keep your eyes fixed `` AARON

[jaymie hartson ;;]

to the sky above

It was well different being in California than it was in Florida, let alone New Jersey. Visiting with her aunt Larraine, staying there until she had received a dorm at the school. It was all something new to her, and she wanted to experience it in all ways possible. Teenagers everywhere would be dying to be in her position; having little to no adult supervision, going to parties, doing something they loved. Not many people actually got the chance to be able to do these things, especially at this age. Some of them had to wait long until after they finished school to be able to get into the sorts of things that they wanted to do with their life, but not her. She got to come to Hawthorne and work on her future.

Music was something hands on. You couldn’t just not do anything with it and then expect to be able to develop the style that was needed to go on in life with it. That was something that she had discovered, living in Florida more than anything. When she would wake up in the morning, the first thing that was playing through her mind would be some sort of a riff and a bunch of words skittering around in their brain. At first, she had always been scrambling around for a pen and paper, not finding the utensils in time, leaving her mind to go blank and causing her to become frustrated with herself because she had, in fact, forgotten the strings of words that were once present. It wasn’t before long that she had placed a notebook and a pen in the drawer of her bedside table, diminishing the problem entirely.

Maybe it’s best to begin from the very start; well, not the very start. It was back in Florida, when she was playing with the boys, that she had first found out that if you wanted to be a musician, you didn’t only need to have a creative side to your mind, but you had to eat, sleep, breathe music. Hell, you had to live music. If you didn’t have music no your mind at all times, things wouldn’t be able to work out. It wasn’t just a choice, or a dedication; it was a need. Music was the key to all problems for her; it was something she needed in her life. If asked whether she would rather be blind or deaf, she would say blind without having to think for a second about it. Why? Because she knew that the alternative would be death. If there weren’t music in her life, she would rather die than have to live without it. That sounds really extreme, but that was how it was.

Seconds, minutes, hours on end were spent writing lyrics and playing around with the perfectly tuned chords on her guitar, a pen and paper always near by to record and scribble something out so that she could fix something that didn’t fit into the song. It wasn’t a matter of just getting it right; it was a matter of making it perfect. Her parents found it odd that all this effort was being put into music, but at least it was helping her social life. Sure, her schoolwork suffered a little bit, but that wasn’t anything new. It wasn’t as though she was failing miserably, having to retake courses each year to perfect the marks. They were decent, in the seventies. It wasn’t going to get her into an academic level, leading her towards scholarships and other magnificent things, but it was enough for her, keeping her satisfied and content with the path that her life was on. That was before it was damned.

Friendships came crashing, attempts to save all dignity that was left had washed away like a sandcastle after high tide. All of it was gone, disappeared instantly in a moment of stale cigarette smoke and cheap alcohol. The music that had been pulsing through her veins continued, though swollen lips and tear stained faces replaced the once happy sounds that were there. They were replaced by anger and an immense detest towards the persons whom had caused them to sink like a stone in harsh water. It was times like these where she would try and resort to the thought of ‘sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me’, though it didn’t work. She’d learnt that when someone hurts you, and then tells you that they love you, it hurts more than a broken bone, because it’s not an injury to some limb. It was an injury to a vital organ, one that keeps you alive. But an injury to the most fragile of all things: the heart.

So, it was this event, the loss of someone she had thought she might have loved, and one of her closest girlfriends that she had told everything to, which had brought her to where she was now. She found herself sitting on the grass, scribbling away the thoughts that had been constantly crashing against the walls of her mind making their way onto the paper that was set before her. The cucumber sandwich that was set back into its rightful place in the Ziploc bag, sealed up next to her on the soft green, sitting under the pulsing sun, leaving her long blonde hair to hide her black rimmed eyes, a black hoodie pulled over her slim body, hood resting upon the top of her head. The faded to gray skinny jeans hugging her hips in light of the position she was set in, and a pair of old, purple and black Dravens resting on her feet. She almost felt out of place, sitting here, in such an unfamiliar world. Yet at the same time, she felt as though she were more accepted than she ever had been.

At moments like this she would think to herself, telling herself that her life was, in fact, perfect. However, it truly wasn’t. There was always one thing missing, like a huge gaping hole that was left in your favorite t-shirt after your neighbor’s new puppy got a hold of it, dragging it around the backyard as you tried to chase after it to get it away from him. That one thing wasn’t just something that she could go out and find again, something that she couldn’t replace. It was the hardest thing to replace, and that was a best friend. It had been missing in her life for the past two years. The one person she had longed to be able to call, to be able to see, to be able to talk to, and tell them how much she missed them. But it was impossible. She hadn’t ever had the nerve to write to him, in worries that he would hate her for leaving without telling him. She wished she could have, but she couldn’t. And now she was here, in this place where she didn’t know a soul, sitting on the grass writing music, that she let her mind wander to the boy.

She figured that he would look different now. After all, she looked different. In freshman year, when she’d last seen her best friend, the one person who could have possibly written a biography about her, she hadn’t had her nose or her lip pierced, and she certainly didn’t have such a hairstyle. Her clothing style had changed slightly; it wasn’t that drastic, though. After all, she was just going with the change that suited her as it came. Therefore, if she could change in the short period of two years, he probably could have as well. There wasn’t anything she could do about this, though. She was going to be forced to live without him in her life until the day that they miraculously met. And she hadn’t the slightest clue when that would be, or if it would ever happen. But if there was one thing that she could be certain of, it was the fact that she was going to find him. Even if it took her the rest of her life, she was going to find the boy who she’d spent so many weekends with, watching movies and playing video games and running through the town with. The one person who had liked her when everyone else seemed to enjoy picking on her because she wasn’t exactly like him or her.

The weather was fair, so she couldn’t complain, but sometimes she just couldn’t help but feel lonely. There wasn’t anyone that she knew and she longed for a familiar face. It was like she was beginning again, just like she’d done in Florida. At one point, she had thought that she’d seen someone that looked like him, Aaron, her best friend since kindergarten, but she’d shook her head. “Jaymie,” she said, “you’ve got to stop this. You’ll drive yourself up a tree.” Yet, here she was, staring at a page, scribbling words onto it, letting her mind wander back to these sorts of things. When she was feeling sad, that was what she did. Jaymie would try and remember the fun times that she had had with Aaron, and a smile would brighten up her face, causing her cheeks to turn a fetching shade of rose.

It was undeniable, even being separated from the boy for so long, she still felt so strongly about him. She hadn’t been able to tell him that she felt like she was on cloud nine every time she was with him, because the thing that scared her even more than not having him with her at the time was the fact that she could lose him entirely, knowing that their friendship had been torn apart like a love note that was used as a joke. And even though she knew that he wasn’t with her for the past two years, Jaymie liked to think that even through it all, if they ever met again, things would go back to where they had left off. Perhaps just the longing for his friendship had been making it’s way further into her brain, because she’d tried to find the same thing in Parker that she had found in Aaron. But that was different, that had turned out bad. And something told her that even if she and Aaron did go back to where they left off, things would turn sour if she told him how much more she liked him than he knew. After all, that was how things had gone with Parker.

Jaymie knew, more than anything, that Parker and Aaron were nothing alike. She knew that Aaron would never intentionally hurt her, not like Parker did. He wouldn’t cause her so much pain that it hurt to move, hurt to be touched. Jaymie knew that she had a real friend in Aaron, and that she could confide in him. She had stopped writing by this point in time, looking at the pristine sky, resting her head in her hands, and smiling softly to herself for a moment, before a single gray cloud covered the sky in a threatening way, leaving her smile to fade and a sigh to escape the full lips that were slightly chapped and still a bit cut up from her last encounter with the boy who had torn her up in so many ways, but could never be able to put her back together again. Why? Because he’d never been capable of doing so in the first place.

[‘‘ aaron ramirez.]

ALONE AND FAR FROM
HOME, I'LL FIND YOU.

"RAMIREZ!"

Aaron sighed and closed his eyes as the Principals voice echoed around the walls and into his earlobes. The whole hallway was covered in paint, as was the little dude himself. Like most of the things he was punished for here at Hawthorne, the current colorful mess that was decorating the corridor was nothing to do with him - he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, like always. He peeled himself off the wall and shoved his pockets into what were once blue denim skinny jeans, but now resembled an explosion in a Crayola crayon factory. He knew the procedure all too well by know, judging by the fact that it happened every other day.

The brown haired boy - whose hair had now turned to several delightful shades of orange and pink, thanks to the several pots of paint that had been tipped over his head several moments ago - followed the principal like some kind of lost sheep, pretending to pay attention to the lecture he was currently being given. The only sound he made was the odd 'mmhm' noise whenever he saw was neccesary, to mislead the principal into thinking he was paying attention. He didn't need to pay attention, he had heard the words being said so many times before that he could recite them from memory. Not that he ever needed to, obviously, but what the heck.

"When you started here, I was really expecting more from you, Ramirez."
Aaron nodded and waited for the principal to move, now that they had reached their destination - the detention room. He opened the door, walked in and slumped into his usual seat. His eyes drifted down to his multi-coloured hands, thinking. Wondering why everybody seemed to expected so much of him. Didn't they know that he was a teenage boy who was still recovering from a broken heart? Nope. He never spoke to anybody about his feelings, not since Jaymie disappeared. When you thought about it, if she hadn't disappeared, then he wouldn't need to vent his feelings about how upset he was that his best friend (who also doubled as the one girl he ever loved) had suddenly moved away without telling him.

It wasn't that he didn't trust people. He trusted his sort-of cousin Ellie, and there were a few other people scattered about the place who he trusted to a certain extent, too. But he was worried in-case he told somebody, then they decided to slap him across the face and yell at him about how it had been two years since he had last seen Jaymie; she probably had new friends and had forgotten he even existed. A small sigh passed the boy's lips. Yes, it was possible that she could have forgotten all about his existance and had found some brand new friends who were way more awesome than he ever was. He wouldn't admit it to himself, of course - he was determined that he would someday bump into Jaymie again and they could rekindle their friendship, back to how it was before.

He made sure the paint currently decorating his hands was dry before pulling his beloved blue iPod from his pocket. When it came down to it, music was the only think that kept him sane and stopped him going suicidal. The classic white headphones, the ones that had been through just about everything with him, were placed into his ears. A small smile made its way across his face, a small clicking noise made as he pressed his thumb against the play button. He leant his head against the small desk infron of him, not bothered about the multicoloured forehead mark he would leave when he arose from the position. Right now he was more focused on the random Foo Fighters song currently flowing into his earlobes.

It had been half an hour since he was imprisioned in the detention room. The music had changed from Foo Fighters to Metric. He was bored, unable to take it any longer. Aaron lifted his head from the table and walked over to the door, pushing down onto the handle and storming out. The teacher on duty didn't bother to go after him, knowing all too well it would have no effect. The paint covered adolescent walked out of the main school building, following the short path that lead to the boy's dorm building. With a twitch of his nose he pushed open the door and walked inside, giving a quick wave or a peace sign to anybody he recognised in the lounge before heading over to the staircase that lead to the dorm rooms.

The short one jogged most of the way, avoiding any questions as to why he was covered in paint. Most people already knew anyway, they just found it amusing that he was constantly getting bullied by the Jocks and blamed for pretty much any wrong they did. It wasn't fair, but he wasn't one to speak up about it. The things that the jocks currently made him endure weren't that enjoyable, he didn't really fancy having his face smashed in either. He fell through the door of his dorm room and kicked off his now rainbow Converse. The smell of paint was really making him feel dizzy at the current moment in time, the only thing to solve the problem was a shower. Yes, he washed. (Just not as often as others did.)

After a several minute shower and making the water turn a murky green colour thanks to all of the paints mixing together, he was clean. Mostly. He danced around his dorm pulling a clean t-shirt and jeans over his head; dumping the paint-splattered outfit into the laundry basket to prevent it spreading to the carper aswell. He didn't really enjoy laundry, but when there was nobody to do it for you anymore, he didn't have much choice. He ran a hand through his now wet hair and stared at his reflection in the full length mirror infront of him. It was funny how much two years could change a person. His hair was different for starters, his jeans were much tighter and he rarely wore anything but band t-shirts. His height hadn't really changed, which wasn't much of a surprise, but he blamed hormones and genetics for all of that.

Aaron pulled his Vans over his bare feet and yanked a purple hoodie around his shoulders. Now that he had escaped from detention and was paint free, the rest of the day was his own. Hopefully. He walked out of his dorm room at a much slower pace than he had entered, giving another wave or peace sign to anybody who remained in the lounge. His currently damp hair was now dripping onto his shoulders, but he wasn't bothered. The iPod earbuds were in his ears once again, after a short period of rest while he showered. What to do... That was his constant problem. He would finally free himself from the burden that was school and evil Jocks... Then he had no idea what to do with himself. Really, that was how his love of music had developed.

He exited the dorm building and walked over to the courtyard. It was pretty dead, which worried him to a certain extent - usually the place was packed, unless it was raining. The small boy eventually clicked on and looked up at the clouds above, a frown instantly crawling across his face. Well, considering he was already wet, it couldn't really hurt that much. Could it? He carried on gazing at the clouds, too deep in thought to look where he was going. It didn't take long until his foot got caught on a patch of grass and he rolled - yes, rolled - a majority of his way through the courtyard. Peachy. He finally cleaned himself up after being covered in paint and now he was covered in grass stains. It really wasn't his day today, was it?

Then he obviously hadn't realised the fair haired girl whom he had rolled into.

[jaymie hartson ;;]

to the sky above

When something happens as suddenly as this past event did, another body colliding into her own, possibly crushing the sandwich that she had placed on the ground, you don’t have the time to react to it before it happens. Mostly because it’s quite surprising so you don’t realize that it will happen. Much like hen someone hits you, you don’t have the time to react before it occurs. It wasn’t until after the person had rolled into her that she realized that there was a world going on around her. Jaymie was almost instantly brought back to the gloomy reality that encompassed her, bringing her eyes down from the gray sky above, looking down at the boy whom had rolled into her.

There was something about the boy that seemed familiar to her. It wasn’t the way that his hair was coloured, or the style that it had. It wasn’t even the type of clothing that he was wearing. Well, actually, it was slightly familiar to her, just because Parker had dressed like that sometimes, but other than that, it wasn’t really all that familiar to her. Something made her think that she’d met the boy before. Perhaps it was in another lifetime, if you believed in that sort of a thing, which she sometimes did, and sometimes didn’t. That was the tricky thing with Jaymie, sometimes she’ll believe in something, and then a couple of weeks later, she’ll think about it and realize that she doesn’t feel that way about it anymore. So, you could say that it did depend on her mood. Whatever you want to say.

Squinting at him slightly, it hit her. It was the eyes; they looked similar to those she had seen before on her once best friend. It couldn’t be him though; there was no way. Sure, you think she’d want it to be him, simply because she wanted to find him, but Jaymie didn’t think that things could be so simple. She’s usually quite optimistic, but she didn’t ever find things to come without a little bit of effort. And she really hadn’t even tried putting any effort into finding the boy. It wasn’t like she could really control this, though. Things happened for a reason, she supposed. However, this boy was still there, crushing her sandwich, the one that she was, in fact, planning on eating at some point in the day.

While Jaymie is generally a very nice girl, she wasn’t really in the mood to be bothered. Sometimes she got like that, mostly when she was thinking about ways of how she could find Aaron. Her life had suffered a drastic change when she had left New Jersey to go to Florida, and now she was in another completely new place again. However, she probably shouldn’t be making enemies for herself, considering she really didn’t have any friends here to begin with. But, it was a bit annoying. How did he end up there, anyways? People don’t just randomly roll around in the grass, smacking into people, do they? Maybe California was really different than any other place that she had been. Jaymie hadn’t expected it to be that different. Sure, the weather might vary a bit, and there definitely would be differences in the way that the economy worked and how expensive things were, but she hadn’t thought that people would be so… well, to be blunt, weird.

This was a slightly awkward situation, having someone just being next to you on the ground. Jaymie wasn’t really one for close contact with strangers, because you never knew what someone might do to you. Recently, after the whole event where she had trusted Parker immensely, telling him a great deal of things, simply because he was her boyfriend, sharing facts with him about the place she had lived prior to moving to Florida. That was before he became violent, leaving her with scars on her body and aching bruises, and before he cheated on her with one of her good friends. After that she didn’t know how she was ever going to be able to trust anybody else again, especially boys. Sure, she knew that if she found Aaron again, she’d probably tell him most things, though she wouldn’t be able to bring herself to tell him about how Parker had turned out to be a sour apple and beat her, leaving her heartbroken and crying herself to sleep most nights.

She remembered the first time that she had told Parker about Aaron. That was recently after they started dating, when she’d opened up to him more. His words had stung; breaking her heart a little more than it already had been, with her having to move and all that. She didn’t realize until now how little compassion the boy actually had for others. His words were clear in her mind, and she could remember the conversation as thought it was yesterday.

“He’s really awesome, Park, I wish you could meet him. Aaron’s the best friend I’ve ever had. I really miss him,” Jaymie had said one day. They had been sitting on his couch, eating popcorn and they had just been having a war and it had reminded her of her times with Aaron. When she’d stopped throwing popcorn, he’d enquired as to why, so she decided she might as well tell him. After all, relationships are mostly built on trust.

He had looked at her, giving her this weird look before saying, “I don’t think he’d want to meet me. He’d probably be jealous because you and I are such good friends.” A smile had covered his face before he kissed her nose, and she had just sort of stared at him.

Jaymie shook her head, looking at him intently. “No, he wouldn’t!” she said.

[/b]“He’d love to be your friend! If I go back to New Jersey, you can come with me and we’ll go see him! So I can explain to him why I had to leave.”[/b] She smiled gently. That was the one thing she intended to do when she saw Aaron again; explain to him why she didn’t tell him that she was leaving.

Parker sighed. “James, I really don’t think he’s going to want to see you again. Think about it, you left, didn’t tell him. He’s probably angry and hates you. Really, you’re best to just stay here with me.” Then he kissed her, and the conversation just ended. At the time, Jaymie didn’t really pay any heed to what he had said then, but now, when she was alone and picking herself apart, she realized that maybe he was right.

Jaymie hadn’t seen Aaron in two years. She hadn’t even had the guts to send the letters she wrote to him. Jaymie didn’t make the effort to call him, or to try and see him. Therefore, why would he want to see her? He had the right to hate her, and she would have to live with that. But something was really unsettling to her, making her want to cry because she didn’t know what she was meant to do to fix things. Maybe if she had gone back in time, she would have changed all this, because he had been a major component in her life, and she knew she was one in his, as his best friend and all, but she couldn’t now. Things were done and over with.

Sometimes she’d lie in bed and stare at the ceiling for hours, imagining how things would be if she hadn’t just left, maybe she would have been able to work something out, so she wouldn’t have had to leave. Or maybe she could have asked her parents to let Aaron spend the summer with them. Now there was no use in doing so, because she didn’t really think she’d see him again. Maybe Parker was right; maybe it would have been best if she had just stayed with him. Sure, she’d have to endure all the pain that was being caused by him, but she could deal. Now they probably just thought she was a coward. She’d probably have to face them eventually anyways, because she would be going home in the summer, most likely, to see her parents.

Anyways, this was still quite awkward, the boy being where he was. She was slightly annoyed with his presence, if not oddly comforted by the fact that someone was even near her. Lately Jaymie felt as though people were just avoiding her, trying to keep their distance because she was someone they’d never seen before, someone who looked like they were hard to approach. And she did seem like that lately, because the optimistic girl had diminished, hiding behind a layer of pessimism. The outgoing girl that had once glowed with enthusiasm was washed away, leaving a shy girl who seemed to radiate boredom and carelessness. It was slightly depressing, because she was once this amazing person, and she’d been through all this stuff that made her change so drastically. It was sort of funny, though, because it happened in such a short amount of time. Surely, there would be one person who would be able to bring back to old Jaymie, but she highly doubted now that the person who could do that would. Why? Because she didn’t think she’d ever see him again, which left her mind wandering again, but she caused it to stop, because she knew she’d cry if she thought about him anymore.

So, looking at the boy, she cleared her throat slightly, moving her body away from his on the grass. Moving some of her hair from her eyes when he didn’t get the clue, probably not hearing her, because she noticed he had an iPod in, she decided to speak up. “Uh… Hey, do you think you could maybe move?” Jaymie said, raising an eyebrow, her voice oozing with a slightly annoyed tone. “You’re kind of crushing the only food I’ve got.” It wasn’t the most polite of things she could say, but hey, what could she do? This boy had crushed her lunch, the only thing that she had to eat, simply because she hadn’t actually gotten around to getting anything else to eat, and there wasn’t any more food that she could eat. Since she wasn’t really into eating cafeteria food, she usually went to her aunt’s for dinner and when she wanted to go shopping. But, she hadn’t done that in two days, so she was running low on food, having lived off of cucumber sandwiches and no breakfast. She would get on that, though, that was for sure. Because Jaymie knew one thing, and that was that she could use some real food.[/blockquote][/size]