Rest Your Head, I'm Permanent - Chapter 6

Disclaimer: Some real people, fake story.
David's POV
"Twenty-five already?" I asked myself out loud. "Where have the years gone?" I thought about it for a second while I looked at the calender on the side of my fridge. December 20th, my birthday, was a day that I had begun to dread. I could just hear the clock ticking down, I was running out of time. I could remember seven years ago today, I was turning eighteen. I was so excited, had so many dreams and goals, some I didn't think would be hard to achieve. I even had a system to my madness, I was going to focus on my music first. I planned to give myself until I was twenty-six before I finally would give up my musical fantasies and get a real job, probably with my face 3 inches away from a computer screen in a monochromatic cubical in downtown Tulsa, a jail sentence as I saw it. Then it dawned on me that I had one year left, and I felt a little disappointed in myself. I'd had given it a honest attempt, but I never could seem to break into the mainstream. During my junior year of High School, my friend Bobby Kerr and I formed our own band. After a few bad name choices like Red Eye, which I then realized sounded too much like 'pink eye', we decided on Axium, which was originally spelled Axiom. We had recorded four cds and opened for some big bands like Maroon 5, Fountains of Wayne, and Smash Mouth. Then Bobby left in late 05, and it never really felt the same to me, so I left and Axium just kind of fell apart in 06. In between the years of Axium, I did some recordings and shows with another friend's band Midwest Kings, but that never went anywhere either. So then I was left with nothing, had to start from scratch. I produced my own solo album, Analog Heart, without a record deal. It was pretty big hit in Tulsa, I was even mentioned as "Tulsa's Heartthrob", which my friends and I got a few laughs from. I even got a heart tattoo on my chest to remind myself that I was apparently a stud muffin. I was still waiting for all of the girls to throw themselves at me, or at least even want to talk to me for more then five minutes. But, I'm still a nobody in a small town, and the pessimistic side of me said that it would always be that way.
I sighed a little, glancing around the kitchen, looking for something bigger then a crumb to eat, to distract myself from the disheartening thoughts that began to fill my every thought. But of course, like always, my wooded kitchen cabinets were bare, my fridge had been cleaned out of any leftovers. Grocery time. I thought as I looked around for my keys, maybe getting out of the house would help eliminate the discouraging and depressive mood I was in.
I tried to leave the bad feels at home, locking them behind the door 9A. But it wasn't just me, the whole world was in a funk today, of all days. It was raining, and just icky-bleh outside, I almost turned back around, I could just vegetate all day on the couch and watch re-runs of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I thought, but then my stomach groaned. I sighed again, pushing the glass door open and stepping out into the nasty wind-and-rain stormy combination.
Driving down West Main Street, I got to thinking again. Sometimes, or a lot of the time I wish my mind would just shut up. At eighteen, life seemed almost so simple that it was boring. Now at twenty-five, life just kept getting harder day after day, a never ending cycle of anguish and disappointment. I had been permanently strapped into my brother's cancer roller coaster against my own will at the young age of fifteen, and my own personal life, aside from family matters, hadn't been all buttercups, rainbows and sunshine either. Of course, I was talking about any sort of intimate relationship with the oh-so-foreign opposite sex. I just was never dealt the lucky hand in the crazy game of love, and I was slowly learning to accept that. I tried to shake the constant over-thinking as I parked my car outside of the store.
I had almost cleared my mind completely as I walked up to the main entrance of the grocery store, concentrating on the echoing sound of my beat-up boots as they splashed through the deep muddy puddles. As I reached for the door handle, a family of four appeared on the other side of the glass, and all of the overwhelming emotions hit me like a hurricane. I held the door open and stepped aside, watching as the lovestruck couple and their two children, a little dark haired girl in a pastel pink dress and a blue-eyed bouncing baby boy in the arms of the mother, leave. Then the father, a man in his mid-30's turned around and thanked me. I could see in his eyes, his smile, that he was so happy right here in this moment, with his family. I didn't blame him, I would share the same, if not more happiness if I was in his position at the moment. I could only imagine waking up every morning, seeing your wife's beautiful face, hearing the sound of your own children's footsteps running around.
I envied him, almost to the point of sickness. I turned back toward the door. Now I just wanted to get in, get a few weeks worth of food, and run back home so I could barracked myself in my apartment, throwing myself a pity party, they were a pretty common part of my life these last few years.
I walked past the whole produce section. Anything good for my health, anything green, I didn't really like that much. My diet consisted of any item that has been fried or is 95% sugar. If they tacked the word "extra" before any product, I almost always would buy it. In my book, extra means 'this tastes twice as good'. For these reasons, short of other things, my doctor usually gives me the "death glare" every year at my physical, followed by the "you should change your diet" speech. You'd think he'd take the hint that I'm not listening and save his breath.
By the time I reached the "snacks" else I already had half of my cart filled. Pushing it along, I just started grabbing anything in arm's length off the shelf and tossing it into the growing mountain of food. Then I came upon my life-or-death decision; What favor Doritos to pig out on this week. While debating between the extra cheesy, the word 'extra' giving it a hands-up, and the new Spicy Jalapeño, I overheard a voice and it caught my attention.
"David?...Is that you?" A stunning, dark haired women asked me. There was something familiar about her. I scanned her face for a few seconds, trying my hardest to remember her. And then it clicked.
"...Amanda..." I said, a smile spreading across my face.