*this is the introduction to the novel I have written, be brutally honest with what you think*

Foreward

  If this were a movie, the script would read something like this;

Opening set, empty playground.  A haunting string melody scrapes the audio track.  Lazy pan in to see a male teenager sitting on the swings.  The time is 8:30am and there is just a hint of the oncoming sunrise washing the ground in a surreal reddish orange haze.  The youth's body is hunched over, although he is motionless in the swing itself it's easy to see from the tension in his position that great things roil within him.  His stare is toward the trees across the way where the leaves look red in the gathering sunlight.

  Okay maybe not, but it would make an interesting opening scene nonetheless would it not?  Some guy sitting all alone on an empty playground, staring out at the leaves on the trees that are still green but look kind of red in the light, hinting toward the fall that will come and take them away.

  I like to think of my life as scenes from a movie, although I'd have to say it likely wouldn't be a very interesting one.  It's in the wording of the scene where I can make anything seem important.  I can paint my life with a whole different pallet than the one I use in the real world.  I don't want you to think I'm all depressed or anything, but how many people do you know that can say, "Yes my life would make an entertaining movie."  Not very many I would guess.

  We all have our moments, our shining glimpses of the good, the funny, the touching.  Where we brush up against something greater than we are, and you feel it; you can almost reach out and grab it.  You sit there and figure "if I could just bottle that feeling, or capture it somehow, to share with the world, I would."  Happiness, Love, Sadness, Despair, it really doesn't matter, so long as it's heartbreaking, uplifting, visceral, or intense, and people can relate.

  What good is a story if it doesnt move you beyond your normal everyday life? Where nothing truly amazing or incredible happens and you move onto the next blank slate trying to make the colors pop just a little. Wondering why certain people sit on top of what looks like all the happy in the world.

  I brushed up against something earlier today that took me by total surprise.  It's the reason I'm here. It's the reason I'm pouring out like this, it's the reason I'm sharing it with you

  You see I'm not what you'd call popular.  I'm not a guy who's into sports, or cars.  Women seem to ignore me completely.  I have a great family, both parents are still together and happy, and a little sister who I try to relate to, but she's hit that age where she knows I'm not in the "in" crowd, and treats me accordingly.

  We've lived in the same house for as long as I can remember; a modest 4 bedroom house at the bend of a small street of modest 4 bedroom houses, in suburbia.  Green carpet on the floor of my bedroom, beige tones throughout the house.

  It's almost funny because the houses on the street were made from only 4 sets of plans, and although there is a little variety in how often each house comes up, it's pretty obvious that there are only 4 repeated over and over.

  As a kid I remember several things about this street; the grass was always that color of green that speaks of health even if there is a brown spot here and there, the sky was a light shade of blue usually with a couple wispy clouds darting slowly across. There were several trees which was great cause they gave us plenty of places to climb or hide behind as kids, and we had a huge open field with a small playground in it where the neighborhood kids would go to play baseball or just run around the playground playing park tag or some other game we'd come up with that day.

  It might have had something to do with when the houses were built, but they are all different earth tones.  Mostly greens and browns, and they tended to melt into each other and the surrounding area.  It's almost as if this area learned to live with the world instead of being forced upon it.

  You didn't think about those kinds of things as a kid, but it was something that you tended to know, in the back of your brain you just knew these things.

  This is of course where I met her.

  Yes, you knew it was coming, there had to be a her right? All the best stories have a her, if you hadnt noticed.  Hell I'll go so far as to say there isn't a good story out there that doesn't have a her.

  I'm going to do my best to remain a little detached here, because up until about 6 hours ago we were friends.  The thought of being more might have passed through my mind as something that would be cool, but Id never taken seriously.

  We were inseparable as kids, right up to the age when people start to establish who's interesting, and whos different.  Beyond that we were still friends but not in the same way.  Lets just say my type of interesting isnt everybodys cup of tea.

  This inevitably brings me back to the party and the events of the last 24 hours.  I made a play for what I wanted.  For the first time in my life I truly rolled the dice