The Bee

It was never my intention to end up like this; swollen and barely able to breathe, shaking in fear and in shock on the park pavement. Underneath me is my foe, the source of my pressumed early death, the day my twenty-two year old self will the see the light; a bee. A crushed, flattened, stinger-less bee, who decided that me sitting on a park bench, is the single offense that it needed to risk its life for death. If I wasn't having an allergic reaction I would've laughed at its stupid dead body like the three year old I am, but unfortunately I might soon join the insect. Fuck you, Barry B. Benson. It didn't take long for some passing joggers to crouch down next to me in panic as they tried to call the ambulance to save my life. Through this ordeal, I couldn't help but remember something, the catalyst to me changing my life all the way back in high school. I hadn't thought about it in years and it just had to be that one stupid promise he made that's got me choking in tears.

It was high school, the glamour years of impending scheduled tests, the god-awful school food, two year friendships, and more that I could, but won't, list. I wasn't known to be the most trustworthy of guys, but I had my fair share of reputation in the three story building. Some had feared me for my money, some from rumours that various girls and boys of different status' would spread. Maybe it was because I set fire to a bicycle my freshman year or maybe that time when I was a junior and I almost made a kid leave school due to severe bullying. I was an asshole; a complete, fucked up, asshole. It all changed in my junior year though (sounds so cliché, but it's true). I remember it as clear as day despite the blurry white spots that cloud my eyes in the present. It started it off as any other day, alarm ringing at six a.m. and me already awake, ready to destroy every waking moment for some kids. I remember walking to school, listening to some random songs on my phone. The trees were stripped of leaves, the dead remains of its once green companions littered on the ground and swept up and away by October winds. The road was slick wet from the rain the night before, the sky gray and clouds so thick it covered the sun completely. It was cold and rainy and I loved it. Some details happened between 7:00 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., details that I don't know if I actually can't remember or my brain had erased it from the confines of my memory. Anyways, I sat on my desk in the middle of the back row, backpack strewn on the floor. I keep my earphones in, blasting an over played song as the teacher walks in, mouth moving but all I could hear was the repeated verse of the annoying ass song. She stopped talking and looked at the door, beckoning someone in. 'Ah, new meat.' I remember thinking and I smirked to myself. I waited for the new student to walk in, my expectations conjuring a small, scrawny kid who's nervous as hell. It was when the new kid stepped in my line of vision that I knew something has changed. My whole body went through a shock, knowing that his presence would be the addition that would change this whole entire school. I knew that familiar emptiness in my gut, that jealousy, that vile feeling of being outshined.

I knew something was wrong when the colour of that day was gray, and he stepped in with the angriest hue of red.