As I sauntered down Cherokee Rose St. during a windy summer evening in the bleak desert of French Valley, I catch glimpse of a mirror laying along side the abandoned boulevard. The pieces are scattered along the street like modern art that yearns for attention. The thousands of fragments gleam in the sun like diamonds to my eyes. There is a hill to the left that’s covered in fern, bushes, tumbleweed, any sort of bothersome prickly plant you can imagine. There is a small space of Cacti on the side as if someone planted them but it’s away from the main path where people ascend up the hill. I walk to a side street that’s connected to Cherokee Rose and then up a small bump towards the monstrous hill ahead. After debating with myself over a span of a couple of minutes I decide to hike up the hill like I used to a year earlier. I always used to exercise by running up and down the hill when I first moved here but I stopped after the events that ensued in 2010.
The pressure on my leg muscles begin to strain as newly produced sweat starts to descend down my burning flushed face. The hill seemed to rest on a vertical angle. When the pain in my legs became too much to handle I decided to cease walking and rest for a bit. It was just too strenuous climbing up this hill. I could feel myself slipping downward with each step I would take. I was almost halfway to the top. All I needed was willpower. I remembered the first time I climbed this hill and how happy I was when I got to the very top to survey the town of Temecula, Hemet, and French Valley. I thought about that and made my way up to the tip. Before I knew it, I was on the top of the mountain taking deep breaths of the drafts of air that blow up here constantly. I looked around and surveyed the miraculous scene and then I looked to the ground ahead of me. My heart dropped and tears started to well up in my eyes as I walked ahead and sat on the ground. It took me a few moments to clear up my mind as I entered a state of deep relaxation. I closed my eyes and thought of the past. I thought of what happened when I meant her for the very first time and how nice she seemed. I never knew that it would end up like this. I guess I really learned from my mistakes on this one.
Oh man, did Monique look at me? Oh god. Way to screw this one up Tim. Why am I still staring at her? Jesus Christ I’m an idiot. She’s staring back at me. Niki looks so beautiful though with her dark skin and hair, I would love to just.....
“Timothy!” Mrs. Gibbs yelled.
I snapped myself out of mystification and looked at my teacher, Mrs. Gibbs wore red rimmed glasses, wore red make up and a red dress every day to school. Another way to put it is that she just liked the color red. She reminded me of a librarian. I was in eighth grade of middle school in my second period class, which was English. I started to get more into Punk and Alternative that year. So many other immense things also happened here at Margarita, when I meant my very good friend Dylan Elmore for the very first time through one of my friends, Tristan Vandzandt. Tristan ended up moving to Texas in seventh grade. When I learned what type of drugs people would use and the type of black comedy I would learn over the years. But all in all Margarita Middle was one of the best points in my life.
“What am I supposed to do again?” I could feel the whole class burning a hole into my face. One way to put it, it was like sitting in a chair of thorns, uncomfortable and extremely painful.
“Read Exercise Seventeen from you Literature Book, and stop daydreaming.” she said in a strict voice as everyone burst with maniacal laughter.
I read the Exercise as I sheltered my face with my palm. I really did it this time. I just crucified myself in front of the class, and to top that off the girl that I liked was in this class, Niki, right here sitting in the row across from me. Niki had olive skin without any blemishes that matched with her dark clothing she always wore. She also had dark black hair and makeup which would probably hold the fact that she had no blemishes. I didn’t care. The point was I liked her. I liked her a lot. After everything cooled down in the classroom I could still feel my face burning with a brutal fire. I couldn’t wait to get out of this torture chamber and chill at break with Billy and Dylan. I hit my head a couple of times and gazed at the clock for the remainder of the period thinking of how stupid I was for what just happened.
“So you asked Monique out yet?” Billy asked me as he took a large bite out of his fresh crimson apple for break.
I turned around and stared at the blue, rusty painted bars I was resting against. We always used to pretend that we were trapped inside a jail. We were sitting at the alleyway that was ruled off-limits next to rooms 35 and 41. Billy was fourteen at the time. He had buzz cut blonde hair and wore glasses. His appearance would remind you of a mouse or some other small furry fragile animal. He was a newcomer to the school; he left his friends in San Diego because his parents got a divorce and his dad found someone here in Temecula. I felt bad for him. But sometimes he would know when to take it too far.
“Shut the fuck up, dude.” I said as I looked over to the end of the alley pissed off at his little comment and saw a person walking towards us.
It wasn’t a student but it looked like a teacher. I tried to make it look like I was doing something by reaching in my backpack to find a book but it remained awkwardly quiet.
“Boys!” He said in a stern military voice finally reaching us, “You know that this is off-limits?”
This man was my ex-neighbor; he was also the school’s vice principal, Mr. Huish. He wore a suit on a daily basis to school and always took his job way to seriously. After all he was a marine who took part in Operation: Desert Storm.
“Yeah, we just like to hang out here.” I said innocently.
From the looks of my retort he didn’t seem pleased with us.
“Well please move or I’m going to write you guys up for defiance.” He ordered us.
We decided to travel to my third period room 34 which was Mrs. Stoehr. Mrs. Stoehr had long blond hair and fair freckled skin. She was one of the nicest teachers on campus that wasn’t tainted like all the others. Around the corner of the building there were two vending machines. We stood right next to these machines and tried to pass the sluggish minutes of break talking about who was the hottest at school when a big, round, black kid looked around the corner at us. He was in my first and second periods, English and Social Studies. His name is Tevarus. This kid always falls asleep in my classes.
“Hi guys.” He said in cheerful voice which didn’t match his skin color. He was black but he sounded like a little kid.
“Hello, Tevarus!” I said, cheerfully smiling as Billy slurped his newly bought Gatorade while trying to hold in a joke at the kid.
“So I heard through the grapevine you have a crush on Niki.” Tevarus assumed in his jolly, cheerful voice.
I turned to Billy and frowned at him. Did he fucking tell? That little bastard. Wait till I get my hands on that-
“Where did you hear that?” I asked trying to evade the question since he was good friends with her.
“Dylan.” He said smiling.
The bell rang. I bid farewell to Billy and waited with Tevarus outside Mrs. Stoehr’s classroom for her to open up the door to her classroom.
“So do you?” Tevarus asked me.
“I just want you to know if you tell me I won’t tell her.”
I looked at the cement beneath me. YES! I had a huge crush on her. YES! I wanted to ask her out. Just when I was about to enlighten Tevarus, Monique walked towards us. FUCK! I can’t tell him now. It’s her.
“Hey Tevarus.” She said laughing as she pushed her black hair out of her shadowed eyes.
God was she beautiful. After a few seconds of awkward silence Mrs. Stoehr came to the rescue and unlocked her door. We walked in. Niki’s desk was directly behind mine and Tevarus’s desk was across the whole classroom towards the back where he would easily get away with falling asleep. The classroom was decorated with art depicting the history of the United States the students would make.
I respected this class because of two things. Mrs. Stoehr had the classroom interact with the history we learned instead of studying it like the other strict teacher, Mr. Key. On one occasion we had to act out the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Even though I loathed it at that time, it was actually pretty enjoyable. The other reason why I loved this classroom was because Niki. This was the classroom where she actually paid attention and messed with me by poking me and stealing my flipped up hat that I loved very much.
Mrs. Stoehr began her usual lesson about history then started a video about the Civil War. I felt my hat being grabbed and I quickly turned around.
“Can you please stop that? “ I whispered but I secretly enjoyed it when Niki did that. I just wanted to look at her beautiful dark face again. She shrank back in her chair and laughed.
I turned back around and smiled at my textbook and pretended like I was paying attention to the video. I looked up at Mrs. Stoehr to make sure she wasn’t looking at us but she smiled back at me. She moved people according to how well they will work with the other students that are seated around them. She knew that I liked Niki.
During my fifth period, on Wednesdays, I had to report to Mrs. Farrow because my bitch of a science teacher thought I needed “help”. Another teacher like Mrs. Stoehr, Mrs. Farrow had blonde hair, an athletic body and was always really nice. She had a classroom that was in the same building as the main office and library. I developed a crush for her immediately. She always seemed to sit on my desk so I could observe her body and ass but I knew that she didn’t do that for that purpose. She did it because she wanted to make me pay attention to the content she was teaching. Well I did for awhile, then my thoughts got the better of me. After class she would always award me a piece of candy. The staff was banned from giving candy because of some students that were considered overweight but she told me that it would be a little secret between us.
After that period was Lunch. This was when we would make up stories about the teachers and write them on the bathroom stalls that were located in between 40 and 46. We would then leave the bathroom and sit around the corner next to the entry of room 46. While we sat there Niki would come over and hang out with us. I always used to draw out my laser pointer and jumble around with it. She would help me guide it into Billy or Dylan’s eyes until the pointer ran out of battery. Niki asked if she could keep it and I told her she could.
That’s pretty much what happened before I asked her out. It continued like that for a few months, subtle things like touching and laughing but I was itching to ask her out. I wanted to but I was too nervous until one day I made the mistake of betting Billy and Dylan that if I won a game of basketball, they would have to ask out Niki for me and if they won I would have to ask her out myself. It was a brutal game but in the end I lost.
When I asked her out I was nervous as hell. We were sitting next to each other in Mrs. Stoehr’s room watching something to do with the South in the United States. I wasn’t really paying much attention to the movie. I poked her on the side and she turned to face me. I couldn’t think of what to say and I ended up not saying a word. She turned back around to look at the movie. I poked her again and asked her,
“Do you maybe want to go to the mall with me Saturday?”
“Uh, sorry but I’m working Saturday. Maybe the week after?” she said apologetically and turned back to the video. I knew that she rejected me. I walked out of the classroom depressed. It wasn’t until Tevarus and Dylan actually told her she started to take a greater interest in me.
I ended up asking her out the last seven weeks of school which was a big mistake but we had tons of fun times together. We were a perfect couple. I loved it when she would sit next to me or hold hands with me. Everyone loved us. It turned out that she left her old middle school on the other side of Temecula near Pechanga because of “drama” that happened over there. She told me her last boyfriend was a piece of shit and dated her just to get in her pants.
There was not one single way to contact her. I was afraid that I might never see her again when school ended since this was our last year here. The seven weeks went by way to fast. We ended up crying together on the last day at the talent show when one kid, Jake Hughes, played a sad song on the piano. It reminded me of the good and bad times I had here at margarita. We walked out of the Auditorium together holding hands. We hugged and cried on each other for around twenty minutes. She knew that this was the end of our relationship. There was no way I could contact her. She kept on saying that she would get a phone over summer. I gave her my cell phone number on a sheet of paper and told her not to lose it. She ended up giving me one of her bracelets that read Niki F.M. on it. I ended up losing it at one of my friend’s houses the same day.
