Growing up in a chaotic, brutal family, I was always comfortable resorting to violence in order to resolve conflict. As a kid I got into a lot of fights, losing just as often as I won. I was large for my age and wasn't afraid to throw my weight around, which actually probably prevented a few fights from even happening.
When I was sixteen a new kid joined our High School. John was two months younger than me and I took an instant dislike to him. He was a good looking guy, and being a new student he always had girls around him. I was probably acting out of jealousy, but a couple of weeks after he joined the school I had a run in with him, and ended up kicking his ass. I was a couple of inches taller than him, and outweighed him by thirty pounds or so, in addition to having had the experience of being in multiple fights. Most of my class witnessed the beat-down, and after I walked away several girls helped him up and consoled him. After that day I picked on him relentlessly, kicking his ass several more times over the next year or so, although much of the time he just ran away.
My best friend Billy was a student at the local Karate Dojo, and informed me that John had started training there. I thought it was funny and would jump him from time to time, taunting him about his martial-arts training. Several months elapsed and the first thing I noticed was that John appeared taller. I wasn't sure if it was his improved posture, as his self-confidence increased, or if he had undergone a growth-spurt. However, having already established my physical superiority over him, he fled the scene whenever I chased after him.
I turned eighteen as a senior in High School, and being the proud owner of a used Honda Accord, started dating this girl in my class. Walela, or Lela as she preferred to be called, was a month older than me, a dark-skinned, black-haired beauty, who was a quarter Cherokee, a Native American Indian Tribe. We were both sexually inexperienced, having made out just a few times, despite spending much of our time together. As our relationship blossomed, Lela asked me if she could wear my Letterman Jacket to school. In the United States, this particular article of clothing is worn in High School and College to represent school and team pride. I had earned mine on the Lacrosse Team, and allowed Lela to wear it to school, to signify our status as a couple, which is a very common occurrence in High School.
I think most of us would agree that our first time being in love was special, but I fell especially hard for Lela and I knew that I would eventually marry her. In fact we talked about it on numerous occasions, and as our relationship progressed Lela used the promise of matrimony to highlight the importance of her virginity.
"That is the greatest gift that a woman can give a man," she told me on more than one occasion. "And I want you to take mine on our wedding night."
Much to my annoyance, Lela was also friends with John, and they were study partners as they were enrolled in some of the same advanced placement classes. Like most eighteen year old males, I possessed a jealous streak, and it often surfaced when Lela hung out with John. For her part, Lela seemed to enjoy my jealous outbursts, viewing them as affirmation of my love for her, and after a few months of us being a couple, she started to stoke my fire when it came to my feelings towards John. Lela would make random comments about John, knowing that they pissed me off. When she complimented his good manners, or his taste in clothing, I would immediately respond by getting angry, and Lela would get her much needed validation. I would react by taking it out on John whenever I saw the little punk, and Lela asked me to leave him alone on several occasions.
Of course, I ignored her, and continued to make John's life miserable, even going so far as to go over to his house and threaten him, while his parents weren't there. Shortly after Lela got her driver's license, she began to be a lot more independent, and started to spend even more time with John. I knew that they were just friends, but it still bugged me, and when Lela was invited to John's eighteenth birthday party, I tried to intervene. On the day of John's birthday, as she was getting ready, I allowed my jealousy to get the better of me.
"Lela, why do you hang out with that pussy?" I asked. "Everyone at school will think you guys are fucking, now that he is eighteen."
"We are just friends, Mark," Lela said quietly. "Although now that he is of legal age, maybe I will give him a blow-job for his birthday," she taunted me, fueling my jealousy.
"I don't want you to go tonight," I said firmly. "Stay home with me."
Lela was adamant that she was going to attend her friend's birthday party, and we ended up having a big argument about it. Once it became apparent that she was going, I stayed home, stewing in my juices as Lela took an Uber to John's house. Around eleven o'clock that night, she texted me to see if I could give her a ride home, and I drove over there to pick her up. When I arrived the front door was open so I let myself in, and followed the sound of music coming from the back yard. The party was winding down, with all of the under eighteens having left, and about six High School seniors remaining, two guys and four girls, including my girlfriend.