attention to before she came over to my desk.

“If you’re going to be late to my class then don’t bother showing up at all.” I blinked at her shrugging my shoulders at her words. She scoffed walking away. Old prick.

I glanced around the room casually, partially because I was bored, mostly just looking for Ashley. My lips curled down seeing as I didn’t find him anywhere. The rest of the period was spent working on rewriting the lyrics my dad tore out until the bell rung. Today me and Jake decided to have band practice in the band room to work out a few loose ends on Knives and Pens. So as I made my way to the band room Jake was gathering up the rest of the band.

I took the extra few minutes while Jake was getting the rest of the band to set up my mic and practice a few songs. Soon enough they all got here and we started practicing. When lunch ended I stayed behind to put all the equipment away, usually I didn’t stay behind like this but I really didn’t feel like dragging myself to math. When the bell rung signaling the end of lunch I stuffed my lyric book back in my bag and headed out. While people were running through the halls to get to their classes, I was running out front to my car. I got in a drove off to the music store.

I parked the car up close and made my way in quickly seeing as it was starting to rain.

“Andy! How’ve you been?” The manager called out. He had a special thing for me, and no not like that, he could be my dad. I’m just one of his favorite customers.

“I’m good” I smiled, “Got a bass I can play?” He nodded disappearing in the back to find one. I decided to take up playing bass since no one else seemed to know how. Jon came back with a black stingray. He said it was one of the best in his store. My fingers plucked the strings slowly until I got the hang of this one; I was constantly trying new bass’s because I could never just buy one and call it mine. I will admit, this is one of the best bass’s I’ve had my hands on.

Jon smiled at me as I took my lyric book out and flipped a couple paged before positioning my hand at the neck. I was about to start playing when Jon interrupted.

“Wait hold on… Let me get an amp.” He said running to the back again. He returned with a small portable amp and a cord for connections. He plugged it all up for me and gave me a cock-eyed smile, motioning me to start playing. My fingers strummed the cords sending a heavy hum though out the store, I messed up a little but he didn’t seem to notice, or mind.

“What’s that song?” he said pointing to my notebook.

“Oh that’s a song I wrote… Knives and Pens, I might be doing a music video for it soon with my band.”

“Nice! Play it for me.” I blushed slightly being put on the spot and begun anyway, I’m just glad the store was empty. He gave me a few thumbs up as I plucked the strings I had memorized, I smiled to myself.

He was more of a father than that thing living in my house could ever be, he was there for me, he supported me; everything my father was clearly not. I almost considered living with him, but for obvious reasons I decided against it. I stopped playing to look up at him felling his hand on my shoulder.

“Damn you’re getting better.”

“Thanks Jon.” I said proudly setting the bass down beside me.

“When are you going to cave in a buy one?” I laughed softly at the gesture and shrugged.

“I don’t know where I’d get the money.” I said honestly, he nodded understanding; he was the only one outside of my family that knew about my dad.

“Well look, when you get about 4 or 5 hundred I’ll let you take this one plus the amp just for you.”

“Thanks, I’ll try and keep a lookout for some money.” I said standing up, putting my notebook back in my bag.

“Hey but for now I can let you have this one.” He stated pulling a less attractive bass off of the shelf next to him.

“You wouldn’t…” I furrowed my eyebrows.

“Yeah I would! Here take it you've earned it, now do something with your career boy.” I took the bass from him and ran my hands over it smiling; it felt good in my hands, not as good as the other bass, but it was a good start.

“Yeah the other one you were playing is going for a thousand.”

My eyes widened as I choked on my words, “T-Thousand?” Damn, I was lucky to have a few hundred bucks on me, let alone a thousand, if I had that kind of money I’d be taking it and getting the hell out of this place. He nodded picking the Stingray back up along with the amp.

“Thanks Jon, seriously…”

“No problem Andy, just don’t forget me when you’re famous.” We both laughed and shared a hug. There was a ding at the door signaling another customer.

“Ah, got to get this, I’ll see you later Andy.” He patted my back and left to attend the customer. I looked at my phone and saw that school had just been let out. Perfect.

I grabbed my bag and the bass before thanking Jon once more on the way out the door. By now it was raining heavily and I was soaked by the time I reached by car, even though I parked pretty up close. I set the bass in the backseat. I put the key in the ignition and started towards my house. For once I was actually happy, I wasn’t thinking about my dad or school, I was too buzzed on happiness to care about anything right now. Jon actually cared about me and supported me, finally somebody did.

I wasn’t paying attention to the road enough to see that someone was running across the street until it was almost too late. I couldn’t see much because of the heavy rain and I panicked turning my jerking my wheel to the side slamming in my breaks, though doing so didn’t help much on slippery roads and it caused the car to flip over. My vision blurred at the same time hearing loud crunching noises as the car rolled down the street.

The roof of the car scraped along the cement for a moment allowing all the blood rush to my head making me groan. My head started pulsating and I took a moment to regain composure before opening my eyes slowly. My vision blurred slightly but I could see that everything was upside down. I took a deep breath in mustering up all my might and pushed the door open with my shoulder and managed to crawl out.

I collapsed on the road, to hazed to try and stand up. The road was quiet so I could tell there was no cars around all there was, was the sound of rain hammering against the pavement of the street. I looked up slowly and saw the black figure standing on the sidewalk just staring at me. I still couldn’t see clearly but decided to try and stand up, soon a found a pair of hands on me hoisting me up to my feet, it was the person I had almost run over.

I rubbed my palm against my forehead moaning softly in pain as the coldness of the rain finally registered in my head causing my body to shiver and make my head pound harder. I felt their hands pat my back.

“I-I’m okay…” I choked out. The hands left as I straightened out my back, gaining my vision back slowly as things started looking clearer. I went to go thank the person for helping me up, and then apologize for almost hitting them but all I saw was the back of their hoodie being flipped up as they ran away from me.

“Wait!” I called out narrowing my eyes. That hoodie looked so familiar…
I wanted to go after the person but I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep up with my body the way it is. Before I knew it their back turned into someone’s yard and disappeared. Soon I heard ambulances sounding their way closer to me.