A Chaotic Journey

CHAPTER 5: To New Beginnings

With Christmas finished, all everyone had to worry about was the last holiday and first holiday of the year. New Years! I got the courage... Again... to ask if Andre could come with us and my mom said yes. I thought I was dreaming at that point because of how I grew up thinking I'd never be able to bring a s/o to a family holiday. So, here we are again, another holiday with my family, and Andre, like nothing bad could happen. We passed time by with some games and watching some movies before we all met outside for the final minutes of 2021, although everything kind of felt odd. Not that anything negative happened, but I just had that gut feeling you know? At the last minute of the year, everyone is with their individual family, and I'm standing with Andre as we count down... 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Happy New Year!

After the semester break we were back to school and seeing everyone with new styles or a new bag kind of made it seem like it changed the environment, but it didn't. Vaping in the bathrooms, people starting fights, nothing like a public school to humble you. Anyways, another big change that I had to deal with was my schedule change. My 3rd, 4th, and 5th were all switched and I had all those classes with Caleb. How fun. I will admit, I got confused the first few days with the new schedule until Caleb finally let me follow him to our classes like the asshole he is, after that, I never got lost again.

On the topic of changes, a lot of my friends at the time changed, especially these two freshmen, Tiny and Javier. Because of musical, I grew really close with them and stuck around them almost the rest of junior year, but we'll get to them again later, I promise. Again, with the performance dates for musical inching closer and closer, we had a little kind of preview with something called "Character Breakfast", where kids of all ages could come and meet the characters and we would have to be in character so that the parents didn't waste their time bringing their kids. A lot of kids didn't know what character I was until I put on my Southern accent for them and then, AND ONLY THEN, did they know who I was. I stole a donut, colored with some kids, and even got together with the cast to show them how to do one of the dances from the musical. It was a blast and made me realize that not all toddlers are snobs who cry 24/7. Maybe, JUST MAYBE, one in the future wouldn't hurt so bad, but for now all I gotta do is focus on Andre, musical, and school.

Until I broke up with him. Yeah. Yeah. I know. "AGAIN?!"... Yeah, but for good this time. Look, it was getting to a really bad point where I just didn't want that anymore, oh, and to top it off, I did it in 3rd period, AT FUCKING SCHOOL. It was alright until I started crying and my table group saw, Caleb was flabbergasted and the rest of them just did their best to cheer me up somehow. After a few short minutes, the bell rang to go to homeroom, and Andre decided to switch up on me. He started telling me things like "It's all your fault", and "You're so toxic", and it really opened my eyes. Because I was crying so badly, everyone was curious as to why, so I showed them the text and they were all kind of shocked, but most said that they saw it coming. I tried to get over it, but for some reason I couldn't. But momma ain't raise no bitch, so I carried on my day like it was all just a bad dream.

Now you might be wondering... "So how'd you get over it before the musical?" Well, I did and didn't. Just like the first breakup with Andre, we still kept in contact even after all the words that were said, but I knew this time around not to be stupid enough to go back to all of that. Enough of that, let's get back to musical time. As I was saying before the destruction, the musical was inching closer and closer and before we knew it, it was our first day of performing and everyone was shitting bricks. We had named characters running all over the place for props, the chorus trying to remember their notes, and the main characters on the verge of crying. You could say it went well, although before our first performance, Anthony, Isaiah, Tiny, and I had to make a quick stop at the dollar store for last minute snacks and items. Before we could even make it out of the car, we were all dying over a video of a boy and a chicken, as well as Anthony and Isaiah being a little too gay for straight guys in the back of my car. Anyways, we got what we needed, headed back to the school, and prepared ourselves for our first night. Before the curtains opened, I noticed how close I was getting to Anthony, like, a little TOO close if you know what I mean, but at last, the curtain opened and I did everything I could that night.

The second performance night, nothing much happened except for some mic malfunctions, but then again, it's a high school theater budget in a middle class city. But the third night was the night to remember for sure. We performed on our stage one last time and everyone cheered afterwards. I remember hugging Alan, the senior who played Spongebob, as if it was our last interaction together, as well as many other seniors that night.

After everything was cleaned up one last time, the main cast and friends decided to go eat at IHOP. Let me tell you, as much as I wanted it to be calm, you're asking the wrong thing from a bunch of teens. David's drink was spilled, Tiny stole a strawberry, which wouldn't be so bad if they weren't allergic to them, Isaiah's order got lost, and Andre was sending me messages that uh... REALLY ruined my night. Look, he came to the show to see me and others he knew, and even gave me a hug, but something gave me that gut feeling that something was wrong or just bound to go wrong, and I was right. I don't remember exactly what he said, like many things, but what I do remember was Alan, and his boyfriend Eddy at the time, were telling me to get over him and to not let him affect my life since he wasn't a part of it anymore and I'll forever cherish them for it. I think Alan also took my phone and started responding to Andre for me, which made me feel awful, but was needed 100%. After everyone made their payments, those who stayed a bit decided that it would be funny to sing me happy birthday, and so they did. I acted like it was my birthday, and even the employees joined in. That night, I took Anthony home and realized that I had feelings for him. Great. I knew that I caught feelings easily, but wtf man. Just great. I told him over text that same night, and wouldn't you guess, but he felt the same. Fuck.

It's now almost February and I've been hanging around with Anthony a lot more than I should've, considering I just got out of a long-term, kinda toxic, relationship, but fuck it I guess? With the musical over and done with, I could now focus on softball season. I packed my bag with all my equipment that I thought I would need, and headed to the field to meet up with the rest of the team, but boy oh boy, I didn't know what I was really getting myself into.