When I was in 8th grade I had a crush on this guy. He was nice, cute, and funny. He was all that stuff your crush is required to be. He dressed well, sung well and always had an armory of girls that followed him everywhere. He was untouchable and disinterested. He was also very popular, and I was very not.
Don't ask me why I decided to set my sights on him. Why does any girl decide to put all their money on losing? Who knows, it's been done and always will be. Maybe it was those blue eyes, or that sandy hair. Maybe it was simply because I was completely awkward, and he was nice enough to not kick me when I was down. That's a rare thing in middle school. Everyone wants to make sure they damage you as much as possible, to secure their own position. He wasn't like that, simply because his own position was already secured in stone.
Both my best friend and I liked him. We would sit and talk about his blue eyes, kiss his picture in the yearbook, and write Mrs. Emily Harrison all over our journals, all that elementary nonsense. Eventually, Emily crush subsided, but mine did not.
I had a certain reputation around the school. I lied a lot, and had horrible mood swings. Sometimes, other students would even find me wandering around in the hallways talking to myself. I was failing out of school, and couldn't stay in my classes more than a few hours. I spent most time in the nurse's office, pretending to be sick or in the counselors office pretending to be mentally incapacitated enough to stay out of class.
Mostly I was just confused. My head seemed to be another part of me, and sometimes I looked back on the things I did in bewilderment. The principals and teachers and doctors would show me detention slips, write-up, complaints and other school papers, and I would shake my head. I wondered how it could have happened. I wondered how I could have lied about or said the things that I did.
I had massive blank spots, wholes in my memory, where I had no remembrance of any of my actions at all. In my dreams, sometimes I remembered them, and other horrible things.
This, loss of memory, came in handy sometimes, as my fellow classmates and many teachers tortured me. I had no friends. The people I attracted, by some force of personality were soon transformed into my worst and most loathed enemies, and after awhile I had no care for any friends except my doctors.
The psychologists were confused. I had them wrung around loops and circles in a mental health marathon. They threw out new diagnosis every day. My psychiatrist then did the same with the respective medication, but nothing ever worked. My parents were a nervous wreck. I was on the edge of destruction.
And, I still had this abnormally obsessive crush on Jake Lytle, the kind where you try to take pictures of him and steal his binder. The only thing going for me was the schools biannual play production. Of which we were both trying out for. I loved acting; it was the one place that I excelled amongst the ruin of my life. I had been cast already several times as the lead in numerous other community theater productions. People were always coming up and praising my parents on my acting abilities. Once a man have given my parents a talent agency card. It was since that day that I had begged them to help me become a star.
It was the only thing that I had, the only place where I could make a normal life. I was obsessed with it. The stage was all I wanted, it didn't matter how I got there.
But my parents said that it was out of the question. It was a lot of hard work. You have to be "sane" for such kinds of work. I wanted to prove to them that I was good, that I was good at something, not just a waste of time.
It was a musical. I got up on the stage in front of Jake and his entourage. In front of all of those people who always laughed and called me insane, or worse, just asked questions like I was on display.
I sung this song, from a play I was in once. A show tune number, and every one just kind of stared at me, awkwardly like I was out of touch.
A girl I knew, the Music teacher's daughter Eve got up. She belted out this song, a pop hit, very sexy. And, I just thought to myself, "Why didn't I do that?"
She sat down next to me. He eyes met mine. They said to me silently, " I'm totally going to star in this thing." Every person after her did the same. Sexy pop hits, most were off tune, and they all got cast. Everyone got cast.
We got cards to write down our preferred role. I was so angry. I wrote down witch. Why not play the evil character? I never thought I'd actually get that role. I thought for sure I'd star.
Eve got cast as the lead, and her crush Jake got cast as her husband. I was so angry. I could have slugged her. We used to be friends until she did something really rotten and underhanded. She humiliated me in front of a lot of people and spread these intolerable rumors around the school.
The role of the witch turned out to be a main one after all. I even had my own song. And when I sang it during dress rehearsal, the director said, "Cut. Cut. Everyone, that was perfect. She just did it perfectly, now if you can't do it as well as she just did, than you can't sing tomorrow night."
I was so proud, because the best compliment comes from a man that hates you. I went back stage to change my costume, and when I got there, a welcoming party had been assembled.
"That your own costume Kalos?"
Hannah was one of my ex-friends, now enemies and a member of Jakes entourage. Your voice was nasal and snippy. I didn't know what to say to her sarcasm, so I said nothing.
"It looks like you stuffed your boobs." Jake pointed out. People started giggling.
"Yeah it does." Others chimed in.
"No. I didn't." I stammered." I could feel the tears running down my cheeks again. I bolted in to the bathroom. Lying on the floor I tried to cut myself with my earring back. When it didn't work I just stopped. My face was white, puffy. With solemnity, I watched the water drip from the faucet.
"I can never go back." I thought.
"Never."
When I was a sophomore in high school, my sister acquired this new friend. She took him to her senior prom. His name was Jake Lytle. They started going out and doing things more often. He was still king of the school, with his female entourage, and I was still moderately crazy, and had transferred to a different more "accepting" school.
After my sister had grown very, very close to Jake, he told her a secret. "I am gay." He said. She thought that this was absolutely fantastic. He fulfilled all of her, gay best friend fantasies. I did not care one-way or the other.
I was not until she began inviting him over to bake cookies and to see my grandmother that I began to feel uneasy. I told her, that I didn't wan to be around him.
"What?" she asked me, "Do you have a problem that he's gay."
"No. I have a problem with other stuff."
But here I go, to my grandmother's to see him and relive it all. I spend my life just trying to avoid these people. If I see them in the grocery store, anyone like Hannah, or Eve, I look down so that I don't have to make eye contact. I don't want people to remember me as this crazy whore. I live enough of that legacy in my own home. My sister says it's because I'm selfish. I don't know. Maybe so, but I'm protecting them from the scene.
There's just to many bad memories attached to these people. Especially, to the kid who broke my heart.
After I got up from the floor in the bathroom, and while they were cleaning up the sets, I found him again in the band room. I made there, the worst and most humiliating mistake. I strutted up to him.
"You know," I said through choked sobs, "I used to like you. But because you did that, I don't anymore!"
He looked very confused, "Okay," he said simply.
I ran away again, and the whole story went around the school. I could for the life of me live it down.
Now I'm going to see him again. I know that he will remember that. I will too. It's stupid, yes. Irrational, maybe, I just feel uncomfortable.
I guess I'll live through it. I always do.
This is basically a slice of life type of thing. Which is why it doesn't really begin or end. It's a one shot, unless for some reason, someone actually reviews it and wants more. Anyways, thanks.
I just felt like writing about really, really, different characters from what I usually do. I don't know if I did a very good job with the whole.... problems and all that. Tell me if I'm wrong.