"Don't let them see your tears…", I'd say every morning in the mirror before I would do my daily face treatment. As I almost finished the last stage in keeping my face healthy and clean in the back of my mind I'd hear my mother's voice repeating in my head. "You can't do it…you amount to nothing…you will be just like your father, a low life lazy-ass drug addict…"is all I heard. It is an awful thing to say, but I'm glad she's dead, I'm glad she's 6 feet below my proud feet. It will be hard, but I have to get over it. I have to get over her, I have to get over the people I've been associated with, I have to get over my dad, and for the most part, I have to get over the label I've had ever since 3rd grade-the label named "bitch".
Ever since my mom died, I've put up a shield blocking the world out from my life. I called it strength; they called it being a bitch. I'm only 15, and I know it's not a word a girl my age should be saying, but the word "bitch" has so much more meaning than what everyone shoots it up to be. Okay, the "dictionary" says it means "female dog", but over many different centuries, it's gotten a bad reputation since the meaning the dictionary gave us. In modern day, it practically means "a girl or woman who yells at everything, who wants everything her way, and when she can't get it, she blows up". I'm totally over it…or at least I believe I'm over it. But that is the least of my worries. It's my first day at a new high school.
Yesterday I walked up to my mother's grave and stood proud and said, "I forgive you. It's been a long time since I've been here but I'm definitely not here to say I told you so, I'm just here to say, I forgive you and I finally made it." Now I'm off. I said good-bye to Jared-my step-dad-as I closed his car door. I took a breath of fresh air and exhaled. I felt better now that I had done that. I walked up to the building's door and said, "Hello, beautiful masterpiece, I'm here to say thank you for letting me step on your sacred ground and reinvent myself for the population…again, thank you". As I walked in, I realized a group of kids laughing at my little speech. Actually, I almost started cracking up myself;I just realized I sounded as if I was reciting William Shakespeare for drama class. I walked up to the Student Help Desk and asked for a guide, to help me find my classes. The first class I had was homeroom.
"Room 609, Mrs. Choledenko", I kept repeating to myself as I looked at each of the doors that I passed. To my relief, I finally found it. I walked in and I was in total shock. I felt like I was in a teen movie. In every direction, there were different cliques. Goths, bikers, preps, punks, emos, jocks, nerds, cheerleaders, richies, drama junkies, and druggies, all talking to each other in their little sections… and of course, you can't have a teen movie without the corky, push-over, shy new teacher is trying to calm everyone down. I didn't know where to sit. Amazingly, I found this one little seat in the front right next to the teacher's desk. It was by itself and it almost seemed to glow with glory because it seemed high and mighty, because with all of the people in all of the cliques, it was just there…untouched and unused. So, without any hesitation, I dashed to that seat. I didn't want to get up; I felt so comfortable. But unfortunately, I had to.
Next, I went off to science. Finding a seat in this class wasn't so easy as it was in homeroom. It seemed as if they were short a few desks, because all of the other new kids had no seat either. To our humiliation, the teacher finally noticed us and started to practically tell our life stories. After she told the last person's story, half the class was asleep, and she had called upon the custodian to get us desks. After that, the rest of the day was pretty normal. I had 2 more classes for the morning, went to lunch, went to the rest of my classes, and then went home. Easy day, just for the fact I had no homework. As soon as I got home, I went into my room and started reading a book a friend had sent me from Indonesia. It was a legend of a greedy man and how he became ungreedy…or something like that. Hey, I'm only in the middle of it…don't judge me.
The next morning was different than others. As normal, I would look in the mirror and say, "Don't let them see your tears…", and do my face ritual, but that wasn't the part that was different. Instead of hearing my mom's harsh words, I heard the voice of my grandma, whose words were so soothing it almost made me fall asleep. She'd always say to me, "you can do it…don't let anyone ever tell you differently". I smiled as I remembered the words. Today was also different because Jared was being a total jerk. I don't know why but he left without me just because he has "low-tolerance for procrastination", he would call it. I'd say it was total and complete impatience. So I had to walk all the way across town! Also, today in school was really weird. At lunch, again I sat alone because I hadn't made any friends yet. Oddly enough, a random jock walked up to my table at asked, "Is this seat taken?" Before I could stop myself from speaking I said, "Obviously not…I guess you could sit there". Ignoring my rude comment, he sat and started telling me about his latest breakup (which apparently just happened) like I was some kind of therapist.
It was actually amusing to hear him talk. He talked very well, but he made some mistakes which, of course, I counted in my head---about 2 to 3 for each sentence to be exact. As I was listening, I kind of felt sorry for him, all the breakups and disappointments, it just made me want to cry. But again, I said, "don't let him or anyone else see you're tears". The class bell rang, and finally he introduced himself. "Dimitri- Dimitri Guarantino", he said. Apparently he's from Italian descent. I found out we had biology together. Although you could technically say I was a freshman, because I'm new, but I'm a junior and I took junior level classes because of my grades. Dimitri sat right in front of me. Throughout class, we kept passing notes to each other. We had like a whole conversation on a 6x3 piece of paper. When class was over, Dimitri gave me his number. I thought to myself, "he doesn't even know me all that well, but I'll take it just for the record".
After school was over, Jared picked me up. Because of this morning, I wasn't as pissed off as I should've been but was angry enough to get Jared to apologize (which he never does) and he took me to Baskin Robins so I could get a triple fudge sundae (yummy!). I was thinking that if this is what happens when I get angry, I wonder what would happen if I blow a blood vessel and go off on Jared the next time he does something wrong. But enough about that.
When I got home, I fell right asleep. I think that sundae got to me. For some reason, I dreamt about Dimitri. I dreamt about us in a relationship. Before it got out of hand, I woke up- right before the wedding part. As I woke up, I kept thinking, "this can't be happening, I just met the guy…and it wasn't on purpose either". I admit, I like him- but only as a friend…for now. I guess I'll wait and see what happens.