Changing With Autumn

Chapter 1

I laid against the window on the hood of my crappy little Ford in the nearly empty parking lot after school. The only other cars left were the ones from the kids who were at practice and the teachers who were still stuck in their classrooms with whatever last minute tasks they had to take care of before releasing into the sweet bliss of their student-free weekend. I was listening to music from my cell phone sitting next to me. I would have turned the radio on in the car but of course, like everything else in the little hooptie, it just didn’t sound the way it should have. I mean, this hand me down from a hand me down car seemed miraculous to even have an engine that ran so asking for it to have a radio that worked was pushing it. Honestly, my phone was probably worth more than the whole car so I would rather not risk the whole thing breaking down over using those crusted, old speakers.. 

School ended about two hours ago, but I wasn’t ready to go home yet. What was the point? Sitting at home meant sitting in my room hiding out with a book and procrastinating on doing the pile of homework that was due on Monday. When they said A.P. classes were a lot of work they really didn’t put the emphasis on a LOT of work. I mean, I knew I could handle it, and it’s not like I couldn’t keep up, but after starting A.P. classes I found out just how bad my procrastination could be. I’m not talking about the waiting until the weekend before kind of bad either; I’m talking about the waiting until the morning of bad. In my defense, the fact that I was able to procrastinate and still get A’s on the assignments was probably a contributing factor to my severe time management illness. 

So rushing home and lying to myself that I was actually going to do the homework wasn’t realistic. The reality of it would be more like hiding my homework in my backpack and pretending it didn’t exist until Monday morning at like two in the morning. Out of sight, out of mind right? Plus, technically, I was supposed to be in practice for another hour, so if I was gonna ditch and put off doing my homework as well, I definitely wasn’t going to waste my stolen time sitting at home. 

Instead, I laid on the hood. Listening to the soothing sounds of heavy metal playing beside me with my eyes closed and head leaned back. The wind blew slightly and my hair danced across my face with the music, and I just let it dance. Even with my music playing as loud as my phone speakers would go I could hear the leaves scurry across the ground. It was Autumn and the crisp breeze blowing the dying leaves across the lot seemed dramatically loud in the empty void around me. 

I had always loved Autumn. Where everyone else just thought of Halloween and bonfires I loved it for what it really is. It is more than just leaves changing colors and the start of boot and scarf season. It’s a life cycle. Spring is supposed to be the season of awe when life is reborn and nature is in its full glory. Flowers bloom and trees return to their vibrant greens. Autumn is the time when life starts to fade from nature around us. The leaves age and break away from the tree that provides them the nutrients to survive. They become brittle and fragile and after breaking into a bunch of little pieces, the beauty of their death existed only to be blown away. 

“I’m on a highway to Hell!” 

Suddenly and quite abruptly, my music paused in mid song and a beautiful blaring took its place. I started at the abrupt changes of the screaming music coming from my cell phone that pierced through my reverie. 

“Yeah?” I snapped into the mouthpiece and winced slightly as it came out a little harsher than I had meant for it to sound. In that moment, I was also internally banging my head against an imaginary wall for not looking at the caller on the screen. Chanting a mental, “Please don’t be my mom, please don’t be my mom.”

“Well hello to you too. Geez, someone’s all pissy today.” I recognized the voice of my best friend Erika immediately and tried to even out my tone as I recovered from the near panic induced heart attack of my doom if it was in fact my mom on the phone.  

“My bad Erika, you scared the Hell out of me and I didn’t look at the caller ID. What’s up?” I asked, trying to calm my heartbeat and even out my tone.

“Well miss pissy pants, I just wanted to make sure you were still coming over this weekend.” She responded in a voice that told me this was not at all a question or request but more of a demand.

“Ah Hell,” another mental headbang, “ I forgot to ask the ‘rentals. I’m not sure if I will be able to. I’ve got a ton of homework that I’ve been putting off for like the last month and two essays due next week.” I said trying to nonchalantly avoid the forgotten plans for the weekend and get out of an argument I knew would come if I asked my parents to go to her house for another weekend.

“Well of course you put all of it off. You do the same thing every single week. If you’ve procrastinated this long already then that means that you aren’t that worried about your ability to complete it quickly, which says to me that it can wait a couple more days. Plus I know you are lying out your ass cause I’ve seen you write essays. You are some special breed of mutant and it takes you like thirty minutes to write a freaking five page report. No excuses love, and I’m not taking no for an answer.” She said in her matter of fact voice.

“Seriously Erika, I’m not joking, I don’t know if I can. My dad has been ranting about family time this weekend, and since I’ve been at your house for the last three weekends I’m pretty sure he’s not gonna go for it.” I told her honestly, trying to hide the whine in my voice but failing to hide the dread.

  “Well looks like you’ve got your work cut out for you ‘cause I’ve already made plans for us and you can’t back out on me now. You have officially been committed. So make sure you’re at my house by seven and try to make yourself cute. My plans require looking like some sexy babes.” 

I could practically see her little booty shimmy she is famous for and I couldn’t help my unconscious eye roll.  

“By the way, shouldn’t you be at practice?” She asked.

“Dude, first of all, shouldn’t you be at practice? Secondly, I’m making no promises for tonight.” I replied.

“Ha Ha Ha. Yeah, yeah. See you tonight ditcher!” She laughed into the earpiece.

“Wait, I’m serious,” I tried to yell at her before she hung up the phone to stop my protest. Typical Erika. 

My phone speakers picked up where my song was last playing and Stain started wailing “Too much pressure” in my hand. Yeah that sounded accurate in my current situation. I let out a sigh and my head fell back against the window once again.

Freaking Erika.