My life so far part 9

I started my sophomore year of high school with a heavy heart. I felt like I didn't have anyone. After everything that had happened over the summer and all the changes that were going on, I was feeling lost and alone. My dad was getting ready for a new family, one that didn't include me. My mom was hardly ever around. My circle of friends had disintegrated in front of my eyes. I was still close with my friend that was in band with me, but because I was no longer with my boyfriend, we didn't do things outside of school anymore because she was always with her boyfriend and it was awkward. I was still friends with my old best friend, but now that we were back in school, we never saw each other. I still wasn't speaking to my cousin.

I had plenty of friends, but none who I was close enough to do anything with. I usually filled my school hours with being politely sociable with everyone, but mainly concentrating on my schoolwork and practicing the new routine and songs for Marching Band that year. I ended up developing an okay friendship with my first ex, the one with the shaggy blonde hair. Even though we didn't work as a couple, we found we were actually pretty good at being friends. He was lonely too, his girlfriend whom he had begun dating after me, had graduated the previous year, so he was feeling kind of lost. People began to talk about us being friendly again and thinking we were getting back together, but we didn't. We just enjoyed the company.

A couple of months into school, my serious ex boyfriend, began calling me again. We had given each other a few months to have some space. He wasn't ready to walk away from our relationship and while I didn't want to completely shut him out, I didn't want the seriousness we had before and I was still uneasy about being around him because I was guilty about what I had done. We agreed to take it slow and began hanging out again. I wasn't sure how I was going to handle things; it may have been weak, but I was tired of punishing myself and I was tired of being alone. I guess it sounded a lot like my mom and I hated that about myself. But I did miss him and what we had, it was familiar and comfortable. Pretty soon we were back together completely. I justified it by thinking that I knew what it was to be apart from him and to "live", so I no longer felt the urge to have space. I also made a promise to myself that I would be the perfect girlfriend to him and make up for what I had done. And it worked for a while.

That winter, my dad and stepmom had a son. He was beautiful, and I was sort of looking forward to having a baby around. Not that I saw any of them that much, but I enjoyed it when I did, I came to love him very quickly. He had these big sparking blue eyes, dark hair and a big grin. I babysat whenever I could.

Even though my boyfriend and I had gotten back together and were actually doing pretty well, we didn't go back to hanging out with our best friends. The first time we were together, that was all we did. But I think as both of our relationships continued to grow, we wanted more time alone. Things were starting to change in our group. I wasn't sure why, I guess that is what happens when you spend a lot of time with certain people, you begin to start picking at flaws and become annoyed quickly with their personalities and I think we all did that with each other. Her boyfriend felt like mine was constantly with me and never had time for just him, which didn't make sense to me because he spent every spare moment with my best friend. So he began to resent me and they began to argue. Meanwhile, I was having my own problems with my best friend. We would get pulled into their fights defending each boyfriend. Not only that, but things had begun to change at school as well. Without my boyfriend there, I made a lot of friends, mostly because of the time that we weren't together at the beginning of school and because he didn't go there anymore, he didn't monopolize my time. I don't think she liked that. I never really figured out what it was, if it was the fact that I had a life outside our circle of friends and our boyfriends, and her, or what. I couldn't help getting noticed, by guys and girls a like. I made friends with people in my classes just like everyone else does. She had plenty of friends too, even guys, but it seemed like I couldn't do that, or I wasn't doing it the right way. But she began to get mean and catty about things. She started making comments about why I dressed the way I did, asking who I was trying to impress because my boyfriend wasn't there anymore, or why I was talking to so and so, and would he liked that if he found out? We had another non band class together and she became angry if I talked to other people in the class besides her, and would make rude comments when I made better grades then her, which was a lot. She always seemed to want to tear me down, and I couldn't understand why, and why then. I wasn't going to deal with it and we began to grow apart.

My cousin one day out of the blue started wanting me to hang out with her again. I wanted clarification that she knew I hadn't done anything wrong. She had ended things with her boyfriend and wanted to make things right with me. She admitted she knew I couldn't have done that and apologized. I didn't want to stay mad at her; she was family after all. So I started hanging out with her again. We had a lot of fun; guy free. My boyfriend was not happy about me spending time with her. While he never found out about my affair, he knew enough to know another guy had been hanging around me and was interested, and knew I had found him attractive. He was worried he would start coming back around again, which I assured him he wouldn't because she wasn't with her boyfriend anymore. But he still became possessive, which only got worse as the months went on. It was the beginning of the end for us...

As much as he didn't like it, I continued to hang out with her, she was my cousin after all and I wasn't going to let him tell me what to do. But before I knew it, her ex boyfriend came back around and while they didn't get back together, they still hung out. I was worried it was only a matter of time before my fling came around too, which he did one day. He wanted me to dump my boyfriend and give a relationship with him a shot. As flattered as I was, because he never wanted a relationship from a girl, I turned him down. I told him I was happy and he only wanted me because someone else had me. That months back when we had a chance, he chose to walk away because of something that wasn't even true. He pleaded with me to change my mind but I said no. I then told my cousin I didn't appreciate the ambush and went back home. I told my boyfriend the next day that he didn't need to worry, I wasn't hanging out with her anymore. He pressed for details and while I never told him what happened, he let it go. It was after this though that I wasn't sure I could trust anyone but him and that no one else really had my best interest at heart. So I began to spend all my free time with him. No friends outside school, no other activities that didn't include him. He was the same way with me, he stopped hanging out with everyone. I knew at the time it probably wasn't healthy, but I didn't know what else to do. As time went on, I guess he became comfortable with this arrangement so whenever something didn't go his way, if I for some reason had to do something else, he would become angry and possessive. He became jealous all the time and we began to argue. He would question everything, who I was talking to at school, what clothes I wore, even when I would go to my dad's, he swore I was lying. I started to wonder if he had somehow found out about my affair and that was the reason he was acting like that. But he never said anything and the only people who knew didn't talk to him.

At this time I began to suspect maybe someone was giving him the wrong impression of me. He had begun to spend time with his best friend again and his other friends, even though he didn't want me to be with my friends. It was still okay for him to go and do whatever he wanted. With the way my best friend was acting towards me at school and the fact that he sometimes saw her or mentioned his best friend saying she had said something to him, it was obvious who was telling him lies. I couldn't understand why she was and she always denied it. But I distanced myself from her and told him what she was doing in school and to not believe her. He seemed to believe me at first but it didn't last, I guess he had too many insecurities because we had broken up before. By the end of the school year I wasn't speaking to her at all and my boyfriend and I were on thin ice. I blamed her for a lot of it, but I also knew we had just been together too long. The breaking point with her had been when she had told him and a lot of our school that I was involved with another class member. We had become really good friends, but that was all. He wasn't my type in the least. He also didn't deserved to get pulled into the mess that was created. That part made me furious with her and with my boyfriend for believing her. School ended and about a month into summer, when it was obvious he wasn't going to let it go and get back to normal without being jealous and possessive, I knew it was over, for good that time. He protested some, but after a couple of weeks, we were over.

It felt good. I was lighter, and even though I felt hurt from being betrayed by someone who I considered a great friend, I knew I could get through it. I could make new friends and move on. I spent the summer with my cousins, both the blonde and her sister. She was finally finished with jerk of a boyfriend, so I knew my fling wouldn't be coming back. I spent a lot of time getting to know her friends, who were all older then me, but were all pretty great. Seeing as how I had no one of my own, I fit in quickly. We spent the summer hanging out, doing what teenagers do. At a house party we went to, thrown my some friends of hers, I met someone. He was a marine in on leave, he was 3 years older then I was. My cousin was spending time with his twin, but I always thought I ended up with the nice one. He called me "junior" as a nickname, and it annoyed me and tickled me at the same time. A junior was what I was going to be in school that next year. While nothing ever came of it, we both knew it couldn't because he lived too far away, I spent time with him when he came into town over the summer. It was fresh and easy, and nice change. When she stopped spending time with his brother and that group of friends we lost touch, but I always remember him fondly.

Towards the end of the summer we started partying a lot. I had drank before; not enough to ever get drunk. I did that summer. Throwing up and all. It wasn't fun, but it was part of being a teenager I guess and we did have some fun times at those parties. The last one of the summer that we went to was a school party, which meant a lot of kids from our school were there. I bumped into my old friend/boyfriend. The one I had dated in middle school off and on who always ended up being more of a friend. He had left school in 8th grade and came back at the end of 10th, and while I saw him during school, I was usually too preoccupied with my serious relationship to notice. But we started talking and I remembered (or the alcohol remembered), that even after me breaking up with him so many times, and the fact that he was both my friend and my ex best friend's, he always took my side, he was always there for me. I loved that about him and knew we had something special. We spent the whole night talking and catching up. As the party started to get into full swing, we kissed, I mean really kissed, for the first time since we had known each other. It felt good; a little weird, but I think the alcohol kind of pushed that out of my head. Pretty soon we were full on making out. We both stopped and kind of looked at each other. It was a shock because we remembered who we were kissing, and confused as to what was happening. We decided to stop and talk before we made a mistake. We didn't need to worry though, the cops came and broke the party up. It was late and his friends gave me a ride home, since I was home alone again, he offered to stay and sleep on the couch. He actually ended up staying in my bed, even though we didn't have sex, we actually fell asleep talking. My mom came home the next morning to find us asleep. My mom was cool with things, so she was used to seeing me sleep with a guy, but was a little surprised at who I was with. We took him home and when she asked me what going on, I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what the night before had meant to me or to him. I knew we had feelings, we always had, but if it was just the alcohol that had made us do that. I decided to talk to him the next day, when school started.

I was actually happy to start school, more so then the previous year. Things had changed, but I had a new group of friends, a possible romance and even if it wasn't a romance, I knew he would always be my friend, and had more self confidence then I had in the past couple of years.