The Forrest Chronicles

Gage and Mrs. Mo Mo have told me they want to hear about the story of Forrest. So, here it is.
 At first, I was lonely. I was sitting with Gage on the bus to HCTC. I looked at him with no makeup on and my hair as flat as my pre-prom booty.

                “Gage. I need a boyfriend.”

                “Oh! My friend Forrest just broke up with his girlfriend, he asked me to find him a girl.”

                “Is he cute?”

                “I think so!” Gage hands me his phone to show me a text from Forrest, saying all the “requirements” needed to be his girlfriend. I start reading the overly pornstar-ish list, and I laugh.

                “I don’t qualify for any of this,” I read the list out loud.

                                       “-Big boobs

                                         -Big butt

                                         -Blonde hair

                                         -Likes to play video games, huh, one that actually fits me

                                         -Can’t be fat” I stop reading the list.

                “This is ridiculous, I’m one of these.”

                “Well, I can always ask him still.” Gage says. “He’s tried getting with Aislynn and Natalie already, is that ok?” he laughs.

                “Haha, that’s fine.” I SHOULDN’T HAVE AGREED.

                                                At first I thought I was in love. Yes I know, that’s really cheesy. I’m in high school, how does a high schooler know love? Petty relationships, that’s all we have in high school. Other people will argue and argue that “they are really truly in love” but, no. To me, high school relationships are usually ALWAYS going to end, with the exception of few. Anyway, on to the first date with Forrest.

I’m waiting at the Prospect fire department for him to pick me up. I sit in the parking lot for an hour. I sigh, and listen to the radio for a while, without hearing a word from him. Nope, not happening. I put my car into drive and I go home. I take off my cute outfit and exchange it for one you’d see a well-fashioned hobo to adorn. As I’m getting ready to take a nap, I hear a little ‘ding’ come from my phone. It’s Forrest…

                                “Hey! Sorry I am running late, my exgirlfriend is over at our house”

I look at the screen with an overly disgusted face. I reply with “Wait, you lived in your own house with her? Ok, whatever haha, if she lives there, why did she need you there?”

                                “I don’t know, we still up for heading to bangor?”

                                “Yeah, I’ll be at the PFD in 10 minutes.”

                                “K”

I make my way there and I sit for another 15 minutes. Finally, he pulls up in his Blazer, and out walks this guy I’ve been talking to for a month prior over text. He’s wearing batman PJ’s, with a t-shirt and a beanie on. Wow. Seriously? Pajamas? That’s what went through my head. He walked up and helped me into his car. We listen to his shit music, and I cringe as he calls it “real music.” We start talking about a whole bunch of things, just learning about one another. After a minute of silence he says to me:

                “I forgot to tell you, but my sister Brooke is coming to bangor with us on our date.”

                “Wait, what? Why??” I can’t believe this. “How old is she??”

                “She’s 24…and she wants to kind of monitor you…she wants to see if you’ll be good for me.” Seriously? What the hell am I doing...

                We pull up to his grandmothers house in Hermon, and wait for Brooke. The house is locked so we can’t get in, and he says he will try to find a way to get inside. He climbs out of his seat and walks around to my side and opens the door. Right as I was about to ask what he was doing, he throws himself at me, smothering my face with his. I push him off me.

                “What are you doing?!” I exclaim angrily.

                “Making sure I don’t get friendzoned.” Blankly, he stares at me, then walks to the window of the house and climbs in. He then calls me in, and we wait for a few minutes until Brooke got home. We all walk out the front door. I introduce myself to Brooke and it seems like we kind of hit it off, then we all climb into the car.

                “Forrest, can you bring me to the sex shop?” Brooke asks.

                “Brooke, come on, I’m on a date…”

                “I don’t care.” Forrest sighs and takes us there. Once we walk in, the owner says hi to us. He looks like the typical sex shop owner. A sweaty guy with a beer gut in a stained wife beater with a comb over. He doesn’t card us or anything, and Brooke walks right up to the strap-ons.

                “I’m buying this! This is so amazing!” She picks up a 9 inch one…

                “Brooke…why do you need that…?” Forrest asks disgustedly. I look away.

                “Because Tom likes it.” Tom must be her boyfriend. “Let’s not talk about it anymore.”

                She walks to the register and pays for it. And that was my first awkward and terrible experience with Forrest. Forrest and I did start dating a few days later, and it was a mistake. A few months in, he wanted to play basketball with me. He always wanted to, so I didn’t mind, it was kind of fun. But, every time we’d go to play, he’d ask if this girl from work could come and play too. Her name was Jasmen, and he was really good friends with her, and he’d go to her house all the time. I really wasn’t worried cause I thought that I was in a good position. I said yes she could play with us, thinking nothing of it, and every time he’d call her up and ask, he’d say “yeah Jada is here, is that ok?” and I always wondered, Well yeah, it should be. I’m his girlfriend. And every time I was there, she wouldn’t play. I was so stupid not to see that huge red flag.

                Now, here’s what happened 2 days before my birthday. Forrest and I had been dating for around 4 months now, and Prom was on its way, and I was excited to finally have a date that I was happy to go with. I was in my bedroom with Forrest when my mom calls him out to the living room. He gets up and leaves to talk to her, I didn’t know what about though. He leaves his phone on my bed, so I wanted to do something really cute for him. I opened up the camera and started taking selfies for him to see when he was gone and missing me. I clicked on the camera roll to delete the ugly ones, and I see six naked pictures of Jasmen. I was PISSED. My stomach dropped and tears began welling in my eyes. I wanted to scream, I wanted to drive to her house and kick her ass. I throw his phone down onto my bed, and run out my room to where Forrest and my mom were talking.

                “Get in my room NOW.” I yelled at him and pointed to my door.

                “What, why are you yelling?” He looks at me confused. My mom backs up and doesn’t say anything. He gave me this bullshit excuse. He said ‘Jada, my friend from work likes her a lot, and was too nervous to ask for a nude himself.’ Hahahaha. What does he think I am, an idiot? I was stupid to take him back. He had been going over to her house a few times a week, and he even TOLD me he was hanging out with her. I’m so stupid, and so blind. But yes, all this happened days before my birthday and prom…

                The next bad part of our relationship is it was boring. He wouldn’t do anything fun with me. He’d just sit in my room and play video games all day, which usually isn’t a bad thing for me, but after a while it was boring. I wanted to go out on dates, and go for walks and play basketball or Frisbee, but all he wanted to do was sleep, play games, and work. The summer of 2014 was terrible, by far the worst one. He’d also get really jealous and upset when I wanted to go and hang out with my friends when I was bored at home with him. He lived with me at the time, so that meant I had to spend EVERY second with him. It was terrible. Other bad things happened, and blah blah blah, and this next thing is how it all ended. School started back up in September and I decided I wanted to join the school band. I’m so glad I did, because I got to do what I love and playing music either by myself or with other people relieves a lot of stress, and I was very stressed with Forrest. I walk into the band room the first day of school, and see Brandon playing bass. I got nervous cause I thought I was going to be the only bass player. I walk over and pull up a chair, and we don’t really talk much for a few weeks. Homecoming night, October 31^st, was the day I really started talking to Brandon. Not in a way that was bad, but as friends. I made a true friendship with Brandon, and I was very happy that I had made a new friend. I have a lot of guy friends, and I’m BEST friends with Doug Gavelek. I would never date Doug in a million years, but Forrest always got jealous when I hung out with him, and it always irritated me, so I know how this friendship with Brandon is going to turn out with Forrest. But, Forrest had nothing to worry about, really, I would never cheat on him. Anyway, a few weeks went by, and its now November-ish. Forrest had just gotten a new job at the mall, and on his day off we went there to do some Christmas shopping. We walk by the kiosk he works at and I stop walking. Sitting there, was the most gorgeous girl I’d ever seen. Honestly, this girl was so beautiful. I ask Forrest who she is, and he said he doesn’t know. We continue shopping and nothing else major happens. Now it’s December, and there was a basketball game after school. I didn’t have a ride to it, so I stayed after with Brandon and waited. Forrest was supposed to pick me up after the game and take me home. So, I was chilling in the band room playing bass with Brandon, when Forrest texts me. This is the conversation, and it’s exact, for some reason I still have the texts.

Forrest: Hey, what time am I picking you up?

Me: Around 8:30

Forrest: Ok Ill be there

Forrest: What are you doing?

Me: Oh nothing, just practicing some songs, you?

Forrest: With Acadia

Me: Who’s Acadia?

Forrest: That girl at the kiosk I work at that you thought was pretty

Me: Oh

Forrest: Yeah

Forrest: You know how I broke my car key?

Me: Yeah

Forrest: Well shes taking me out to lunch cause she felt bad about it

Me: Right now?

Forrest: Yeah

Me: oh ok

Forrest: yeah, whats up

Me: I already told you

A FEW HOURS LATER

Forrest: Still picking you up at 8:30 right?

Me: yeah, I’ll be at the Jewett school though, not the high school

Forrest: Why

Me: I’m walking down with Brandon after the game so he can get food from his mom

Forrest: oh

Me: yeah, I have to go, there is no internet at the jewett school I can’t text you, I love you, see you at 8:30

Forrest didn’t reply. So I’m at the jewett school with Brandon now, and it’s already 9:15. I ask Brandon if I could use his phone to call Forrest and he lets me. I call him and he answers.

                “Hello?”

                “Hey, where are you? You were supposed to be here at 8:30.”

                “Jada?”

                “Yeah it’s me, where are you.”

                “I’m on my way, I’m in Prospect.”

                “Ok?”

                “Who’s phone is this?”

                “Brandons.” Then I hear nothing, he hangs up on me. I look at Brandon with a confused look. Well, whatever, we will talk about it later. I thought to myself. So Brandon and I talk about random stuff until I look at the clock and its already 10.

“Prospect is like 10 minutes from here. He should be here by now.” I said. Then Brandon’s phone rings and it’s my mom.

“Brandon? Is Jada with you?” I can slightly here the conversation on her end.

“Yeah, why?”

“Put her on the phone now please.” He hands me the phone and she begins yelling at me, saying that I shouldn’t make plans unless I have a way to get home. I tell her that Forrest was in Prospect on his way to get me, and she tells me that he’s at his apartment in Bangor and that he just called her to come get me cause he wasn’t able to, and that he actually told me he was at work and couldn’t get me in the first place. WAIT WHAT. I explain everything to her, how we were CLEAR that he was to get me at 8:30, and that he was already in prospect when I told him I was with Brandon. He turned around, without telling me, and went home and left me stranded in Bucksport. My parents couldn’t get me right away cause they were sleeping, and Brandons mother was working. My stepdad had to come get me and he was not happy about it. He wasn’t mad at me, but still he was not too pleased about the whole situation. And neither was I. A few days later we had the whole things resolved, my parents and I still very upset about what happened a few days earlier, but whatever. Life goes on for a few weeks, and I hang out with my friends, Brandon included, and Forrest hangs out with his friends, Acadia included. She now has his number, and has had it for a while now. Forrest comes to my house for the weekend and we watch tv and eat pizza and cuddle until bedtime. It’s midnight, and we are cuddling when his phone goes off. He doesn’t move to answer it, and I roll over to see who it’s from. He blocks me and tries to discreetly keep me away from his phone.

“Are you going to answer that?” I ask suspicious.             

“No, it’s not important.”

“Then let me answer it for you,” I try to reach for it. “Like you used to let me do.”

“Just go to bed!” He pushes me away from the nightstand and back near the wall where I was laying. I jump and see who it’s from. It’s Acadia, and she texted twice.

                “Forrest, why did you stop texting me?” not a big deal, right?

                “Babe I really need you right now ):” yup. That happened. I jump out of bed and grab his shirt and rip him out too.

                “Seriously? Again? Why am I not good enough for you?” I drag him to my door and throw him out.

                “Jada let me explain!” He says. “I just wanted to get back at you for hanging out with Brandon so much!”

                “So you thought it was ok to CHEAT on me AGAIN?!” He looks at me.

                “You cheated on me with Brandon.”

                “What? Having a friend that has a PENIS? OH NO. I never cheated on you.” I then opened my front door and kicked him out of my house. I didn’t return his calls or texts for days, but eventually I give in again. Things go back to normal, and things are actually pretty sweet. One day my mutual friends with Forrest message me out of the blue after not talking to me in months. They BOTH warn me that Forrest has girls on the side, waiting for when I break up with him again. They tell me that when he was hanging out with them a few times, he had to ASK them if he should go to Acadia’s house or mine. They say that they’ve known for a while, and felt really bad, so they had to tell me. I thanked them vigorously and broke up with him for good. I called up Brandon a few minutes later and made plans to spend the night there and watch movies. And, before long, we started dating. I know that’s terrible, breaking up with someone and dating someone new a few weeks later, so soon, but Brandon made me laugh and smile a lot more, even when we were friends, so I really wanted to be with someone who made me happy all the time like he does. Please don’t think that Forrest is the biggest a**hole in the world, because he did have his share of sweet moments. He did some terrible things to the girl who gave him the world, but he’s not all bad. I just hope he treats Acadia better than me. And with all that aside, I’m here, sitting in the band room, typing this up with the sweetest guy playing guitar beside me, making me feel a lot better about what happened.