August

August 5

God, I thought the summer would never end! The parties were dull, weed has come to taste like nothing more than rotten parsley, and sadly, there seems to be nothing thrilling about being an adolescent anymore. Right now all I want to do is fall asleep and not wake up until I'm eighteen. That way, not only will I no longer have to deal with the insanities of high school, but I can also get away from this run-down, terracotta prison more commonly referred by normal people as "home". I want more than anything to just pack a bag, get into my little junker car, and drive away without ever looking back... ever!

 

 

 

August 7

Donald said that he couldn't make the movie tonight because he's worn out from work. I told him it was alright, but he wasn't helping my disappointment by being overdramatic I told him he was upsetting me and wanted to hang up on him for being so inconsiderate. Instead of apologizing, he actually had the nerve to ask me why I don't say 'I love you' yet. Are you kidding me? He's only taken me out twice since we met over three months ago! He doesn't even call or text unless he's bored or when it's half past two in the morning! And when I don't answer him right away, he gets pissed off. But yet he wants me to pretend like he's my boyfriend when he's the one who's avoiding me?

 

At this point I don't care if the asshole ever talks to me again, it's not like I even got the chance to become emotionally attached. Maybe I should just stop caring about whether or not I could be good enough for someone, because it's probably never going to happen.

 

 

 

August 8

 Well, sure as shit I almost slipped up today. I tried to break up a physical altercation between Shelly and the Dick, and with one solid strike to the chops from that worthless sack of donkey jizz, I was tempted to run for the kitchen and come back at him with a tenderizing mallet... but I didn't and that infuriated me. So I had two options; cut or write. Reluctantly I have chosen to open up this notebook. Before my last suicide attempt, I never bothered to keep a written record of anything that has gone on this far in my life. In all honesty, I don't really want to remember any more than I already do. But I have made the decision to put myself through a kind of personal therapy in which I pick up a pen rather than a razor. And I think I've made progress in preparing to brace myself for anything. Stress has always been the one thing I'm not good at keeping hidden. You'll know when I'm truly angry, and it's not a pretty sight; usually, because it ends with someone's teeth getting smashed in. And you know what doesn't help that stress? Being forced to live with two of the worst people in the entire universe!

 

 

 

August 10

I am so fucking livid right now, it's a miracle I can write without breaking my pen in half. I have been beyond ecstatic to finally see Rising Ashes live, and even with only finding out three days in advance, there were still tickets available! We just had to get to the venue in Santa Barbara on time since they were only playing one night. And we were so close to going, but because Andrea had to get caught with a guy in her room... again... I had no choice but to scratch the entire trip since she was supposed to be getting the tickets in lieu of chipping in for gas money and food the whole weekend. I swear to God, if she keeps this shit up, we won't be able to do a damn thing during our final school year!

 

 

 

August 13

When I was fifteen, I met the one person I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with. I even went so far as to envision myself walking down the aisle to him someday. Gerard was sweet, charming and he made me feel like the most beautiful girl in the world. We would stay up late at night just to talk on the phone. There was usually a lot of silence, but just knowing that he was there was a comfort all its own. We went on a few dates, but as much as I wanted to be with him, the feeling didn't seem mutual. He told me he cared about me, but as time passed, we continued to spend time together, but as nothing more than friends. There wasn't even an official breakup; he just stopped holding me hand and kissing me and treating me like a girlfriend. But I couldn't just let what we had fade into the oblivion. I knew I still loved him, and I know that I always will. As long as he's in my life, that's all I can ask for, and I wouldn't give it up for anything.

 

Of course, in the back of my mind, I wish it could be more. He says he doesn't understand how a girl like me can be so good to him, and many times I've had to remind him that he's my favorite person in the world. I love Gerard, now and forever. Even if it's only from a distance.

 

 

 

August 14

There are just not enough hours in the day to complain about how aggravatingly slow time is moving. It's like the clock is laughing at me while I lie here feeling nothing more than sluggish and dense. It's raining out and I'm stuck inside with nothing but a bottle of rum and what's left of the cigarettes I got off my next door neighbor's porch. Sounds like one hell of a party, doesn't it? Funny thing is, and I'm sure it was just the booze, but it almost felt like I was being watched. Could just be the friendly cockroaches though, they live inside of all the boxes full of useless shit I have to sleep around.

 

 

 

August 16

Even with the scars on my throat and wrists still clearly visible, a strong nagging urge to cut myself again has proven nearly impossible to ignore throughout this evening; especially after being publicly molested by the Dick's cousin. Leon is five years older than I am and isn't completely hideous, on the outside anyway. He has a tendency to drink too much, and when he does, he goes from verbal perversion to acting like a sex-deprived psycho in a matter of seconds! He tried sliding his hand up my shirt when I walked into the kitchen, and Shelly just laughed about it! The bitch said it was cute! So I've been sitting out here on the lawn for three and a half hours now, and I'm not going in until everyone is gone!... It's going to be a long night.

 

 

 

August 17

I spent the afternoon with Gerard and the girls lying outside the old mausoleum at Evergreen and smoking a few joints. We watched the clouds glide by in a stop-motion haze, while he told us how exciting it was to be on our last year before graduating. It's nice to know that Gerard has a future plan laid out, wish I could say the same for myself. I want to be out of school just as much, but I don't have anything set in stone for my life once I'm free of my educational imprisonment... Once the drowsiness started to kick in, we fell asleep for a few good hours before being woken up by the groundskeeper and being called 'little gouls' as he shoed us off the premise.

 

 

 

August 19

Wake up, study, drink, sleep...Wake up, study, drink, sleep...Wake up, study, drink, sleep...Every day it's the same events and the same routines; with enough accompanied drama to inspire the newest primetime soap opera... not that there aren't already enough of those. I don't know how the hell I'm going to survive with having school thrown into the mix. I really think I need a better outlet for my time.

 

 

 

August 20

Andrea was having a last-minute heart attack about what most recent fashion trend to follow, so she dragged me along with her and Nikki to the mall. I don't exactly look like a contender in my own wardrobe, but that's what happens when you've had to revert to lifting donations from the Salvation Army. That's why I usually just wear my jacket; no one can tell I'm wearing the same shirt for several days in a row if they can't see it. Am I sweating like a pig underneath? Quite. The summer heat hasn't been very kind to me.Like every other time we've gone to this three-story maze of overpriced and overrated retail traps, I eventually "lost" them and showed myself to the food court for a burger then waited in the stairwell of the parking structure with a flask full of whatever I managed to sneak out of Shelly's cabinet this morning.

 

 

 

August 21

Sitting outside Frost Street Liquor, waiting for Andrea, I noticed the playground across the street for the first time in a long time, watching a small girl being pushed on the swing by her father. Although I smiled for a moment, it made me fall deep into depressing thoughts about how a large portion of my life has been trashed and scattered ever since cancer took my dad from me. Shelly never seemed too devastated though, having moved on not two weeks after he was buried. She hooked up with Richard at one of her photo shoots while she was still beautiful and young and rich... it all went to hell in a handbasket from there. His name sure suits him because he's a total DICK! But she was obsessed with him in a matter of hours, so naturally, the next step was to uproot me to this shit-hole of a city on a tiny shred of hope to make a fortune!

 

Eventually Shelly started getting gigs, but although the Boulevard looks glamorous, growing up underneath the limelight of Hollywood really took a toll on me. I've seen enough to realize it's not everything people make it out to be. Sure we weren't in all the tabloids like every other celebrity, but Shelly was famous enough to gain a substantial fan base and rake in thousands from every fashion show, perfume ad, commercial, and TV appearance she did. Everything vanished by my thirteenth birthday.

 

Now the only modeling Shelly does is when she's hanging off a pole topless or when she's whoring herself out to Johns from the bars and clubs. Do you know how awful it is to be ridiculed by kids who see pictures of her on bus benches and in bathroom stalls barely dressed? Do you know how much heartache I have to deal with knowing my mom is a "customer favorite" at the Diamond Chateau off the 5 freeway? But God forbid that I denounce Shelly for her lack of morals! Then suddenly she's the victim and I end up with more cuts and bruises than an MMA fighter; only I don't get a chance to defend myself! And the fact that she won't even be a mother and a protector against the scum that lay their hands on me tears the wounds deeper.

 

 

 

August 23

It's half past five in the morning. An hour into pacing back and forth in the living room, I was threatened by the Dick to either get my stupid ass back in bed or be locked in the closet for a week. For some ridiculous reason, I actually pondered the thought of being cramped in a space more confined than a jail cell for seven days with no food or water! Once I finally convinced myself to go back into my room, I lied awake for what felt like ages, trying to think of nothing. Staring up at the ceiling, my thoughts began to stir up again and I wondered what it would be like to make friends with the shadows and came and went on my walls. I know it must sound odd, but at least if I were capable of doing so, I would know that they are meant to leave me, unlike real people... that's when the shadows began to smile at me... My thoughts were suddenly interrupted by Richard's loud snoring in the next room. I stopped myself from pounding on the wall out of annoyance, knowing it would be safer for me not to attempt it. I would rather not have the words 'Redneck' bruised into the side of my face because of Richard barging in to pummel me with his favorite belt for waking him up.

 

 

 

August 23 (later evening)

Shelly was slugging vodka straight from the bottle paired with a slice of grapefruit when I walked in the kitchen. Just the sound of her slurping sent a painful trickle of irritability through me and caused my teeth to grind rather than snap at her to quit it. Instead, I kindly offered her a glass to drink her liquor from but got my cup of coffee knocked out of my hand and called a lousy excuse for a daughter. What a bonding moment, right? I mean, all she did yesterday was cuss me out when I wouldn't help her wash the vomit out of Richard's hair.

 

I sat in the diner with Gerard and the girls, having coffee to spruce ourselves up after the rager we got wasted at last night. Andrea kept nudging me every other minute to get me to look over a few boots away; there was a group of kids talking loudly and causing a scene with their toilet humor. On most days that would be us, but we weren't feeling it today. I assumed their antics weren't the reason she kept prodding me since I noticed that the blonde man in the middle of them was facing our direction was staring right at me. At first I didn't put much stock into it, what with Gerard having his head down on the table looking half dead and Nikki, even though she'd only had one glass of spiked punch, couldn't stop going on about how she was never going to make it through the first day of school with what she feels is a hangover. Sorry Nikki, you're just stressed out, like always... I'M the one with a hangover; I couldn't even tell how awful and bitter the coffee was because of my excessive cottonmouth. When we were heading out the door, I stopped at the cash register to pay. But the blonde guy walked up just as the hostess did and he offered to pay for our coffee. It seemed odd and I tried to politely decline his offer, but he insisted. Andrea thanked him and dragged me off before I could protest anymore... of course SHE would be the one to get a stranger to pay her tab. But it got weirder when we arrived at school and saw that very same guy walking onto campus with his entourage. He looks a bit too old to be a high school student; more like 19 or 20.

 

Leaving the main office with our schedules, we found out that the four of us don't have classes all together this semester, but I have chemistry with Andrea, gym with Nikki, and English with Gerard and Andrea. Nikki says we still have the overpass after school as well as our usual hangout spot to rendezvous at by the wall in the small quad during nutrition break and lunch. I just hope I don't have to run into Mr. Creeper again.

 

 

 

August 24- Joseph McCrery: noun 1. Blonde, hazel-eyed, egotistical asshole... He walked into my chemistry class yesterday and Mr. Holmes announced that he's his teacher's aide transfer from South Bay. He's twenty-five, but he likes to hang around with younger kids? Like that doesn't sound like a pedophile at all! But apparently, the overpass gang is already familiar as well as enamored with him. I don't really see what's so great about the guy; yeah he's decent looking, but that's not enough to save him from a horrible first impression in my eyes. Just today I saw him swagger across the courtyard with one of the boys from his little group, and they actually came up to the wall, invading our personal space. McCrery got close enough behind me that I could almost feel his breath on my neck. But when I thought he would have something worth saying, his first words to me were merely a compliment about me not trying to hide my natural hair color as his ex-girlfriend did. I thought that if I ignored the statement, he would go away.

Typically, I'm not one for socializing. It's bad enough that I have to deal with being around people at all, but I've grown to tolerate those who I'm currently well acquainted with. Andrea insisted that we introduce ourselves to him. Why I have no idea. He seemed to become rather chummy with us right away, which made for a very unpleasant conversation in which he began to ask me questions about myself; what classes I had this semester, how long I've known the OP kids, etc... things that had me feeling a sense of discomfort right from the start. Then he asked me to spin around. I said no, of course, so he proceeded to walk around me instead as if examining a prized thoroughbred. He smiled and said that I was a "perfect" and walked away. I was just as confused as Andrea, except she was pretty pissed that he gave me all of his attention.

 

 

 

August 25- During nutrition break I stood with Gerard and the girls around our usual wall in the small quad with the rest of the overpass kids, smoking and shooting the breeze, just as we have for the past three years. They don't mind it, but to me, it's a bit inane. What do we really get out of standing around the same wall, talking about practically nothing all school year? Where is the excitement? The pizzazz? The adventure? They seem content with mediocrity, but I want something more.

 

Although I passed my chemistry test, Mr. Holmes insists that I have to show more work. So he assigned McCrery to help me after school in the library. I don't think I have been in such a tormenting amount of awkward silence; he spent a better part of the time gawking at me like some sort of museum exhibit. I figured out how to elongate my answers, no thanks to the weirdo who used the hour to ask me more personal questions.

 

As charismatic as he may be, it's a little unnerving being watched at by everyone who passes us, whispering to each other about how we looked like such a cute couple. Seriously? To make things worse, McCrery went so far as to hold my hand while I tried to write in an attempt to "help" me work out the problems. Who does he think he is? 

 

 

 

August 29- After an evening at the overpass, I got back to the house and I was ambushed by Richard and Shelly. I could only look on as the Dick tore apart my grandmother's bible, my savings falling out of the back leather flap. Seeing the smug look on his face as he pocketed my hard earned money flipped on a switch of total anger inside me. I socked him in the face a few times, but it quickly became two against one. I was able to give Shelly a bloody nose as she missed both times swinging at me, but once Richard had his fat knee buried into my back, I knew there wasn't a chance of moving, being crushed with all his weight. The only thing I can be grateful for was that the beating didn't last for more than ten minutes before his belt buckle clocked me hard in the temple and I was out like a light.

 

 

 

August 30- It was dismally cloudy outside, so we all hung out at the cemetery. I stretched out bruised and sore on top of a large, cold tombstone; my arms crossed against my chest and my bloodshot eyes staring blankly up at the sky. Gerard was the first to notice how comatose I looked, so he helped me out with a few swigs from his beer, telling me I was creeping him out with the significant position I was lying in. I talked briefly about last night's fiasco and explained that for the time being, I can no longer be the main contributor between the four of us. Andrea was pretty pissed, but she doesn't have any room to talk. She's such a fucking mooch, and I regret ever opening my mouth about helping her out whenever she needed me. Thankfully Gerard stepped in and said for me not to worry about it, because it's only fair that we all pitch in equally.

 

 

 

August 31- McCrery caught me applying concealer to my scars, which has never done much good, and wanted to talk to me. At first, I told him to get lost, I really wasn't in the mood to open up to a guy who thinks he's the Johnny Depp of the school. But I suppose resistance is futile when you can only wander so far on campus. I gave him a five-minute limit, but we ended up spending the whole lunch period walking along the back of the school, and he talked about how from seeing the way I've been interacting with my friends, I should be surrounding myself with more people who get me. I really have no idea where that topic came from, but he's insisting that I do my best to make new friends, because mine are going nowhere. Well, I wouldn't say 'nowhere', but they certainly aren't filling my adventurous quota. It's almost like I've done everything with them, and now there's nothing left to experience on the high school stoner's checklist. Plus, with feeling the way I do about Gerard, now could be a good time to somewhat separate myself from him.

 

There's something about McCrery that made me want to confide in him. When he asked about my scars, I got to a point where I opened up about trying to kill myself. It was actually right after Gerard stopped acting like my boyfriend. It was the second time in my life I had felt abandoned. Andrea and Nikki were no help either, telling me to get over it and grow up. But I didn't want to grow up, I didn't want to live in a world where people use me up and throw me away like a piece of garbage! Needless to say, I told McCrery almost everything about my life. Words poured from me like a waterfall, especially when he put a comforting arm around my shoulders, listening intently. I honestly didn't know how to stop myself until I couldn't form coherent sentences anymore through pathetic sobs. He gave me his number and told me that I'd want to hold onto it, because he'd be there whenever I needed him.

September

 September 2

After spilling my guts to McCrery, I feel really tense around the OP kids. No one seems to notice the difference. The days go on like there isn't anything wrong with the world, but it's not the same for me. There has to be something better than this. They all act like being "bad" is a side gig, they just have to clad themselves in their dark clothes and brood in front of people, but most of them are actually straight A students! Nikki looks the most out of place, and Andrea... well, let's just say if someone was in need of an outfit for a sexually active toddler, they could take it

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 05.03.2019
ISBN: 978-3-7438-9870-7

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