Continuation

I decided to bring this over here. I'm going to start writing to it again. I think it will be great therapy! :)

I've added on to it. Part of it is in a true story form. I'm curious if I could write a book. This sucker is 10 or 11 pages long so far. If you want to read it then go for it. If you read the other one then you may want to re-read as I've fixed, added to, changed some parts of the first part. This story has a long ways to go. I've got to get to now which is to where Ken is 28 years old. Right now he just turned 16.

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A Sad Happy Story...

It all started a very long time ago, say, 28 years ago. Little Ken was born. Through the years as he was growing up he, like everyone else, dealt with a great number of things that helped him become the person that he is today.

For instance, when he was about five years old his mother, Faye married her second husband, Carl, after only being divorced from Ken's biological father, James, for less than a year. By this time Ken had had a little sister as well. The man that his mother married turned out to be that kind of guy who was an alcoholic, drug abuser, and very abusive to Ken, his sister Leigh, and their mother. So at the ripe old age of five years old Ken was already dealing with psychological abuse, physical abuse, and watching his beloved Mother and sister coping with the same abuses.

One night, Ken and Leigh were in bed asleep. Ken and Leigh slept in a bunk bed. Leigh was three years old. The room was quiet. The door to the room was slightly ajar. The lights from the adjoining rooms were lit so some light crept into the bedroom. Ken was awakened by yelling. This wasn't uncommon. Carl yelled a lot. Now, Ken knew that when Carl was yelling that something bad was going to happen. Ken was always afraid of Carl because it wasn't uncommon for Ken to be physically struck by Carl in some way and usually for no or some little reason. Leigh had a habit of sucking her thumb. That is what little children do. Ken was lying in bed half asleep when he noticed the door to the room open and a dark shadow cast about the ground next to the bed. He knew who it was. Ken just acted like he was asleep hoping that the shadow and the person casting the shadow would disappear without incident. Ken was frightened and continued to act as though he was asleep.

Ken didn't know why Carl was in the room but there must be a reason. See. Carl wasn't very readable as a person. He was quirky and his moods would quickly change. Nowadays he'd probably be considered bipolar. It was difficult to pinpoint what was bothering Carl and he was set off so very quickly that often nobody saw what was about to happen. Chances are on this particular night Carl had been drinking heavily. He, being the mean drunk that he was, was probably set off by the littlest thing like a speck of food left over on the counter or something Faye said or didn't do.

Ken opened his eyes as Carl walked in the room hoping that his eyes being open wouldn't catch Carl's attention. Just as Ken opened his eyes he found Carl looking at the bottom bunk and screaming at the top of his lungs. Ken slept on the top bunk while Leigh slept on the bottom. With lightening quickness Ken noticed that Leigh was getting pulled out of bed. Now, Leigh was sound asleep and was happily sucking her thumb in a blissful slumber. Apparently, to Carl, babies sucking their thumbs while sleeping was an unacceptable act warranting sever punishment. Carl yanked her out of bed and with one arm held her struggling crying body tightly while with his other hand unbuckled and pulled his belt out from his pant loops in one fell swoop. He looped the belt and began hitting poor little Leigh on her back and butt over and over again and as hard as he could. Her thin pajamas offered no protection to the beating that she was forced to endure. Now Ken was startled, which was a feeling he was all-to-familiar with. As usual, he didn't know what to do against this big man. Ken started crying but got out of bed nonetheless. He loved his little sister and didn't want to see her get hurt so he was yelling for his mommy while watching his little sister get beat to a pulp by this guy. Ken was also quite concerned for his own well-being as he knew he was no match for Carl and his anger. Leigh was screaming and crying and that crying turned to shrieking as the beatings continued. Carl was yelling obscenities and charging Leigh with sucking her thumb. He reminded this three year old child that she had been told numerous times not to suck her thumb. It wasn't long before Faye tried to save them as any mother would and came charging to the rescue. Ken was relieved but the fight was just getting started. Carl was a strong man and very much in shape. As Faye tried to enter the room Carl blocked the door with his foot at the base disallowing Faye to open the door enough to come into the room and save the kids; the yelling, the beating, the crying all continued. However, to Ken it became a blur. Ken marveled at how well the door was holding up to the tug-of-war between the two adults. The screaming was crazy and Ken has no recollection about how the whole thing ended. In fact, the only thing Ken remembered was that they ended up at Ken's Grandma's house and Child Protective Services checking the welts on both Ken's and Leigh's bodies. Oh yes. Ken was not only a bystander in that incident. However, he doesn't remember what happened exactly. Yes, indeed. Not a good night.

There were many instances of abuse in Ken's young life. If it wasn't physical abuse then it was at least some kind of verbal or psychological abuse. When Ken was still five years old he was helping Carl put down a brick patio next to the house. Ken was actually laying the brick. He was doing work that usually only adults do. This was common for Carl to make the kids work this way.

Another night Ken was innocently sitting at the table in the dining room by the kitchen. Carl was in the living room drinking his beers and watching TV. Carl started in on Ken with some kind of strange banter about alcohol. The next thing Ken knew was that Carl was talking to Ken about drinking beer. Ken wanted no part of it but eventually was forced to drink the last few drops of the beer left in Carl's beer bottle. Ken was still five years and he wanted nothing to do with the beer but was scared that if he didn't do as he was told then he would get beat.

Naturally, Ken was always very afraid of Carl. Ken wouldn't speak out loud at home. He would always whisper to his mother and if he needed to speak to Carl it was only out of necessity and as seldom as possible. It was not uncommon for Ken to get beat in the face with a closed fist by Carl. Ken doesn't ever remember the reasons why he was hit. It was probably for little reasons like not thoroughly cleaning a dish or accidentally dropping a plastic glass on the floor. In fact, Ken was so scared of Carl that on occasion Ken would get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. Only Ken would be so scared to leave the safety of his own room to go to the bathroom that he would actually pee in the corner of his closet.

Now, Ken was a good boy. He was always quite helpful in the house. Leigh was a good girl. They got along very well unlike many brothers and sister. What siblings wouldn't get along as well as these two? After all, they'd put up with so much together

After a few years of being married to Carl, Faye finally ran away for the umpteenth time and divorced Carl. Naturally, Faye was forced to work for income in order to keep the family going so she would place the care of Leigh in Ken's hands. There was no money to pay for childcare. Ken learned to cook when he was around six years old. This was actually an accomplishment that Ken was quite pleased with. Ken was forced to take on the responsibilities of a young adult as a child.

Several years went by for them. During these years Ken had developed into a young man. They were always very poor. Faye didn't have any kind of formal education save a little bit of college. It was much more difficult for women to get jobs that paid well and treated them properly in that day.

Ken and Leigh grew up wearing clothes that were always other peoples' hand-me-downs. Church was always helpful in that way. The church helped them with clothes, food, and even Christmas toys and birthday presents on those occasions. Ken was always grateful to have what he had, though. He wasn't familiar with anything else. He didn't know what it was like to have new clothes and new things. In fact any time they got new things it was an extra, extra treat and one that was very rare. Ken even got to the point that the bags of hand-me-downs were new clothes for him and was usually pretty excited to see what new things he would be able to start wearing to school.

By the time Ken was in sixth grade they had moved over twenty times, been through at least ten different schools, and had already been through so much more in his life than people his own age that he simply did not relate to his peer group. Ken wasn't into the mainstream, so-to-speak. Fashion didn't exist to him and he always dressed himself. That joking comment about how "your momma dresses you funny" never could truthfully be used against Ken because his momma never dressed him and it showed!

Ken once got this one pair of white shorts. They were "ob" shorts that he loved because they looked nice on him, he though! He liked that they were a name brand that was mainstream sometime in that day. He would wear them all the time; nevermind that these shorts were probably outdated by a year or two to the fashion-minded. Ken didn't know better nor did he care. Ken was only interested in living a life where he was dressed and could be good and do the right things. He was very close to his faith and his family. He didn't read much at all and in fact found it boring. So, needless to say his academics suffered often times. The things that interested in him most were generally physical in nature like sports, and running. He enjoyed Dodge Ball. That was his favorite game ever. He enjoyed the modified version of the sport that he and everyone else called Nation Ball. He played games like soccer and pickle. He loved to run, though. That was his favorite thing to do.

One day in school he was running through the play ground during recess. He was running so fast! He truly felt like nothing could catch him. He ran and ran and then something caught his attention so he turned his head while continuing to run straight forward. Ken didn't see the light pole until he ran straight into it and fell to the ground on his back knocking him practically unconscious. Nobody witnessed this little blunder of his but he surely felt pretty silly once he came to.

Ken wasn't very large in stature during his elementary years. In fact he was pretty skinny and not so tall. Ken had brown, very thick, and puffy hair and rarely washed. He got haircuts from his mom because she couldn't afford to take him to the barber so his hair probably wasn't the best cut and was usually dirty and scraggly. Ken, however, was a humble boy. Since he wore hand-me-downs he wasn't ever well-dressed. He was polite and shy but always felt like he fit in better with adults than children. He didn't get along with his peers very well save a few and only a very little few. He was clumsy! Once, while in sixth grade he was leaving the nurses office at his school in Costa Mesa, CA. He, being the athletic kid that he was, decided that he wanted to run through the atrium and jump the chain that was linked between the poles holding up the awning of the corridor between classrooms. He decided to make a last second change to his plan at what point along the chain he was going to jump. He decided to jump the chain at its highest point closes to the pole. He was positive this would not be a problem for him. Unfortunately, his foot decided otherwise and hooked the chain just as Ken was at the apex of his jump. He came crashing down to the ground. His three front teeth were the first things to make contact with the concrete and the loudest and most female shriek to come from a boy was made from Ken at that moment. He got over it though. He was taken to a dentist where false teeth were capped over what was left of his real teeth and continued that way through high school.

Ken wasn't good at all talking to the girls at all. He missed the class on how to be confident when talking to the ladies. He would go out on a limb and talk to a girl now and then. Therefore, the girl thing didn't happen very often. It wasn't uncommon for him to have a list of girls that he thought were attractive. The list grew but his getting to know those girls never happened.

Ken enjoyed many things, though. He enjoyed riding his bicycle. He didn't get one until he was in fourth grade. He was always good at putting things together and had an aptitude for mechanical things. In fact, he assembled his first bicycle that wasn't really put together completely correctly but that never stopped him from riding it and it was ridden for several years. He got many years of enjoyment out of that machine.

Ken was a complainer! If things didn't go his way then he would complain! Most of his friends, what few he had, found this to be very annoying about him. He was never good at realizing if a girl liked him or not. Ken found some girls to just be plain annoying.

Now, let's talk about school and girls a little more. Ken wasn't always a great student. He was naturally lazy. He didn't like doing his work and much preferred to do the things that were more pleasing to him. Ken was an intelligent kid but lazy! The fact that Ken had few friends was something that Ken had to get use to as he grew older. However, even though he rarely had many friends he was always sufficiently happy to have the friends that he did have.

He started liking girls as far back as first grade. In first grade, for instance, he had a strong crush on a little girl named Michelle. Nowadays if you were to ask him why he liked her so much, he wouldn't remember. In third grade there was a girl that he really liked. She liked him, too. Her name was Tracy. She sat in the row next to him. Ken didn't have anyone else that liked him until sixth grade and a girl named Billy-Jo. They were best friends and having this kind of friendship was very rare, new, and fresh for Ken. Unfortunately, his family moved, though, and never saw her again.

Ken loved his mother, who coincidentally was quite a strict mom and was not one to be trifled with. If they acted up she didn't put up with it. She didn't put up with being talked back to or sassed with and there was only very little disobedience that she would put up with. They saw her date many men and it was somewhat common to have a new man in the house. Fortunately, they were innocent enough not to suspect anything wrong going on.

Ken grew up as a child with a different point of view to everyone else. He rarely cared about what his peers thought of him while he was in grade school. He didn't have any friends in junior high school – not one. In fact, Ken rarely even recognized that his peers even existed. Ken wanted friends but wasn't overly eager to find them; not because he didn't want to know how to find them but because he simply didn't know how to find them. Most adolescents looked at him in disgust at school and at church. Remember, Ken was a shy boy. He was one who truly enjoyed good things. He loved flowers and little things. He cared for living things and even sometimes for inanimate things. As a young boy it wasn't uncommon for Ken to be told to throw something away. As he was obediently doing so, if the item he was told to dispose of was at all useful then he would feel bad about throwing it away. The difficult part for him, however, was throwing something away that he personified and so he felt as though he were doing some kind of horrible punishment to the item that he was throwing away. The one thing that would help him feel better was that he would talk to the object and apologize to it that it was to be discarded. He would reassure the object that its usefulness would not be forgotten.

In junior high school Ken did horribly in his academics, socially (still), and in every aspect. It wasn't more painfully obvious to any boy that he was more utterly useless to anybody than at any other time in his life than this one. Now to a teenager it's already difficult to grow up. However, Ken's life was way worse as he was still poor, he was still funny looking (aka UGLY), and he was still not capable of getting along with his peer group. He didn't have anything he could do in school that was extracurricular. He was often late to school because he'd miss the bus. He had had time where he'd have to walk to school in the rain without a rain jacket. He'd end up at school sopping wet as though he'd just gotten out of the pool with all of his clothes on. He had crooked teeth and so thin that he looked like a snaggle-toothed skeleton with skin draped over it and the largest brown fro a white boy could have. There were some teachers who didn't like him. The only people he could count on for some kind of understanding and love was his family. This wasn't helpful to Ken, though. What adolescent recognizes his mother as the person of choice to go to for some kind of acceptance? All children know or should know that their parents will always accept them. Ken was starting to seek out acceptance from his own age group. This was a futile desire. He didn't like himself. He saw no worth in himself. It became more and more painfully obvious to him by the age of thirteen that he didn't fit in. He didn't wear the right kind of clothes. He didn't have the same stuff as the kids around him. The one thing that helped him was that he was a nice boy. The people who did get to know him by talking to him knew that he was good and had good intentions.

One time in eighth grade he had somehow managed to make another boy so mad that he declared he was going to fight Ken and beat him up. Naturally, Ken was surprised, scared, and wanted nothing to do with this guy. Ken didn't know what he did to make this other boy mad at him but the last thing Ken wanted was some kind of conflict with somebody else.

Ken had an interesting philosophy on fights. As a young boy and who often had other boys who didn't like him and wanted to fight him, Ken always tried to and was almost always successful at averting a fight. The reason was because he thought that even if he had one a fight against another boy that that boy who lost would simply let pride and ego consume him and would hold a grudge against Ken. This would only cause the loser to go and find a bunch of friends to gang up against Ken. Then, Ken could go and get his friend or two and continue the battle. In turn, this would simply cause gangs to form and they would declare street wars on each other eventually solving nothing. So, Ken wasn't into fighting and found them to be futile gestures of stupidity.

So, Ken would avoid contact with this boy at all costs. If the boy was coming one way down the hallway then Ken would turn down another hallway or turn around altogether. Unfortunately, one sunny day Ken had to go to the bathroom during class. He asked his teacher if he could leave the classroom to relieve himself to which she answered in the affirmative. He left. He blissfully went to the bathroom to do the thing that he went there for. He was washing his hands when the bigger boy who had declared a personal war upon Ken walked into the bathroom. Now this boy was bigger, taller, and meaner than Ken. Ken swallowed his heart when the boy walked in. Thought he, what kind of luck is this?

Ken didn't want to seem like a chicken so he didn't run out of the bathroom. No, instead he continued washing his hands. The boy finished his duty and was walking toward the sink to wash his hands when Ken some how managed to summon up the courage to talk to the boy.

"Um, I'm not sure what I did to cause you to hate me…" Ken muttered. By this time the boy started coming up on Ken. However, Ken continued,

"…but whatever I did to cause you to dislike me, I apologize."

From that day forward, though Ken never really talked to the boy, the boy actually protected Ken and was friendly toward Ken all the way through the end of the year. Ken learned a big lesson that day. It's better to talk your way out of rough situations than it is to fight your way out of them.

Ken continued on through school. In his sophomore year of high school Ken had to get braces. Unfortunately, the braces didn't work at first. Apparently, the accident that Ken had in elementary school was so traumatic to his front tooth that the roots of that tooth bound to his jaw, which disallowed any movement of the teeth for the braces to be affective. There was nothing the dentist could do. He was required to remove the cap from Ken's real tooth and remove the real tooth from Ken's front upper jaw. However, the dentist wouldn't be able to put the necessary new bridge in Ken's mouth until after the braces' work was done. The dentist decided that he could put a fake tooth in Ken's mouth to fill the gap of the missing real tooth. The dentist simply attached a brace bracket to the fake tooth and the fake tooth to the wire of the braces. Ken had to go through high school with not only having braces in his already large mouth but having a tooth that could literally twirl around the brace wire and often didn't stay in place especially while he was talking. Now, not only did Ken have the skinny body, a pimply face, a mouth the size of Iowa, poofy hair that would put a clown to shame, and the lack of any kind of decent clothing, but he had braces that happily gleamed in the sunlight when his big mouth opened, a twirly-tooth that would flap in the wind like a windmill if he merely opened his mouth half-mast, and he wore clothes that only pimps wore in the 70's. Yep, he was stylin! There's more, though. Ken wasn't the most socially smart kid, either. Ken enjoyed running. Ken also thought that the ladies thought his running was cool, apparently, because Ken would run from class to class sometimes. Ken's date life probably suffered from all of these things. Needless to say, Ken didn't date much in high school.

That's alright, though. Ken didn't know what he really wanted anyway. It's widely known that people are attracted to one another at young ages. However, what's not widely discussed is why. Why do children feel like they need to have a boyfriend or a girlfriend at such young ages? Is it because their parents don't love them enough at home that they feel they need to reach for it from some other person? Is it because there is some innate human emotional desire that knows that at some point one is going to find one's mate in the future anyway so the human body just gets started at an earlier age? I don't know the answers to these questions and neither did Ken. However, it doesn't really matter. He was attracted to the opposite gender. The opposite gender was not so attracted to him to which he was fully aware.

Ken was in the high school band. This probably didn't score him too many points with many people, but he loved it! This was the one place where he fit in with many people. Bands are interesting. They are full of self-proclaimed misfits who all have one purpose: work together to achieve a goal. Ken loved being in the band. He really loved the camaraderie. He finally made a few lasting friends who saw a different kind of potential in him. He played the drums, which was something he had always had a mild interest in if he ever played an instrument. Marching band was his favorite thing to do. Ken enjoyed going to contests and being a part of the team competing against other local and sometimes not-so-local schools. Ken's band was one of the better ones in the region and everybody got along great including Ken. He didn't care about people in school making fun of his being a "band geek". However, truthfully, people rarely made fun of the band folks in Ken's school because the band really was quite good and had a good reputation. However, the reputation of the band in school didn't get the people who were in the band cool points. They simply didn't get made fun of as often as one would think.

Ken's date life suffered all through his high school years. He had one girlfriend in his sophomore year that broke up with him after three months. She broke up with him by letter. Ken had another girlfriend in his senior year. She, too, broke up with him after three months. She broke up with him by letter. The stories behind these two breakups were not at all similar. It wasn't because of Ken that these two girls broke up with him, either. There were two completely different stories.

Ken was fifteen coming up on sixteen years old and was in band practice one evening just before a football game. He played the smallest base drum in the drumline and was the bass drum section leader. While he was practicing he noticed a new girl in the back by his section off to the side watching and listening. He could tell she was a band helper because of the uniform she was wearing. Apparently she was only a helper because she was still technically too young to be in the band. Nevertheless, something about her caught his attention. Melissa was thirteen years old, short, and pretty at least in Ken's eyes. She had curly brown hair just past her shoulders and she had big innocent hazel eyes. She could play the piano very well but was a flautist in the band. She was very talented, which appealed to Ken. Melissa was quiet-spoken and seemed almost sad. She had a pretty smile that caught Ken's attention immediately.

Ken wasn't good at talking to girls even in his sophomore year of high school. However, somehow he mustered up the courage to talk to her if only to say a few words. She was easy to talk to. She was nice. She was interesting and attractive. They became friends.

A week went by and he really liked Melissa a lot. However, he had no idea how to ask her to be his girlfriend, which is what he wanted. Finally, he decided that he needed to simply confront her on the matter. He walked up to her during a band practice after school. He didn't sway or back down. He didn't turn around wistfully only to change his mind. He boldly walked up to her. Well, not boldly but he didn't back down. He walked up to her and told her that he really liked her. He asked her to be his girlfriend. She didn't answer. In fact, she told him that she would think about it and get back to him. Ken wasn't too keen on this answer. He wasn't stupid. So he decided to simply back off. Ken ended up telling one of the other boys in his bass section about how he felt about Melissa and what he asked her and what her response was. The boy's name was Rob. Rob knew Melissa and offered to ask Melissa what her answer was. Ken was pretty sure he already knew what the answer was but he took Rob up on the offer and off went Rob to do some fact finding.

Moments later Rob returned. "Dude, she said yes!"

"What?" inquired Ken.

"She said yes!!" repeated Rob.

Ken had never felt so elated in his life. He felt as though he was lifted off the ground, hovering in joy he'd never felt before.

Melissa went to the junior high school, which was right down the street. So Melissa and Ken only saw one another in the evenings for band practice and during band contests and games during band season. However, when band season was over they had no way of seeing one another except for brief moments on the bus.

The high and junior high schools were on the same street. The small city they lived in was sort of shaped like a barbell where the bar was the main road linking to main portions of the city together and the schools were on each extreme end. Naturally, students from both schools lived on either end of the city so busses dropping off students on, say, the left side of the city would pick up students at the school closest to the right side of the city first and then would go to the school closest to the left side of the city and pick up students there then continue on to the homes located in the left side of the city to drop off it's load of children. Vice versa was true for the children who lived on the other end. Melissa lived on the right side of the city and was going to the junior high school that was on the left side of the city. Thus, Ken would be at the high school as Melissa's bus was passing through to pick up those students. Melissa and Ken would religiously pass notes through the window and this was how the majority of their relationship was spent since her parents didn't like her going out with an older boy. She was told to break up with him but they couldn't do it. They talked on the phone every night and could talk and talk. Jim truly was in love, so he thought. Melissa told her parents that she had broken up with him so any rendezvous were secret. Now, Ken met Melissa's parents once. He liked her mom but her father creeped him out. Ken felt something wrong with the man but he never told Melissa.

Melissa and Ken would meet and spend time with one another at various band get-togethers and things of that nature. They were caught together by Melissa's parents on a few occasions with no adverse reactions of her parents.

This same kind of thing continued on for the three months until one day Ken received a letter through the bus window from Melissa. This time the letter was different than usual. This time the letter was morose and ended up telling Ken that she needed to break up with him. Ken read the letter several times on the way to his house while riding the bus and he just didn't understand why she was breaking up with him. It didn't seem like anything was wrong with the relationship. Ken called Melissa as soon as he got home and asked her what was wrong.

"Did I do something wrong?" inquired Ken.

"No. I just don't feel right lying to my parents anymore about us and I think we should break up. I don't want to break up with you but…" answered Melissa.

"Melissa, I know it's hard but they don't understand! Please don't break up with me."



Ken finally convinced Melissa that breaking up was too difficult to do.



The next day was like déjà vous. Ken went up to the bus to swap letters with Melissa. This time her letter stated that she needed to break up with him but that the reason was very much different from what the previous letter said. This letter taught Ken a very important thing about life and brought to light something that he had never before had to deal with before in his young life and that is other peoples' wrong-doings and how they affect others.

Melissa's letter was chilling but explained how her father had been sexually molesting her for a long time and that they could no longer be together in order to protect Ken. Melissa didn't get into specifics. She didn't need to. Ken was so infuriated and so angry at her father. Ken, however, didn't know what to do. Fortunately, however, Melissa had already started on the path to getting things fixed by telling her mother shortly after she told Ken. However, from the day that she broke up with him they didn't see one another again until the next year at band camp. By that time Ken had already moved on feeling as though Melissa wanted nothing to do with him.

The next year Ken had started noticing another new girl in the band. It was the beginning of his junior year of school and school had not even started yes. The band starts practicing for the new year months before school starts. Melissa started playing in the high school band this one year and they had opportunities to talk, however Ken avoided her not because he didn't care for her still but because he didn't know how to talk to her. Ken thought that she didn't like him anymore and he had moved on. He was interested in seeing what would happen with Terrah. Terrah played the saxophone. Now, she was thirteen years old. Ken was, now, sixteen years old and driving. Terrah's mother was a band helper. The rules had changed that year in the band and people who were thirteen and going to the junior high school could march in the high school marching band as long as they had a way to the high school and didn't miss practices or contests Ken and Terrah didn't t know each other that well but they talked occasionally and he was finding that he liked her.

One afternoon just after a practice session, Ken was outside near the band room entrance waiting for his ride home when Melissa came out. Ken saw a big difference in Melissa. She was happy! Before she used to be quite melancholy. He liked the new Melissa but was still hurt by what happened.


"What are you doing?" Melissa asked.

"I'm waiting for a ride." He replied.

"I'm waiting for my mom to come pick me up, too."

"How are things?" He asked.

"My father is in jail. He's been indicted for six years. I'm better. My mom didn't believe me at first. I told her but she got mad at me and didn't believe what I told her. I told my Grandma, too. Finally, other things started becoming more obvious and my mom called the police. Now everything is good." She replied.

"You seem happier now. I'm glad that everything went well for you."

"Do you want to go and do something?" She inquired.

"No. I better not."

"I'm learning how to drive when my mom gets here." Melissa said happily.

"What?? You're not even old enough to start learning to drive!"

"So? It's a parking lot and I've already done some driving." She balked.

"You know? You're going to get in trouble. You're not allowed to drive. Besides, why are you even talking to me? You broke with me, remember?"

Now Ken really was curious. He didn't understand why Melissa was spending the time with him. It was a perfectly temperate pre-fall day. It was partly cloudy and the leaves were falling off the trees. As the conversation continued he was sitting by a light pole and she was standing by the pole holding on to it with her hand and walking circles around Ken. The sun was dusk and about an hour and a half from being gone for the night. There were only a few other students out doing various things. Ken and Melissa were pretty much alone in this area. He was calmly waiting for a ride.

"I didn't want to!" retorted Melissa. Ken felt good when she said that but he didn't know how to react. And what about Terrah. He liked Terrah and was curious where that would go.

"I did what I thought I was supposed to do! I'm sorry if I hurt you." She continued.

Now when she uttered these words Ken was even more confused and didn't know what to say.

"My mom will be here soon. If you want we can give you a ride home." Melissa offered.

Ken was nervous because the last time he heard Melissa's mom didn't like him. However, Ken didn't have much of a choice whether he wanted to stick around and find out because into the parking lot drove Melissa's mother.

"There she is! What's your choice?" She asked.

Just then Melissa's mom greeted them as she drove up.

"Hi guys!"