The Maiden

While working her sandwich job, like she did often, since she dropped out of school, Tia finally turned 16, unfortunate for Tia, she had a late birthday and couldn't leave the what now seemed boring and a waste of time since she experienced just one year of something different, she never wanted to go back to the snotty, too good for everyone school she stayed 3 years in as a child. Going into the 5th grade, her family moved and she had to switch schools. Coming from a very small town in the mid west the move to Denver was shocking enough, then when her family moved again, at first she was devastated, got chunky, since she couldn't just go outside and play with her friends any longer. Tia didn't feel good about the change at all.

That was until she went to school, met even new people and her mind was expanded and this change, Tia loved it. She finally felt the feeling that she's been missing since she left her small town. A feeling of belonging, acceptance, and no one really teased her, but if they did she connected with this boy more than she thought, after all she was used to one sided feeling from her elementary school boyfriend she left behind in the 4th grade. If any of the boys teased her, like they often did in the town she just came from, he fought them. He didn't take part of the teasing or act if it wasn't even going on, like that thing she had in her old town.

Unaware of the kind of love she has, happen to be many places, just not the town she originally moved to, only in school did she feel everything opposite, she felt now. Finally her restless soul felt something it has never felt until June, ( when she went to see her father for the summer) excitement, joy, and looking forward to going to see her new friends.

Sadly that segment of the story runs short, her family moved back to the town she was once afraid to leave. As time goes on, seeing what she could and couldn't do, she finds out she can drop out of school at 16, and pretty much since then she was counting down the days, until that came and she could finally be free of the people who just weren't nice people, to her anyways.

At 15, Tia got a job at the local sandwich shop and worked there for months, worked there when she dropped out. Only issue was convincing her father if she could drop out. The other family members weren't interested in my father, so not only was the only DNA child of his, but the only one cared, he was her logic and life line. Well he didn't want his daughter to become a drop out in 2000, but as long as she promised to get her G.E.D. right away, he authorized it. He just wanted to see Tia happy, and isn't a control freak, and let her trust her intuition as well as believed in her.

The day finally came her junior year, since she had one of those birthdays that held her back by only days from the next year. While there she became great at her studies, but she didn't care. Tia has been on the pursuit of happiness since 11 after all. After experiencing the kind of love she would of if she stayed in that small town, she wasn't ever going to accept anything less, if she had a say in it.

Working one evening, or stopping by the sandwich shop, because that is where all her friends worked as well, and to ice the cake, she got to show off her happiness to all the kids that went there for lunch, from the school she just proudly dropped out of.

Back to a fateful day when she left her headlights on in her car, and that is when she met him. The boy that turns out would change her life forever, not having that feeling in awhile, she kept it at bay. He had a girlfriend, and she's never been a homewrecker, even though he was a 16 year old boy who craved freedom, dating a 15 year old single mother. Tia and Joel's connection was so strong, that not only did the crush she once had started to linger around, since he seen she didn't have that look for him anymore, that look of adoring, flirty, ect... but why would she? He's a complete douche, he lost out on what he seemed to see everything he wants, but now can't have.

Having the hours to herself Tia's mother gave her, 9am to 9pm (unless work was the reason, Tia stayed late) after she got her car and was able to stay at friends houses every now and then, and her mom knew she was always rolling with an adult, it seemed justified for Tia's mother for some reason. Plus the sandwich place was the funnest place to work at. That feeling of belonging began again, with our without that boy who turned her headlights off for her, while she was helping with the dinner rush, not meant to even work that day, but a team is a team, and won't let another drown. Then manager of two shops showed up, little did Tia know the sandwich shop manager was about to bring the love of her life to her. Tia's 16 at the time and she didn't even care if he had a girlfriend, situations like that work themselves out in time, and that's exactly what it did, plus we worked at different shops across town. Before Tia and Joel became official, everywhere they went people thought they were a couple, their chemistry was obvious to everyone, but them.

He was so sweet to her, unlike any boy, from her friendship circle of guys and girls,(small circle, that's how Tia liked it) suddenly intimate feelings she never felt before appeared.

He was just her type, able to take me away from all this chaotic, without him life she lived, and every morning she would get up, happily shower and drive as fast as she could down the highway to get to him. Afterall, Tia jsut had to move to a different town and him ever popping up, was out of the question. A pattern started to repeat in places Tia seems happy, they (her an her mother) would always end up moving. He could never pop up at her door again, like he once did. They would spend all the time they could together, and she ended up transferring to the store he's assistant manger at, and the now his ex, but his girlfriend at that time. Tia was friends with her to, and while in the freezer, she told Tia she might be pregnant by Joel.

Trying not to show any emotion, when she just felt like she lost him forever in that moment, she pictured a future she was wanting with him, just gone.

Joel and Tia stayed friends during this akward time, turns out she wasn't pregent. Her and Tia even became friends through it all as well, we laughed at work all the time, sometimes so hard we couldn't help the customers correctly, Tia and her were stoned all the time, so being 16 working at a sandwich shop, laughing, when your not suppose to laugh, is harder than it appears.

After Tia meet Joel, she didn't even want to risk the chance of the boy that lost Tia's adoration, trying to prey on her while she's vulnerable. He never treated her well and didn't know anything about her anymore, he seen that, didn't like either one, but Tia didn't care, it was his choice to not pursue Tia the year or longer they knew each.

Tia's life turned out great since she dropped out and forgot about that whole experience. ( don't drop out of school, many many factors are different)

Tia and Joel's friendship, turned relationship, after the inevitable happen Tia and Joel just clicked, something she only felt in the summer suddenly she had the boy she had a crush on trying to get in between Tia and Joel. Who was once envious of him and her, started trying to become closer friends with Joel. Tia's friend showed up, became chummy with Joel and Tia knew his intentions were not good, and on day Tia and Joel were appose to trip on mushrooms for Tia's first time, when she arrived at Joel's, Tia was shocked that, the third wheel was there or on his way, "how did you guys communicate?" was Tia's only question. "Mutual friends of course," Joel said so casual well Tia's friends, since that is where the third wheel had all his friends through her.

On the day our lives changed, and what should of been Tia and Joel's day, turned into a fun day of nothing, but being with just Joel in Tia's eyes would of been perfect, after all it was her first time tripping mushrooms, the day ended up hectic, but fun That is what she loves about Joel, when she shows up at 9am, she never knows how the day is going to be, he was a mystery to her and she was a mystery to him. With so much to still experience together, their time got cut short in June of 1999, when the mushroom trip experience ended, we lost our jobs, and apparently that was the last straw for his probation officer. Already approved by Tia's mother and Joel's mother, they were going to stick together through thick and thin, and they did. Tia was eventually going to move back to his home state with him, he felt like home to her at one point.

This is a true love story, stay tuned.......