Forgetting You, But Not the Time

____It was such a raw passion, and it made me feel extraordinary. And I liked the new feeling it provided me with. For once, I felt independent.
______________________— Chapter Twenty-Six, Forgetting You, But Not the Time

Remember, whatever
It seems like forever ago
The regrets are useless
In my mind
She's in my head
I must confess
— "Whatsername" by Green Day

If you asked seventeen-year-old Spencer Monroe to describe her life using only one word, she would most likely say "repetitive". After her mother's death in late '75 and her father's new love interest, all Spencer could find herself doing was suffering through her high school education, attempting to black out the prospect of her horrid life with friends down at the old train tracks, and fighting with her step-mother. It all went in a circular pattern every day. Not necessarily in that particular order, but surely the most significant.

However, the agonizing chain is broken when her family is set to move to the small, rundown town of Rodeo, California in mid '89. Spencer's outlook on this sudden change is nothing short of pessimistic. In her eyes, her suffering through the last year of her high school education will only worsen since she will be attending a new school, she will only be able to attempt to black out the prospect of her horrid life alone down at the old train tracks, and the fighting between herself and her step-mother will definitely not change.

Billie Joe, age seventeen, and Spencer Monroe first meet at Pinole Valley High School in their third period math classroom. From that moment, unbeknownst to them, the course of their futures will collide. Their road to survival will include many twists, turns, and obstacles along the way. And like every Rodeo teenager in the 1980s should know, not all great stories have happy endings.

Status: Completed
Written: February 9th, 2008 - September 27, 2008

Regarding the chapters
All of the chapters are titled according to a song or song lyric belonging to Green Day that relate to the chapter itself. If it's a song title, then that chapter can be represented by the entire song. If you don't know the song, go ahead and look it up to find the relevance. If it's a song lyric, then the chapter is only related to that particular lyric. And in the chapter descriptions, I have written in the approximate dates that the information within the chapter took place. And since some of my chapters can extend throughout a span of more than one day, I've used the date that the most significant information in that chapter took place.

Regarding the characters
I do not own Billie Joe Armstrong, Tre Cool, Mike Dirnt, John Kiffmeyer, Ollie Armstrong, Billie Joe's siblings, band members of The Lookouts, or anyone of significant association with Green Day themselves. However, I do hold the accreditation to the following characters: Spencer Monroe, Carly McBride, Dave Monroe, Reese Monroe, Kristen (Kris) Van Horn, Chasen (Chase) Richards, Ryan Keller, Bobby Crawford, Tammy Edison, Paige Sanders, and Trisha Johnson.

10/11/09 - This story is currently being rewritten, as my writing in early 2008 wasn't exactly up to par. I'm not positive how long it will take for each chapter to be fully revised, but I can assure you that their quality will be improved. The sequel to this story is also currently being written. It's continuing at a very slow pace, but I'm going to try and finish it before I begin my senior year. So far, the odds of that actually happening are very slim, but I'm going to try my very best. And as of tomorrow, you should be able to view the date in which the chapters were first posted onto this site (and the dates for when the chapters were rewritten will be added as I go as well) at the bottom of the page since I've taken down the sloppy author's notes I'd originally written.

6/14/11 - I'm going to start rewriting the earlier chapters again. I lost my inspiration to write almost two years ago and put the sequel, Scattered, on a long-term hiatus. But now that I'm back in business with it, I'd like to fix chapters two through ten because those are the ones I wrote earlier in the year. I don't plan on changing the storyline in any way, but I want to try and make it more historically accurate. When I first started writing this story, I was about thirteen or fourteen and I never took it into consideration that most people didn't possess cell phones in the late 1980s because I just didn't care. Plus I made the clothing a little too moderate as well, so little details like that will be improved. Chapters eleven through twenty-nine might be touched up here and there, but I won't fully rewrite those because all things considered I think the writing is decent enough.

All rights reserved 2008 © asphyxiate./Marie
I am in no personal relation to any of the real life individuals portrayed in this story. I'm just a fan. I do not allow others to use any of my characters or story lines, so please refrain from asking. I don't do well with plagiarism, and neither does the law. So please continue to be a fine upstanding citizen and don't steal.