It all started about one week before school let out. My friends, Sheena, Tracy, and Jane, and I were hanging out at Pacific Ice, the coolest hang-out in town (it also happened to be where the hottest guys were at), eating our usual Lemon Italian Ice when over walks the cutest basketball player, Joey Fatone. He sat down with us and started talking to us as if we'd all been friends for years, I could hardly breathe, he was so cute. Then, he turns to me and asks if I would go to the end of the year dance with him, of course I said yes.
So, that Friday night I put on my short black skirt and my lacy white silk top. I was so nervous, I had never gone to a dance with a guy before. What if I stepped on his feet while we were slow dancing? What if I looked like a fool fast dancing? What if I spilled punch on me? Or worse . . . on him? What if . . .? What if . . .? What if . .. .?
Joey was supposed to pick me up at 7:15 so at 7:00 my parents started giving me a lecture on not doing anything a young lady my age shouldn't be doing, in other words don't be fooling around. Anyway, Joey came at 7:16 exactly, he looked great in his jeans and sky blue T-shirt, I thought I would pass out, after all the necessary introductions, a long list of questions and a reminder that my curfew was 11:30 sharp, we were off.
Joey and I arrived at the dance at about 8:00, an hour after it started. I had been to many dances, but none of them seemed so magical for me. The gym seemed to have transferred from the home of all the basketball games to my own fantasy land. It seemed as if there was no place else on Earth as mystical as that room. It was as if I were a princess and Joey were my prince in disguise. All of my friends told me how jealous they were of me. Sheena said that everyone was talking about us, the newest, and hottest couple at school. About five minutes after we got there they played Everything I Do, my favorite song, and we started to dance. Afterward he told me that would be our song forever. The dance ended at 11:00 so that gave us just enough time to get home.
The next week after work I walked out to my car and laying inside was a long stemmed rose and a cassette. When I put the cassette in my tape player it turned out to be him singing our song. I was so touched I started crying right then and there.
For the next few days every evening when I went out to my car there was a rose laying on the seat, and everyday there was a different present with it. One night there was a poem he had written for me, once there was a little stuffed bear that he had put his after shave on so it smelled like him, but my favorite was a picture of him.
Every weekend we'd do something together, he always had the best ideas. We went to the movies sometimes, every now and then we'd go on a walk at the beach, or we'd have a picnic beside the pond in the park. My favorite activity though, was just renting a few movies and spending the afternoon at home by ourselves.
But then one weekend Joey suggested we go to a party at his older brother's house. I didn't want to go at first, but I finally gave in. When we first got there Steve, his brother, seemed nice and the party didn't seem that bad, but then the unexpected happened, at least for me.
I don't know who brought the beer, all I know is one minute we were all dancing and having fun and the next Joey was dragging me over to where a small group had formed. Someone, I'm not sure who exactly offered me one. I started to decline, after all what my parents think, but then I realized I was staying at a friends house, so I accepted.
I don't remember much more about what happened that night except that when we got to my friend Erica's house I had to have a couple of people carry me into the house because I was so drunk I couldn't walk . The next day I puked my guts out. I just told everyone I had a touch of flu, and they believed me.
I continued to go to party's like that one with Joey every week. I figured as long as my parents never found out nothing bad could happen. Boy, was I wrong.
One night Joey was driving me home from one of the parties and something happened. We were about one mile from my friends house where I was staying that night when a deer jumped in front of the car. Joey swerved to avoid hitting it and we went down a 25 foot embankment and slammed head first into a large tree.
I must of been knocked unconscious because the next thing I remember I was in the back of an ambulance with a neck brace on and a bunch of people hovering over me. After the doctor in the emergency room examined me a concluded the was nothing wrong except a few scratches and a small bump on my head, they let me go.
I guess I expected to walk into the waiting room and find my parents there worried and ready to take me home. Not quite. Instead I found my parents and two cops waiting for me. My parents told me they loved me and that's why they were doing this, to teach me a lesson. At first I had no idea what they were talking about. The these two cops start to take me away. Seems my parents decided I needed to go to a juvenile detention center for a while. The three days I spent in custody were the worst three days of my life.
The next day my parents came down and told me about Joey. They said he had flown through the windshield of the car and the rescue crew had found him 15 feet away from the car. They tried to tell me Joey had died but I didn't believe them. I didn't want to beleive it. They were just trying to make me upset. I couldn't beleive that they could be so cruel and lie about such a serious subject.
The day I got out my parents took me to a church. I asked them why we were there but they wouldn't answer me. When we walked in the whole the basketball team was there. I saw a whole group of my friends sitting together, everyone kept telling me how sorry they were. I had no idea what was going on until I saw Joey's parents standing next to a casket. When I looked inside the casket, there was Joey.
I don't know what happened during the service, I was in to much shock to pay attention, or even to really care. I walked out to the grave with everyone else and I remember I didn't cry, I was just to numb to feel anything.
After the service a bunch of Joey's friends came over and asked if I wanted to go and get something to eat and just relax. I told them no, I just wanted to go home and crawl in my bed.
I read about the wreak in the paper and saw the picture, but it still didn't seem real, it was if in my mind it had never happened. It was not until I saw the car, saw the wind shield through which Joey's body had been thrown, saw the seat in which I had been sitting, all crumpled, mangled, and distorted, that it all sank in. I cried almost non-stop for a week. I couldn't believe my first true love was dead.
It has been two years since the crash. I'm eighteen now, I graduated from high school a month ago and will start college in a little over two months. When I went back to school that fall everyone knew about the wreak, at first they wouldn't talk to me or when they did they didn't know what to say. I still have everything Joey ever gave me, all the roses, the teddy bear his picture, the tape, and, in a box, the one thing no one knows about, the night he died he gave me a heart shaped locket. On the locket was engraved, Forever in love, and inside was a picture of him on one side and a picture of me on the other. Every now and then I still get out his picture turn on the tape of him singing our song, and cry for awhile. I've since straightened out my life. I went through drug and alcohol rehab. I even have a new boyfriend. I will never forget Joey or that fateful summer for they both taught me a valuable lesson, alcohol can ruin, or even take your life.
