Chapter two of "This is my life"

CHAPTER TWO

Moving to West Collingswood wasn't all that much better of a living situation then we had in that house we lived in before. It was teeny tiny, barely any room, and was an apartment with no backyard. Fortunately, i had a bedroom that i could hide in in the back of the house.

Here we were closer to family. I thought because my cousins were all popular in the high school I would now be going to, I wouldn't have a hard time. Boyyyy, was I REALLY, uberly, totally wrong. Things at home continued to be shitty. Mom still went out. I was still taking care of my brother 24/7.

My memory from this time in my life is really foggy. I have a hard time remembering things. I just remember this time being really complicated and hurtful and painful…and filled with torment from both my mother and bullies at school…My fathers were in and out of my life, as well as my sister and her life that was going on.

i fell into a deep depression and started hanging out with "not so good kids" in school. Started smoking….Still not over the abortion, and with the fact I was now IGNORED at school instead of being bullied, I was more alone then I ever was. I was inside myself. I started writing.

I wrote like a fiend. I wrote with every fiber of my being. And listened to music like it was gonna end the next day…And sang. I sang my heart out, tearfully…heartbrokenly…..I finally couldn't take it anymore.

Nothing was helping.

I remember one time in the first couple of months i was there, I had gotten my period in school unexpectedly. And of course, this is a total embarrassment to a young teenaged girl in a new school. It went all over my pants. I got permission from the office to leave campus to walk home to change and come back because my mother couldn't be bothered to leave work to help her teenaged daughter.

By the time I got back to school, it was my lunch period. I was sitting at the table with my friend Eva when one of the jocks walked up to me with a plate of ketchup. Now, mind you I had no food in front of me because I had eaten at home before walking back to school. He proceeded to throw it down in front of me. I looked at it, looked at him and saw the sneering laughter in his eyes.

I looked at Eva, looked at the jock table and saw them all snickering. I got up and walked off into the bathroom and cried until the end of the period. I spent the rest of the day avoiding my classes and ditching.

Again, it now started again….there were times of being shoved into lockers. Whispers behind me as I walked down the halls. Rumors started about me…..And my cousins did NOTHING.

This was also about the same time that i started meeting boys. Boys that I had crushes on…Boys that I didn't know that I'd say hi to in the hallways because it made my friend Eva giggle with my confidence that I could say hi to them, even though they had NO clue who i was, but i knew who they were.

One thing I always remember is that, even though I was raped, I never looked at that as a thing to make me HATE men. It was something that I kind of just "got over" after a certain amount of time. My mother was apparently raped right before she got pregnant with me and it made her HATE men. Beyond hating.

I wasn't going to let myself turn into that.

One thing I always knew was that I was good with men. I was good with guy friends. I was good at being their friends. I guess honestly, I never did well with women because I thought all of them were bitches and horrible people like my mother, my aunts, my grandmother…They all sat as my mother pulled the wool over their eyes about how she was a "perfect mother" but didn't know about the traumatic nightmares that happened at home to me every time she came home drunk.

So aside from a few girls that I had as friends, who, i can honestly say that werent exactly at that time the BEST influences…I didn't really hook myself up with girls as friends. And Im like that today.

Men have always been an easy thing for me to have as friends…when I was younger, I was never a "serial dater". I always had a stream of steady "boyfriends"….The boy I went to my 8th grade grad dance with….The junior that took me to Homecoming the ONE year i went to high school….and my FIRST true love…

Eric.

He still has my heart. We met at a wedding I was helping my mothers then boyfriend with. He was a photographer and he brought me with him to "teach" me a skill. I was 15…or 16. We locked eyes from across the dance floor and that was it….A little later, during a lull in (photo festivities), he asked me to dance…To "Everything I do, I do it for you." by Brian Adams….I felt butterflies in my heart. My stomach….and I was in love.

The first time I EVER felt love in my heart…Even though I lived in West Collingswood with my mother and he lived in Washington Township with his parents, we were always together. It was a bright spot in my life.

It got me away from the shit storm at home and from the crappy friends i had in school…My life was going awesomely…

Until my mother sent me away to Nikos and I lost contact with Eric…I wasn't allowed to see or talk to him while I was at school. It was devastating to me. I loved him. I know he loved me. We actually secretly were engaged. but when my mother sent me away, it broke us apart. Some years later, we reconnected...and again several years later...only now, hes married...My heart was devastated with that news but now we are friends. But, I know that if he ever decided to leave her, and he called me, I would drop everything i ever was doing and go to him....My mother tried to destroy it, but she didnt succeed.

I honestly think now, that she just didn't WANT me to succeed and be happy. Be loved by anyone else.

SO that begins the two and a half years at Nikos Academy.