Confusion

It doesn't matter who you are, who I am, who they are. All around us... everybody, everybody you see around you. We all share something. Life. Experience. Not just life, but how we live it. As far as I know, in the world I relate to, we're all alike. We're born. We grow up. We turn into teenagers. We come of age. And then we are who we are forever.
But what's most important is all that fucked up confusion that makes you you. Me me. So on and so forth. We don't know who we are or will be when we're screaming our head off for our mother's tit as we burst out of her vagina. And then there are others who may never discover themselves. Either way, it doesn't matter who you are, we all go through the same shit to get there. When your parents say, "We've been there. We understand," believe it or not, they most likely have an inkling at the very least.
I know, right now in your head, you're saying, "That's bullshit. No way in hell they know what I'm going through." Well you're fucking wrong. Even if they personally did not go through your exact life path, their friends did the same shit you did and they saw it all which leads to their saying that. If you don't believe me, just give it a couple years. You'll think about me that day and the moment you heard this.
Let's get to the meat of this discussion, if you will. Humans; they tend to be different from other animals. "You don't fucking say!" you might answer. Well, hear me out. I'm going somewhere with this. They don't have emotions or feelings like we do. No thoughts like us. None of that shit. No etiquette or speech to tell me to stop cursing (which, by the way, will never happen, so fuck you. It's not like you never have). But really, these things come to a giant peak in the rollercoaster of our lives (please excuse the lousy, cliché metaphor) when we hit that turning point called adolescence. I promise, when you're twenty years old and look back at the past seven years, you'll think differently than when you were twelve. What dolphin can say that?
We grow up. Simple as that. More cliché for you. It's fun. Painful. Sad at times. Happy. Joyous. Enraging, depressing, frustrating. Delightful, sappy and dangerous. The world seems to be ending every other day- but don't worry at least you know tomorrow will be fucking awesome. Like I said, the details are fuzzy and blurry but we all collectively share that same story. They're probably the most important years of your life, I'd argue.
No good story comes without crying, laughing or serious moments. Awkward, embarassing moments are always haunting your every move. You'll watch your buddies get blasted, blazed and dry fucked at parties.
Then there are the break-ups, let downs and broken promises. Sorry, it's bound to happen. Even after these particular years. You'll catch your significant other of the moment kissing someone else from time to time if you're severely unfortunate and masochistic. There will be those who cut themselves or starve themselves and get thrown at a shrink by their overprotective parents. Don't be surprised if all of this happens to you. You'll experience it in some way, whether directly or vicariously. And it's okay, you'll always have at least one friend.
Seriously, from my experience, I've never met anyone who has not chosen to be friendless and is. Even if you have only one friend- fuck everybody else. You're still here right now, right? You didn't need them.
I guess this is the awkward transition where you see my face and I have to introduce myself like a narrator in a movie. Not that it's very important, my name is Ben Bailey. My parents apparently thought it would be cute to have "BB" as my initials. I don't know if it's supposed to sound like "baby" or what, but everytime they call me BB, I want to get a BB gun so I can shoot them. Ha-ha. I made a funny. That's another thing I've learned: we're all comedians when we're teenagers. I don't exactly know why, but we all can joke at least with our friends and know it'll be funny to someone.
I'm not too popular, but then again, I wouldn't want to be. It's scary, man. Having to be cautious of every step but somehow be awesome, or else be thrown to the wolves. It's the tightest tight rope one can balance on in life and you better be able to handle it. It's way easy to fall from that pedestal. The attention whores, though, they're addicted to that tightrope shit. Don't ask me why.
I also don't belong to a clique. I have friends in every group, but I'm not really an outsider either. Although I have felt like one a lot. Either way, I have no idea what folder to file myself in. But that's okay too. I'm a unique individual. Not a stoner, rocker, prep, jock, nerd, cheerleader, dancer, or band geek. Just me.
I can't say I've fallen in love yet, but we'll get further into that later. I probably got close once, but oh well. This is all retrospective, so if you can figure out who I am and if you know what category to put me in, let me know when you're done.
This would be the part where the hypothetical screen goes black and everyone's waiting to see how my story starts. I promise it's not that great, but at least I can tell you I discovered who I am. This is the story of Ben Bailey, ladies and germs.

She is Curious

Cyan eyed the box nervously. It's small and black velvet. She can only imagine what's inside. A ring? A necklace? Bracelet? The yearning within her killed the appetite she had at her lunch hour. All she wanted to know was what was inside. The problem was, she knew it was for her. That alone made her want to rip open the thing to see inside even more. Of course, it had to be Terry, her husband, and knowing that, there had to be more than meets the eye with this.
It was not her birthday nor their anniversary, although it would be fitting since he always forgot it. She had not recently gotten a promotion either. Only a small box of fuzzy night sky color with specks of starry dust. Nothing Van Gogh. Just specks littered. Did that mean he had had this laying around for a while and chose this random moment in time to slip it in her purse on her way out? Why today of all days?
She laughed at the irony. It was a box. Everyone always wonders what they would do if they receive a mysterious package. Everyone also convinces themselves that they'd open it no problem, whether it be a bomb or nothing. As easily as she could open it, she wouldn't. Not because she didn't want to. She just couldn't. She stared at it, hoping it would spontaneously combust open. Nothing.
She closed her eyes. In ten seconds, she would open her eyes. During those ten seconds, she would grab the box and open it. That was the plan. Terry couldn't fool her so easily this time. She could do it.
Cyan Colfax could not do it. She got to five and stopped. The fuzzy black box was in her hand. It was the size of her palm, just about, but it was thick. If it were flat, maybe she could take a better crack at guessing. She shook it. It sounded like nothing was inside. This was pure Terry.
She could not open the box. Her lunch hour was quickly and silently slipping away. She had but twenty minutes left. The first forty were spent discovering, touching and staring at the box. Her appetite was long gone. She had to open the box so she could eat. What did Terry do? Maybe he's guilty of something, so now he's trying to buy her back. Well, he can keep the little black box. She didn't care what he did. She didn't want any of his pity or whatever this was.
Then doubt set in. What if it wasn't Terry? Maybe it was a coworker that slipped it in while she wasn't paying attention. She discarded all previous thoughts and completely blanked her mind. She closed her eyes.
One...
Two...
Three...
She grabbed the velvet black box.
Four...
Five...
Six...
She opened it.
Seven...
Eight...
Nine...
Cyan opened her eyes. Inside was a piece of paper and in Terry's handwriting was the word: Ten.