Chelsea's Friends (sneak peek into first chapter, let me know how it is.)

From the beginning I had always been the odd kid. I didn’t grow up in a secured home. When I was born my mother immediately gave me up for adoption, she told the doctor specifically that when I came out she didn’t want to hear if I was a girl or boy, she just wanted my adopted parents to take me right away. She did leave me with one thing though, the name Chelsea. Chelsea, although it has a nice ring to it, sadly did not fit on a masculine figure so instead my adopted parents, Jane and Jim, changed my name to Kasey. Ironically, it still had a feminine ring to it. I go by whatever people want to call me, fag, emo, douche, loser, pothead, etc. I realized in life that name calling won’t ever stop, the human mind is too intelligent to stop coming up with different terms for every individual person it crosses, and the human mind is always going to judge a person, first impressions are what make you anyway. The world carries so much ignorance, but not enough to stop me and my friends, the ones that stuck by me through everything even though they had another life to care for, know me so much better. Occasionally, I struggle to find the courage to just slap everyone silly; I struggle because it’s out of my nature to arise such a violent action, and because I can’t slap someone into a whole new person. In the end they are them, and I am me. So let me introduce myself, I’m Chelsea, and whoever else you’d like me to be.

I know, you must be thinking, well, if this child still did grow up with a mother and father to call his own, didn’t he live in a secured home? No, that’s not at all the case. Have you ever heard of that saying, “Home is where the heart is”, well my heart was never set and stoned in that house. To say the least, I hated that house, with every bone in my body. Jane and Jim? They have never been mom and dad, and probably never will be. Let’s not get into that though, let’s talk about my living situation. Let’s talk about where I stay, the air I breathe, and how green the grass is on my side. I live in the Los Angeles County. It may seem as if there is plenty to do but in reality there is only about six amusing places to visit. I go to a charter school, it’s not that bad. I have my music most days while I attend class so I’m not completely dwelling for the day to end. Funny, I say that as if I have a life after I leave school, the next day will be just the same as the day today, and the day tomorrow, and the one next week. Music, blasting in my ears, making its way down my throat, into my lungs, then casually wrapping itself around my heart. Most guys my age have someone, someone to trust, to love. I’m honestly in love with music, possibly addicted. It’s a relationship no one will understand, I guess. So, I can be all metaphoric when it comes to how my life really is or I can be straight up, in other words boring, not creative at all and say it sucks. When I enter my house after a long hard day of trying to tune most of my teachers out, I lay in my room, with no one to text on this stupid phone I carry with me everywhere, or no one to sit and laugh with me about how ridiculous reality shows are now a days. Jane and Jim aren’t home, most days they’re out partying, something I should be doing. Sad isn’t it? I was cursed right when I entered this world. Cursed with longing for something more, for someone, anyone.

Eventually you get tired of feeling like someone permanently wounded your heart, you get tired of gulping down the harsh signs reality shoves in your face every time you drive down the street that leads to your own hell hole. Time just needs to move faster sometimes, and when you’re home alone everyday your mind wonders, it wonders down two unusual-suspicious streets. One will ask you what you’re going to do with your life every ten seconds and try to motivate you into becoming greater than what you think you are, while the other will doubt your very existence, it will bring up how you weren’t even loved from the beginning, and how your guardians move past you as if you were a ghost anyway. You get tired of it, you need a gateway. Shit, I just proved a point that all therapists tried to prove to me. Whatever, fuck it. Alright, so I needed a gateway. Weed became exactly that for me, I’d breathe it in and exhale with the sweet melody of lyrics into the empty rooms within my house. Into Jane and Jim’s room, into the dining room, into the living room, into the game room, and right in front of the front door. Sometimes I’d follow the smoke that left my mouth, looking down at the wooden floors, stumbling a bit, giggling to myself, mumbling more lyrics, throwing my arms off to the sides, bringing my dead-drooped down hands back to life. I’d lean them up against the wall and keep walking, making my way down to the front door, similar to how a drunken fool looks like as he stumbles his way down an alley. So many things run through my mind every time. I’ll stare at that door knob, stick my arm out, and try to bring my hand back to life, try to make my finger touch the knob. I try, but never can I be free like the smoke that scatters after it has smacked into the wall. Freedom, that word always escapes from my lips. Soon I find myself sitting on the leathered couch right across from the marbled coffee table, looking straight ahead, through the silk curtains and outside. Into a world where I wish I could run freely. Looking at how green the grass is, and how unhappy I am to be here.

I was just about to break my gaze from the outside world and lock myself up in my room to a world in which I was very familiar with. I was, but then I couldn’t, because there was someone moving into the house that used to the Bakers. I stood up and walked over to the window, pushing the silk curtains aside as I observed an older man frantically waving his arms while the movers truck backed up into their mail box. I moved my eyes to the truck to see a woman exit the huge vehicle, her arms frantically waving back at the man indicating that she was arguing that the incident had not been her fault. Then, my heart dropped, and my mouth flew open. A tall thin yet built male jumped out of the car, dragging behind him a skateboard. He smirked at the arguing couple and flipped his non-existent long hair. Instead of the long skater hair that was very common, he had short black hair that drew more attention to his skinny well proportioned face. I noticed the black septum piercing that hung from his nose, the spider bites piercing that rested against his lips, and the collage of tattoos that hug his neck. My heart stopped, and my mouth flew open because this guy seemed like someone I could get along with, because he doesn’t know me, because he is new, because he would need someone to associate himself with, and because he just had this look that made me believe he would not judge me.

I moved away from the window when I noticed his mother looking at me, she lifted her hand and waved towards me as she conceived a friendly-neighborly smile. I raised my dead hand to wave back but instead it fell against the window, I smiled back at her before placing my eyes on the floor that led to my room, I shuffled along the familiar path, sliding my hand against the window and then the walls. It was until I heard a knock on the front door, I froze in the middle of the hallway. I was not expecting the normal engagement of introduction until later. I rushed into the small bathroom on the right, frantically looking for eye drops. As my eyes cleared, I dapped myself with a little bit of axe and then rushed to the door, I placed my dead hand on the door knob, doing what I always came so close to doing, I turned the knob slowly then peered out of the door to meet with the tatted boys green eyes.

“Hello, the names Anthony, kid,” said the tatted boy before I opened the door widely enough to see his whole figure. He stood there leaned up against the wall of the house, chewing on some gum while eagerly looking inside behind me.

After a moment of silence I opened my mouth, “Hello, I’m Chelsea, or whatever else you decide to call me, come in.”

“Chelsea, huh?” he said as he pushed into the living room before flopping himself on my couch, “Unique, never heard a dude named something so feminine before.”

“It’s a long story,” I mumbled before closing the door behind me, I went into my room and brought back my bong, “Now that I’m aware it’s just you, Anthony, and not your mother, I’d like to continue what I was doing before I opened the door for you, if that is okay.”

“Okay? Hah, it’s more than alright my friend! Stay lifted!” he released a scratchy-weezy laugh that sounded like the rapper, Lil Wayne’s scream, he snatched the bong from my hand and observed it, touching every part of it. He moved his hand down to every pattern that was on it. His eyes looked as if they were attached it, he was focusing hard on the galaxy looking patterns before meeting contact with the mushroom shape in the middle that had reggae colors wrapped around it.

“Dude, this fucking bong is insane man! I love the colors bro, I dig the design hardcore. Looks fucking rad, hah,” he shoved the bong back into my hands and pulled out a dinosaur looking pipe, “Yo, this right here is Floaty the Dinosaur!” I observed its structure before filling my empty expression with a wide spread grin.

“It’s beautiful.” I said as I handed him the lighter, he already had a bowl packed, he smirked at me before inhaling the gorgeous plant, he waited a while, letting the weed make its way down his lungs and into his system before releasing out the rest of the smoke.

“What’s its name?” he said gesturing towards my bong with the lighter, I removed the lighter from his hand and lit the plant that was sitting patiently in the bong, I inhaled all the smoke I could, sinking the bong before removing the downstem, I let the smoke make its way down into my lungs before releasing a cloud of smoke, I coughed and smirked before responding, “What name?”

“What name?!” he said as he applauded my cloud of smoke then set his dilated eyes on mine, “You mean to tell me that you have not named this beautiful son of a bitch?!”

I smiled and nudged him before setting her down, “She has a name now.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he smiled and laughed his loud and obnoxious weezy laugh before nudging me back, “Well, beautiful son of a bitch needs to make me smile wider than Floaty ever could.” We exchanged, I now held Floaty, breathing her in as if she were the only thing I could breathe while Anthony did the same to B-SAB.

We both coughed our smokers cough and then we sat there, at first in an awkward silence, letting the plant work its magic on us, after a while Anthony broke the silence with a laugh. Then I laughed, and we laughed together, about what? I could not even begin to tell you, but then we started laughing at his parents struggling outside, the reality show that made fun of human existence, and then each other’s laugh. When we couldn’t laugh anymore we began to talk about things such as life, my view on life actually, and whether or not aliens existed.

Once we both came to the conclusion that they really do exist, we moved on to a more personal level, and that’s when I told him about my name. He nodded in understanding before giving me a side hug then explaining on how amazing my story is so far. I tried to counter him, saying that my life is not a story, it is my life, but then he said, “Then what did you just tell me? This is not the definition of ‘life’ this is a mere summary of yours. This is a story on what has happened so far to your character. I look at life as a story, because you can choose who you want in it, what happens, and how you end. Some say that there is no choice in how things end, but I disagree, considering the end of the world has yet to happen and time is just an illusion to keep track of day.”

My mouth flew open as I tried to come up with something to say, Anthony looked blankly at my expression and I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Rad.” I said, before I obnoxiously started laughing, Anthony laughed right along with me for a while then stopped and stared at Floaty.

“I’m serious though Chelsea, I’m dead serious, man. I don’t mean to go all lecture teachery on you-“

“Lecture teachery? What in the actual fuck?” I laughed so hard that I fell off the couch, Anthony was laughing too and then he grabbed B-SAB he lit her up again before inhaling her breath.

I watched him, with a wide grin spreading across my face. I turned from him and looked up at the ceiling, inhaling the beautiful scent that filled the halls and rooms. Someone finally understood me, even if he didn't, he had the audacity to pretend to care and I enjoyed his presence.