My life so far part 10.

I started my junior year with a bounce in my step. I was finally feeling comfortable in my own skin, comfortable with my friends and with how things were going. School was much more difficult that year, class wise. I have always struggled in math and science, and taking chemistry and geometry the same semester was stressful for me. I really did try, unfortunately my teachers were not that interested in helping the kids who didn't get it. I had also got a job, and it was taking time away from my studies. I quickly realized that hanging out with an older crowd who mostly just worked for a living meant I needed to have money of my own to go out. I also needed it to help my mom, on my occasions I paid a bill or two, or bought groceries for my brother and me when my mom would go off to her boyfriend's for the weekend and leave the house empty of food.

I decided not to rejoin marching band, although I stayed in the regular one. I needed my afternoons and friday nights free to work. I missed it, but on the rarity I went to a football game just to go, it was nice to actually be able to socialize and not worry about playing my instrument. Unfortunately band was hard for me... I hadn't talked to my friend since school had ended. I knew she had been hanging out with my ex boyfriend and her boyfriend all summer, and I could only imagine how the three of them had trashed me. She was still my stand partner, so it wasn't like I could ignore her completely, but I made no extra effort to be nice to her, in that class or while we hung out with our mutual friends, to me she did not exist. I was so angry and hurt by the things she had said about me.

My possible romance was in band as well, and starting back school was a bit awkward for us. We didn't know how we should act, given our recent make out session. It had changed everything. For the first week or so we were both quiet and tried to make light of the situation. I finally talked to him about it, and just asked him if he wanted to be casual. Obviously there was something there and now that we were older and his friend (my ex) wasn't there to affect our relationship, I suggested we start off slowly and see what happened. After everything that had happened with my serious ex boyfriend, I was not interested in another serious relationship and he wasn't really the type anyhow. So it seemed like the perfect solution. He agreed. So we spent time together when we could, and anytime anyone asked, we just said we were hanging out. We talked on the phone and spent weekends together if the other didn't have any plans with our friends. We went to parties together a lot, as the one thing we had in common was we both loved the social scene.

My mom over the summer had gotten involved with a married man. She was still on her never ending roller coaster with her boyfriend and I guess he must have told her again that he wasn't wanting anything serious. So she started a new job as an assistant at an assisted living center and quickly met a co worker. She knew that he was married and of course having "problems" with his wife. She began sleeping with him. She told me and I was disappointed in her. I also was worried about her, I knew it wasn't going to end like she wanted it to. She would talk about making a life with him when he got his divorce. I tried to talk to her about it and as well to remind her that she just got that job, if someone were to find out she could be fired, then where would we be? She ignored me though and said it would work out... of course it didn't. He eventually told her he wasn't going to leave his wife and she was heartbroken. He quit his job so they wouldn't see each other anymore. She spent more time with her boyfriend, desperate for him to become more serious about their relationship. He still wasn't interested. So she began hanging out with a coworker that had recently started. She was a little wild. She was my mom's age and had kids, but she still loved to go out and party, even on week days. My mom soon began going with her and acting just like her. I was disgusted that she was acting like a kid, instead of a mom. I had tried to be a teenager and it had worked for a couple of months before I had to start taking care of my siblings, and giving more money to the bills and food, because she began to spend more of hers on alcohol and going out to clubs and bars.

I grew tired of never being able to do anything. I also felt bad for my brother; my sister had friends she would stay with on the weekends, but my brother had a hard time making friends, so he was home alone a lot. When I would complain to my mom, she suggested that I just leave him at home and go out, he would be fine. He was 12, I couldn't do that to him. He wanted someone to spend time with him and I always felt like that job fell to me. So I began taking him with me when I went out with my friends. I hung out with my cousins a lot and they were his family too, so everyone was very excepting of him. I admit, I let him drink, but it was just here and there, he mostly was just there, in sight, playing video games or watching tv.

I don't know if it was stress from school, my mom, and my dad, (who I guess decided I was important enough to call or see anymore, as I went weeks without seeing or talking to him), or if it was just a teenage phase, but I drank a lot. A lot of times I blacked out, I almost always got sick, and I always did stupid things. Nothing terrible, but enough to be embarrassed the next day. I think everyone did though, so it was a small comfort. My sort of boyfriend and I continued on the same pace we had been, we both started bringing the other to hang out with our friends. As I began to spend more time with him and his friends though, I noticed that they smoked weed, a lot. I knew he had done it for a while, but I didn't realize how much, and just how shady some of his friends were. I didn't always feel comfortable around them, and he was always concerned about hanging out with them and doing that, then spending any "normal" time with me. It really started to annoy me and it made me have doubts about having that kind of relationship with him. We never ended up sleeping together; although we did get close. I don't know if deep down, we both realized it would change everything even more so, and we didn't want it to. He really tried to chill out with the drugs. I didn't want him to change completely, I just wanted him to be more then he was. I really cared about him, I always had, maybe even loved him at this point, and I knew he was smart. I felt like he was destroying it. But in the end, he didn't want to change his habits and I couldn't be that involved with him and watch him do that to himself. So we went back to being just friends, and while I still worried about him, I didn't feel like it was my place or responsibility to save him from himself. That was the last time we ever got involved romantically, seeing that was enough to shut me off from ever wanting to be that involved ever again.

My mom finally settled down a bit. After this one time of her leaving work and going out with her friend and staying out all until morning, it finally clicked that she was behaving like a child. I had plans to hang out with my sort of boyfriend that weekend and my mom was supposed to be home with my brother. She was going to take him to her boyfriend's house. But 2 hours later, she still hadn't come home. I called her work and they said she had left with her friend. Neither of them had cell phones. My mom's boyfriend and I were very worried. It wasn't like her to not call. I thought something had happened to her. I took my brother with me for the night and called her boyfriend every hour to see if he had heard from her, he never did. In the morning I came home and saw her there. Her boyfriend was leaving; she was crying. She told me that he was angry with her and said he wanted nothing to do with her anymore. I knew she wanted me to feel bad for her, but I was so angry that for once, I took his side. I finally let her have it; how she had acted that whole year and being irresponsible, when she was doing things I didn't even do, that she needed to act more like a parent. She became angry and told me she needed to have a life outside of us and she was an adult and didn't have to call if she didn't feel like it. That angered me, she wasn't acting like an adult, she was acting like a rebellious child. It wasn't our fault we had been born early and "stolen" her youth. I told her to grow up. I left the house with my brother and went to my cousin's for the night. She never apologized and I didn't either, but she never did that again, and soon stopped hanging out with her friend from work. She turned out not to be a good person, not only did she sleep with my mom's married boyfriend, when she got fired from their work, she threatened to tell my mom's boss that my mom had slept with him and make sure she got fired. I don't know why she turned on her, maybe because she got fired and was just angry. But before she could, my mom told her boss herself. She liked my mom and let it go, which relieved all of us. We became closer after that, she had realized what she had done and how it had affected everything.

A couple of months into school, my ex band friend tried to patch things up with me. She apologized about everything she had said and done and said she missed me. She wanted me to know she had changed and wanted to see if I would consider giving her another chance. I was very doubtful. It was difficult not being friends with her, especially since we had the same class and friends. But that was all we had now, we didn't have boyfriends to complicate things. She still had hers, but he wasn't in school and they seem to be in a good place. I didn't want to take the chance and have her screw me over again. I told her I wasn't sure I could ever trust her again, but I was willing to give it a shot. I know people make mistakes, people change, I certainly have done both. We started talking again and even though, things weren't the same, it was a new relationship and it was nice.

Without a close friend in school, I began to hang out with another girl. She was in band as well and we had other classes together and she hung out in the same crowd. She was different though. She was very different from me. She was loud, opinionated, and loved being in the center of attention. We started spending time together and grew very close. We had a lot in common. She liked to have a go out and have fun, but was often hindered my an over protective mother. She never liked for her to go anywhere, not even to stay at a friend's house. I would talk about my friends and what we would do on the weekends, and I felt bad because those were things she wanted to do too, but couldn't because she had to take care of her mother. She had taken on the role ever since her father had left them. Her mom was actually a very sick woman, she had psychological problems, anxiety problems, and health problems. With her being the oldest, she felt everything was put on her shoulders. I wanted to be the one who introduced her to being able to go out and have fun and forget everything for a while. I invited her to hang out with me and my friends one weekend. Her mom didn't want her to go, she actually cried when she drove her to my house, she was that afraid of being without her. She felt bad for her mom, but she also wanted to have a life of her own and just be a teenager. Everyone of course took to her right away, everyone always has (still do). As we spent more time together, we realized we had much more in common then we realized. Not only did we have a lot of responsibility, we had both been pretty much abandoned by our fathers, who had married and all but made new lives for themselves and their new families. Her father was a cop too. We became best friends. I went to her house a lot, so she could stay with her mom some, and she stayed with me, hung out with my friends, and we were together all the time at school. She quickly let me in on a secret; that she had a huge crush on a boy and wanted to date him. So I tried to help. As it was, his best friend also hung out with my group of friends. It was very easy to coerce him to get his friend to come a long with him. She had never had an actual boyfriend before; a downside to her personality was that guys were actually afraid to approach her because they found her intimidating. A lot of that was just her not knowing how to handle them, she was often more nervous and awkward then anything. I tried to coach her and give her a confidence boost. In this particular case with this guy, it was even more tough because he was just as awkward as she was, but he was extremely quiet, which made in hard to approach as well. I invited him to a party for her and tried to break the ice. It worked eventually, and they began seeing each other. I was very happy for her. Not too long after, her and her mom began fighting even more so because as she got more of a social life, her mom wanted her to stay home. She couldn't stand to deal with it anymore and wanted to move out for a while. Her dad didn't want her to come live with him and his new wife and cramp his style, so I asked my mom if she could stay with us for a while. She agreed. So she started living with me.

I began hanging out with her and her boyfriend, and while it was fun, I started to feel like the third wheel. I had other friends, but being that she lived with me, they were both around a lot. He had a lot of guy friends that we hung out with and it seemed as though they always tried to set me up with one of them. I was just never really interested in any of them. I had a whole new group of friends, a different type, which was fine with me. Eventually through that group I met someone who I took an interest in. A guy I had actually known all my life, we went to all the same schools since elementary school. I found it amusing because I had never liked him before, not for any particular reason, I had just never associated with him. The last time I had really seen him was when we were freshmen, we had a class together. Now we were seeing each other more and more, and I liked what I saw. He was totally different from my last serious boyfriend in every way. He was in a different group, had dark hair, eyes, and skin, and was serious and quiet, like me. He came off a lot of the time as a jerk, but I found he was just misunderstood. We began dating very quickly. We both knew what we wanted, and didn't find it necessary to spend time dancing around it. We spent a good amount of time with my best friend and her boyfriend, not too much, I had learned my lesson from the last time, but our boyfriends were not best friends, just friends, so I think that helped. We didn't all spend so much time together that we annoyed each other.

Unfortunately, our relationship started out very rocky. When we wanted to be, we were both very explosive and opinionated people. In a lot of things we didn't see eye to eye and we fought every step of the way. In the end, he always relented. His mom took an instant dislike to me. Their relationship was strange to say the least. His parents were divorced and he lived with his mom. She had a lot of mental issues and looked at him as what I felt like as a spouse. She depended on him that much, and when he started spending more time with me and less with her, she became angry. So she started giving him curfews or making up excuses so he could come home and be with her. It bothered me a lot, and while I knew they had a close relationship and didn't want to tread on it, I didn't want to feel like I couldn't actually have a boyfriend because he was always with his mother. A lot of the reason she didn't like me as well was because I lived in a trailer. She had actually never met me when she decided she didn't like me and asked him to stop dating me. She told him if he continued to see me she would take away his vehicle, because she paid the insurance and car payment. They fought constantly about it, he would a lot of the time just leave his truck there when she would threaten him and get a ride with someone else so she wouldn't know where he was going. I really liked him, but I wasn't sure he was worth all the trouble. He was always preoccupied about their fights when he was with me anyhow, and I was just uncomfortable with how she thought of him, and just really didn't want to be in the middle of it all. I asked him several times if he thought we should just split up and he said no. I even met her and tried to get her to like me, but the fact that I was "white trash" was stuck in her mind. We continued to see each other in secret, which I didn't like. A lot of the time I went off with my friend and her boyfriend just so I wouldn't be sitting at home waiting on him.

A couple of months went by and for whatever reason, his mom lightened up a lot. She told him she realized that I wasn't going anywhere and that we were serious, so she wanted to learn to deal with it. She was having a hard time with him having a serious girlfriend and needed to get used to him not being around all the time. I thought it was strange, but tried to understand, and was just happy we could have an actual relationship. It did get a lot better. All of my family and friends liked him. He was great to me; he always did little things for me, he would come by my house before school just to cuddle, and then take me to school. He would carry my books, write me love notes, buy me things he knew I loved, not anything fancy, but things like my favorite candy or a new CD. He let me have control of the radio because he knew I didn't like country music. He made an effort to be friends with my friends and visa versa. We talked about our lives, and while we really didn't have a lot in common, other then our personalities, I understood him. He had a real hard time with his dad walking out on their family. While they were in a better place, he had gone months without speaking to him. He talked of his mom's disturbed childhood and tried to explain why she was the way she was. He was very supportive and understand of my hard times. The first few months were full of constant affection, and spending as much time together as possible. We quickly fell in love. While it had only been 2 years since the beginning of my relationship with my ex, I felt like this one was different, much more deeper. Looking back, I could say he was my first real love.

We had a nice comfortable routine going after a while. My mom eventually started going back to her boyfriend's, although it took them a while of being apart before he would forgive her. When they did, my boyfriend and I could spend the whole weekend together, almost like we were playing house. We would load up on junk food and hang out with friends or just be together watching a movie in the evenings. His mom even let him stay the night. He started having problems with my friend. Here and there at first, but then it was constant. She was not liking him either. He didn't like that her and her boyfriend were always around. It was hard because she lived there too, and the house wasn't big enough for everyone. As much as I loved her, she wasn't the cleanest person, so I had to pick up after a lot of people, including her boyfriend which annoyed me. I didn't like having her boyfriend and his friends always dropping by my house unannounced. She felt like he was trying to get me all to himself. He disagreed saying that he just worried when I was with her. Her and her boyfriend were a lot of fun, but they were hell raisers, so I could see where he might be concerned. But she was still my friend, and I didn't like people trying to tell me what to do. Eventually, she started staying at his house all the time and then moved in with her dad. I missed seeing her, but I was glad all the noise had stopped. It was just my house again and I thought it might be easier on our friendship. We still tried to hang out, but her dad lived a good ways away, so we didn't get to. Not only that, but as she became more wrapped up in her boyfriend, she ended up centering her whole life around him. She hung out with all his friends, thinking they were the coolest people ever, and trying to hype up her image by getting into more fights with people and being more opinionated then usual. She became angry with me when I suggested maybe she try to not become so focused on another person, that she was losing part of herself. I had already been there and thought she could learn from my experience. She had gotten very close with him, he was her first kiss, her first lover. She breathed him and only him. I didn't want to grow apart from another friend, but she just wasn't terribly interested in staying close.

Our prom came, and we were all excited. Seeing as how it was my first prom, my dad had agreed to pay to have my hair, make up, nails, and buy my dress. I thought it was the least he could do considering he had not really been around at all that year. I had went and picked out my dress, it was so beautiful. I couldn't buy anything because my dad hadn't given me any money yet. My mom called him the next day to let him know I had found it and he told her he wouldn't be paying for any of it. He didn't have any money. He made up some excuses, and said he was sorry, but he had a wife and son now, and they came first. I was so crushed. I knew that he didn't care a lot about me anymore, and that had just cemented it. He knew my mom couldn't afford to pay for all of that. She called him back a couple of days later, and yelled at him. He came up with enough for a dress, not the one I had picked out, but a cheaper one, and it was still beautiful. My mom paid for my hair do, and the rest I did at home. He didn't even bother to come and see me when I was getting ready or before I left. That was when I realized things would never be the same with our relationship, and that the hero I had loved for so long wasn't really what I thought he was. But everyone else made my night special. My hair was an up do, my dress was dark blue and sparkly. We had a great time, other then my best friend pretty much ignoring me. She came with a big group of her boyfriend's friends and their girlfriend's. So she pretty much stayed with them the whole night and instead of going to an after party with me, she went with him and his friends. It upset me, but I let it go. I had my other friends and my boyfriend.

The school year ended all right. My boyfriend and I were pretty solid. My friend and I weren't really talking all that much. At the beginning of summer we found out that my grandma had something wrong with her. Her skull was too small for her brain and it was giving her terrible headaches. She had to have surgery. On top of that, my mom who on a good day was slack about paying bills and rent had not paid our house payment. It was repossessed. She decided to just let it be instead of paying the bill. Her and her boyfriend had finally decided to get married. We were going to be moving back in with him. I was not thrilled about the idea. It was further away from everything and none of us got a long with him. We had tolerated him when we saw him because it usually wasn't all that much. But living with him was difficult. I was worried about the move. My grandma's surgery went well. I stayed with her some in the hospital. My mom got married that summer too. We moved all of our things into storage and took a few essentials to my new stepdad's house. I spend the summer as far away as I could. My brother and sister went to visit an aunt for the summer. I spent my days alone, waiting for my boyfriend to get off of work and he would take me away. I hung out a couple of time with my best friend, but it didn't feel the same. I pretty much waited for the summer to pass and start my senior of school.