"Tell me about the ravine Amy! About how you went down on my boyfriend, Amy and the bracelets you got for it! "
That was it. The dress rehearsal of the stupid Dracula play. That was the day that changed my high school years and everything I was about forever.
Alex was my best friend. Her and her boyfriend had everything I could ever want, and I was ecstatic when they decided they wanted me to be a part of their world. The past year and a half meant everything to me. My mom took a liking to Alex right away, and she was glad I was finally making friends, since the fourteen years before I met Alex were basically friendless. Sure, I had people, but I never really considered them my friends. They were more just for show, so I didn't go down in social history as being Amy, the friendless little slut. That's why, when I met Alex, I honestly thought that shit would, I don't know, change. And maybe it did. In fact, I know it did. I was having the time of my life.
Unfortunately, the "time of my life" ordeal began to change, too. After Sean went home to his parents, Jay started pushing Alex away because she worked all the fucking time. He never would admit it, but Sean was probably the only friend he ever had. Jay and I are a lot alike. We each had one friend, and everyone else was just there for show. Alex was his girlfriend, I was his girlfriend's best friend, that stupid bitch Ellie was his best friend's girlfriend, and there was nothing he could do about it. Not that would. He needed to look hard. That was his image. Mine, after I became friends with Alex, was a slut. All of Jay's little followers hooked up with me, because if they couldn't have Alex, I was the next best thing. I resented that, but it didn't bother me. Not that much.
My resentment kicked in when Alex got a job at the movie theater and became all buddy-buddy with Princess Paige, the pathetic rape victim. I didn't give her that nickname. She parades it around like some little trophy. But Alex liked her, and maybe, since I had no other friends, I was jealous. So I took out my jealousy at the Ravine, my newfound escape from everything that was bothering me. If anyone started shit in school that pissed me off, I wouldn't do anything about it. I'd go to the ravine and get a nice bracelet to remind myself of that. It was things like that that led me to Jay one night. Way to be passive-aggressive, Amy. Look where it got you.
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"What's wrong with you, Jay?" I asked. I was tipsy, not drunk. My words slurred slightly, but I knew where I was and what I was doing.
"Alex is working. Again. This is the fifth fucking night this week she's been working. I never see her anymore." At that point I knew he was up to something, especially when Jenna Melbourne waved at him with her sultry wave and winked. Jay cracked open a beer and smiled at me. "What are you doing here, Amy?"
"You really wanna know?" By that point I had finished my third beer and was halfway through my fourth. I giggled. Jay sighed.
"I'm sure you're gonna tell me."
"Well, actually, when you find out, you can tell me, cause I've been here every fucking night, and I still don't understand why I do this."
"Really? Well, so have I. And I guess I'm in the same position you're in, cause I don't get it either." I guess that's when it clicked into my head that Jay was cheating on Alex, but I was too awed to even think about telling anyone. He glanced down at my arm, then over to the hook-up van.
"So I guess you figured out what that van was for, huh?"
"Yeah." His hand started creeping up my thigh. Some guy that was drunker than anyone else began talking loud about some stupid shit, and it was giving me a headache. I blamed the cheap beer and refocused my thoughts to Jay.
"You wanna go in there and talk?" I felt a slight burning sensation in the lower region of my body as his hand crept farther up my thigh. I nodded, a lump in my throat. I don't think I was crying, I just was nervous. He obviously had more experience with this than I did. He took my hand and led me over there, and that was the start of a long string of bad events.
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Every night Alex was working, we did that. We'd drink, talk for a little bit, and then go in the van. But pretty soon Jay got boring. There were other guys at the ravine, guys I'd never done anything with. I was walking out of the van with Danny Staton when I saw her. Emma Nelson, sinking to my level. I looked at her, and she looked at me back. I looked her directly in the eye and I saw the same thing every time I looked in the mirror. A mix of fear, frustration, sadness and rebellious feelings that can only go away when you're fucking around with some guy you didn't know. But it was like a drug, because after you're done, it's gone. It didn't hit me until I saw her go into the van with Jay that what we were doing was wrong. But being passive-aggressive, I still didn't do anything about it.
That's why after Alex smacked me and gave me her little speech I tried salvaging anything that was left of our friendship by pathetically yelling, "I didn't sleep with him!" Out of the corner of my eye I saw Emma covering up her bracelets. I stopped going to the ravine after that. I couldn't face anyone there. Even though they didn't know what had happened and they weren't gonna judge me, I realized what I was doing. I was a slut. And all the times I had called Manny Santos a slut came back and hit me in the gut. I was no better than she was, if not worse.
I still love Alex more than anything, and I'd still do anything for her. When I'm old and I look back on my high school life she is without a doubt going to be the best thing I remember. Everything else might fade away, but the good memories I had with her will always be there.
Craig Manning asked me the reason I gave Jay head in the back of a van. I couldn't answer him. A lump formed in my throat, the same lump that I felt the night I first messed around with Jay. I ran off to the bathroom and spent two periods in there until I realized why I did it.
Alex was my best friend. But I was always in her shadow, never in the spotlight. For once, I wanted to be more than just "Alex's best friend" or "One of Degrassi's thieves" or something equally degrading. But after I realized that, I realized what I really was.
A slut. A slut and a sad ass liar. And from now on, I'm never gonna look at myself the same.