Beautiful Darkness, Maurice Mitchell [interesting novels to read txt] 📗

ruined my chances of playing basketball. I was in a new state at a new school and I had a bunch of new ambitions. I wanted to try to get my love for ball back and play at the college level. That was always my dream, and I went to practices and workouts to make it happen. Competing with the guys at that level was nothing, I felt the difference but it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, I knew I could be a star. I’d never get a chance to prove that though, I would let my temper get the best of me as I’d done so many times in the past, and fall victim to my own shortcomings once again.

It was the first party of the year, a party everybody who was anybody would attend. It was almost like an interview, an opportunity to make your first impression a lasting one. At that point I had made a few friends, nothing major, I was still an outcast. I more so hung out with these three guys name Curt, Brent, and Dante. I still didn’t trust people and I missed my gang back home, but I figured these dudes would do in the mean time. I held them down the same way I would of held my brothers down though, loyal, that’s all I knew how to be. Curt was a light skinned, big head kid from California. Medium build with huge lips and a short hair cut. He had a few female tendencies but I was able to look past that due to the fact that I didn’t have many friends in school at the time. Brent was taller, he was taller then me, brown skinned and skinny. Pretty boy from Chesapeake who was always trying to take somebody’s girl. He was funny as hell though and we used to have mad fun together when we partied. Dante was also tall, he was bigger though, brown skinned, and medium build with waves. I was closer to him then the other guys. The party was crazy and I was enjoying myself, my first college party and I wasn’t disappointed. We were inside this huge activity room, the music was loud and there were girls everywhere. I had every reason to feel good about the situation that I was in, until I glanced to my left and saw Curt face to face with this tall big guy. I saw them arguing with each other and it was obvious they were about to fight. I knew that would get bad for Curt, that wasn’t his thing. So I didn’t hesitate, I ran over and immediately tried to diffuse the situation. I jumped in the middle of the argument and moved Curt out of the way. The guy that was in his face shoved me, and for that split second I lost it, boom! I snuffed him, caught him clean, he fell. Next thing I know there was dudes coming at me from all angles, I felt like I punched the President. A melee ensued and I got jumped on, there were fist flying from everywhere. Before any damage could really be done though, most of the guys were getting pulled off me. Fortunately for me it was a fraternity party and the frat didn’t plan on having a fight ruin it for everybody. They were pulling dudes off me left and right, and I was grateful. One of the Frat members was this short, muscular brother with glasses named Alex. I don’t even think he realized that he saved me at the time, but we’d end up becoming pretty close later that year. The good thing was I was saved before things got really ugly, the bad thing was half those guys ended up being members of the basketball team. Turns out the guy I hit was one of the players on last years team, my luck struck again. I was no longer under the radar, it felt like everybody knew me now and not for anything good. I was pretty much hated by everybody within the basketball organization and eventually the word got to the coach that I was the star behind the fight. It wasn’t fair, but it was what it was, my chances at playing ball were shot. At this point it felt like high school all over again, within a month of being in the school, I’d made enough enemies to last a lifetime. One of the guys in the scuffle was this kid from L.A named Darryl. He was the typical tough guy trying to gain a rep for himself his first year in college. Short, light skinned kid, with a little size and a lot of tattoos. We seemed to develop a little rivalry that was damn near Yankees/Redsox. We’d meet a few more times before he finally left the school, it was never pretty when we did. I lost a few more friends due to that scuffle as well, not because something happened to them, but because they didn’t help. Ironically, Curt and I wouldn’t remain friends throughout the duration of the school year either, but ill get more into that later. From that point on it seemed like the stage was set, my luck had not got any better and I felt like things would be the same. Little did I know this was just the surface and things would begin to get a lot worse.

At the end of that semester I went home, it was well needed. I already hated college and missed everything I left at home. It was good to be back around family and friends, but there was one thing that continued to bother me. Tay was beginning to change even more and started hanging out with the wrong crowd. He was getting into fights and dealing with all types of drugs. I told him I didn’t like the dudes he was surrounding himself with and I let the guys he was hanging with know that too. He told me I was bugging and everything was good, I’d just been gone too long and was overacting. I thought maybe he was right so I let it go, but I let him know if I found out he was dealing with them drugs we were going to have a problem. He made me a promise and I that was all I needed, we moved on. Going back to school for the second semester was hard, I felt like if I was going to dropout this was the time to do it. I couldn’t quit though, as much as I wanted to I’ve never been a quitter and I came too far. I knew if I quit I would regret it at some point down the road so I stuck it out. I did alright, I was doing the best I could until the day I got a phone call that would change my life forever.

My Mother called me one day with a tone that I’d never heard before and I Immediately knew that something was wrong. I was sitting in my dorm room with a friend of mine watching television and listening to music. I was actually having a pretty good day. She told me she had some bad news and that I should sit down. I knew somebody died, so I braced myself the best way I could, I just prayed it wasn’t one of my Grandmothers. She couldn’t find enough strength to tell me, so eventually she put one of my friends on the phone. That’s when he said it “Yo Moe, um, Tay died this morning.” I immediately went into a state of shock and was speechless, I felt a lump in my throat the size of a tennis ball and a growing knot in my stomach. He kept asking me if I was ok and I couldn’t answer, I just sat there. My Mother got on the phone and apologized and I just asked if they were serious. Once I found out they were I just told her I needed to get off the phone. I sat there in my computer chair for what felt like an eternity but was probably more like an hour. Dante asked me what happen but I didn’t move, I didn’t budge. After about an hour of just sitting in complete silence, it really hit me, I broke. My heart started beating faster then I’d ever felt, and I felt my body getting hot. I started tossing everything in my room and breaking everything next to me. His death hit me harder then anything I’d ever felt and I would never be the same. It was then I realized that all the things he began doing in my absence was a cry for help. He needed me and I wasn’t there for him. He kept it all to himself because he never wanted to jeopardize my future, that’s the type of friend he was. I blamed myself for his death for years, and to an extent sometime I still do. After he passed I just couldn’t pick myself up, I felt like I lost so much. He and Kev were the only two friends I had who loved me unconditionally and half of that was gone. He motivated me to want to be better and saw things in me I couldn’t see in myself. Without him it just felt pointless, it felt like I was finished. To add injury to insult my little Cousin J.R. died a week later. He was killed in a freak accident on a four wheeler. With all the time we spent together as kids during those summers in Virginia I felt like we grew up together. I just got to Virginia and couldn’t wait to catch up with him and recapture that bond we shared. I wouldn’t get that chance. I was back, right back in that dark place I fought so hard to avoid. Apart of me just gave up, I stopped believing and never expected anything good to happen to me. I realized that most of the people I’d loved or confided in ended up disappearing one way or another. So what was the point in loving? From that point on I was just going through the motions, it was clear I wasn’t the same. I’d lost the best friend I ever had and I was dealing with the worse friends I’d ever known. It seems like I was going from friend to friend at this point. Brent ended up sleeping with the first girl I started talking to and Curt was trying to sabotage every relationship I was involved in. I found out Curt was two faced and real jealous. He seemed to like to make other peoples lives miserable so he could feel better about his own. He was envious, started talking about me behind my back, while Brent was doing the same. It felt like Déjà vu, and to think Curt was the same man I ruined my basketball career for, what the hell were friends worth? I’d go onto become friends with a short, dark skinned kid named Jameel who I eventually found out was in the closet and another dark skinned kid with glasses named Paul who turned out to be an habitual liar. Needless to say I didn’t remain friends with either, I ended up beating Paul up outside of the dorms and Jameel’s tendencies began to show and became too much to deal with. Word was going around that he liked me and that’s why he was acting funny all the time, I couldn’t handle that, that didn’t last. For the record Paul started that fight with me, and it just so happen that his girlfriend came outside to witness it and well he never got over that. That wasn’t my fault. I realized then that