Facing the Obstacles

“Welcome to San Diego! When did you get here?”
It was the first day of eighth grade and I was standing outside of my new junior high, when this boy with light brown, swept bangs walked over to me, asking me this very question.
“Uh… only about two weeks ago,” I stuttered, surprised someone was actually making time to talk to me. I figured I’d spend the day as one of those new kids who never has anyone to hang out with or sit with at lunch and ends up sitting by themselves, quietly eating whatever interesting food the school had for the day.
He reached out his hand, “My name’s Zach. I’ve been going here my whole life. I know pretty much everyone in this school, and I could tell you were new, so I thought I’d come befriend you. What’s your name?”
My black bangs slid down my forehead and I shook them out of my face, shaking his hand in return saying, “My name’s Tom.” I felt better already knowing there was someone here that wasn’t a stranger and I wouldn’t have to face eating alone.
Another eighth grader walked up and Zach smiled, saying, “Nathan, my man! How’s it been?!” This Nathan fellow was dark-skinned with dreds and he seemed pretty chill. Zach introduced him to me and he shook my hand as well, flashing a perfectly white toothed smile.
“So, you’re new here? That’s sweet, glad to meet you, you seem cool!” I beamed, glad he had ‘accepted’ me.
Our trio walked in to school together, getting to know each other more and more by the second. I felt like they were almost too cool for me, but I was happy I now had some pretty decent friends. I found my locker, just a few down from Zach luckily, with Nathan across the hallway. Getting my materials for homeroom, I closed my locker and walked over to Zach.
“What class do you have for homeroom?”
“Mr. Greener’s English class.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. We had the same class. After talking to Nathan, who also had Greener’s class, we headed down the hall. Today was turning out to be a lot better than I thought it was going to be.

“Finally, school is out! Man, if I had to listen to any more of those lectures on classroom whatever, I’ll puke on the teacher.” Nathan said in annoyance.
Zach, Cameron and I cracked up, with Nathan shooting us an angry look. We had all of the same classes and when we got to third hour, Zach introduced me to his other good friend, Cameron. He was quiet, but now that we were out of school he was just like the rest of us; crazy and loud. The girls all loved him with his green eyes and messy brown hair and I was kind of envious that I couldn’t get as many ladies. Cameron however just ignored all of the girls, telling me that ‘they were all a little psycho.’
When Cameron had finally stopped laughing, he turned to us saying, “Do you guys want to hang at my house for a while and chill? I have a pool,” He added to me, “So we could go swimming as well, if you guys want.”
“Sure, that sounds awesome!” I said. “I’ll just run home and grab my suit first!” He explained how to get to his house and I took off towards mine.

“Is mom home?” I asked my younger sister Heidi, who was sitting at the island in our kitchen, painting. She was one year younger than me and absolutely loved to paint. She didn’t want to do anything else for a career besides paint and she absolutely loved me. Nothing ever pleased her more than painting and hanging out with me. She wound her black hair up into a ponytail, as paint flew everywhere and said, “No, she went out to get some food.”
“Okay, well I’m going to be over at a friend’s house for a few hours. Tell her when she gets home, please?”
“You already have a bunch of friends? Wow, I only have like one, but she’s more of an acquaintance. Okay, I’ll tell mom, go have fun.” She said already absorbed back into her painting.
I quickly put on my suit, grabbed my towel and shades and telling Heidi bye, practically ran all the way to Cameron’s house. When I got there, I noticed they had a fence to their pool area in the back, where I could hear familiar voices. Putting my shades on, I walked through the fence to find Cameron doing a cannonball into the pool as Nathan tried to fend for his life.
“DUDE! Let me get out of the pool first or I’ll die!” Nathan yelled as Cameron jumped off the diving board.
“TOO LATE BRO, LOOK OUT!!!” He flew down and crashed into the water, a portion of it flying out of the pool.
Zach stood on the sidelines cracking up. “Oh, hey Tom!” He said, as I walked over. “Nice shades!”
Nathan and Cameron’s heads popped out of the pool yelling, “Hey Tom!”
As Nathan went to the diving board, Cameron swam over saying, “I’m not letting him do that to me! Ha-ha, I love irritating him.” He laughed as Nathan yelled at him that it was not fair that he couldn’t get Cameron wet.
For the next few hours, we swam in the pool and went down Cameron’s waterslide. His parents came outside after an hour and I was introduced. They were very welcoming and they told me that I could come over to their house anytime. Once another half hour had gone by, we decided to do something else.
We walked inside Cameron’s back patio and sat down. Unsure of what to do, we settled on walking to Nathan’s house, a few down. We went down to his basement, with our towels wrapped around ourselves. There were quite a few guitars, which Nathan explained were all his.
“I taught myself to play a few years ago, and I really love doing it. I’ve come up with a few songs, but they still need a lot of work.” Taking hold of one of his guitars, he played one of his songs. It was pretty good for a first draft and I was amazed at how clean-cut his guitar playing was. He was amazing at what he did.
He passed his lyrics he had started to Zach. “Something you probably don’t know about Zach is that he’s an amazing singer. He probably won’t admit it, but he’s awesome. Here Zach, sing what I’ve got so far.”
Zach picked up the worn out piece of paper and started to sing, “Every night, I go to bed and take a trip inside my head and I wonder exactly what my purpose is… do I live to see one hundred? Am I rich or am I poor, what’s the score? I don’t want to be surprised…” He stopped.
Wow, he was good. He may never say so, but he was indeed very good. Obviously my face showed how amazed I was, because Zach said, “Well I’m not the best… there are a lot of better people out there…”
Cameron rolled his eyes, “Dude, are you kidding? You’re really good, anyone can see that. You’d have to be deaf to not realize how great you are.” With that being said, Cameron reached over and picked up Nathan’s bass. He turned to me, “I’m learning to play from the best.” He smiled, nodding towards Nathan.
“Do you happen to be good at drums?” Nathan questioned.
I shook my head. “Sorry, but I can’t drum to save my life.”
“That’s fine, but we still need to find a drummer. We’ve wanted to be a band for as long as I can remember and a drummer is kind of important. Would you want to be in the band though?”
“Yeah, that would be awesome! I could play guitar as well, if that’s okay,” I said, as Nathan nodded in consent. “I used to when I was younger and I think I still remember some of the basic scales. So do you guys want to work on music right now?”
“Sure, let’s do it!” Cameron replied.
We stayed there for an hour and a half. We finished writing the lyrics Nathan had started and decided to call the song Journey to the End of my Life. We were happy with the outcome, but still needed to get the instrumental part right… We would definitely need a drummer to pull it off. This was the best first day of school ever; I had amazing friends and we were now a band.