Anxiety (A Poem)

I want to go outside

But I think 

I'll just lay here.

Sometimes 

the simplest

Things are the 

hardest to do.

I'll lay here alone

with my thoughts,

of how things 

used to be.

Or how they 

could be. 

Everyone tells me

I'm strong.

But if I am as strong

as they think

I am,

I wouldn't be here. 

Alone.

Maybe I'll go 

outside tomorrow.

Until then I will

be here remembering

the friends and 

the life

I once had. 

©Amanda Catherine

Where Friendship Goes Wrong: A True Story: Pregnancy Scares!

As Anna is left in front of the classroom door stunned from what just happened. She see's a very panicked Jenny running up to her. Looking at Ashton she says "well this can't be good. I'm gonna have to talk to you later OK? When Ashton sees Jenny's face he hugs Anna and leaves. Anna looked at Jenny and she was crying. When Anna asks Jenny what happened she started crying more. The only thing she could mutter out was "I'm late." Anna grabs Jenny's arm and drags her into the bathroom. "What to you mean you're late?" Jenny looks at herself in the mirror and punches the glass. "I'm so ashamed of myself, why did I trust him?" Her hand know bleeding from the shards of glass, Anna grabs a huge wad of paper towels to stop the bleeding. "It's not your fault", Anna says. "Don't blame yourself," Jenny falls to the bathroom floor and puts her head on her knees. Anna says "Do you want to ditch first period and walk to the grocery store to get a pregnancy test. I have some money to help you buy one." Jenny nods her head and they decide to leave after everyone was already in class so no one could see her crying. While leaving the school they get stopped by the adviser that got Anna suspended. "It's like this guy is out to get me" Anna says. "Where are you going, shouldn't you be in class" he says. "Well we have an emergency" Anna explains. "More of an emergency than getting an education" he says starting to get mad. "Well yeah otherwise why would we be leaving" Anna says. She looks back and Jenny is clinching her stomach. Anna starts to get mad. She knew she wasn't supposed to leave campus but somethings are worth leaving over. In a very irritated voice she says "we are leaving, go ahead and call my mom. I will erase the message when I get home." She grabs Jenny's hand and pushes past him. As they left they could hear hi yelling "you get back here young ladies." They didn't care, They were just happy that they made it out of the school. 

While they are walking to the grocery store Anna asks Jenny to tell her what happened. Jenny sighs and starts to explain everything. "I didn't ever want to do it, it's like he made me or something, I mean I wanted to do it right since I did it...right?" Anna grabs her hand and says "you never have to do anything you don't want to. Honestly he is a prick if he made you. Don't feel bad. If you don't mine me asking who was it?" Kicking a rock up the path Jenny says you aren't going to like the answer. Anna reluctantly says "well my views on most of the guys we hang out with are crap so try me." "Promise not to be mad" Jenny says. Answering honestly Anna says "well no, but I won't judge you for it." As Jenny starts to reply she gets interrupted by her phone ringing, it was Wyatt wondering what was going on. Jenny makes up an excuse to get rid of him. She didn't want to deal with him at the moment. About 5 minutes go by and she hangs up with him, Anna says "it was Wyatt wasn't it? Jenny nods her head and starts crying all over again. "Yes" she says. 

Once they get to the grocery store Anna and Jenny head to the isle with all the pregnancy tests, which ironically is where all the condoms are. They head to the register to buy it while combining all their money. When they make it to the front of the line the girl at the register gave them a look of disgust as she says "OK which one of you is it? I wanna guess." "Well I think it's pretty obvious" Anna says, "she's crying and that comment made it worst. Keep your opinions to yourself." They get the test and head to the store bathroom. Anna hands her the test as Jenny thanks her for standing up for her in the meanest way possible. They have a laugh and Jenny heads into the stall. Anna sits on the other side of the stall on the floor and says "remember no matter what happens, we're friends OK." Jenny says "2 minutes....2 minutes till my life is decided for me. I don't know how I'm gonna handle this." They sit on the bathroom floor on opposite sides of the door and wait. Two minutes goes by and Anna says "if you can't look at it I will look at it for you. Jenny slides it under the door. "Don't tell me unless it's good news" she says. Anna closes her eyes and takes a deep breath and opens one eye to peek at it. "It's negative.... It's negative!!!!" Anna exclaims, getting up off the floor. "I mean you should still go to the doctor but it's negative." Jenny opens and slams the stall door. "Really! I'm so happy!" she says. 

As they start walking back to school Anna tells Jenny that she has to tell her the rest of what happened with her and Wyatt. She starts to explain and apparently Wyatt was sick of getting made fun of for being a virgin, so he gave her and ultimatum. Either you have sex with me or we are through so I can go find someone who will. "The rest is pretty obvious from there" she says. Anna attempting to give relationship advice says "I think it might be time for you to break up with him. I know it's hard, but do you want a relationship that makes you feel bad?" Jenny shakes her head no and pulls out her cell phone and calls Wyatt since it was between 1st and 2nd period now. Once Jenny explains everything that happened to her to him she tells him that she wants to break up. Wyatt didn't take it well. They got into a screaming fight over the phone, that continued once Jenny and Anna made it back to school. In the end they did break up. Anna gets back inside school and looks around. She sees Ashton and that was the greatest sight she had seen all day. 

To Be Continued... <3 

©Amanda Catherine

Where Friendship Goes Wrong: A True Story: Relationship Struggles

Anna and Ashton walk home in complete silence. She isn't sure if this is a good or bad sign. It's a lot for one person to find out all in one night. As Anna reluctantly opens up her mouth to say something he also starts to say something. Not wanting to be rude and pushy Anna lets him finish talking. He says that he doesn't know if he is the right person for her with all of her drama. To be honest Anna knew that this was coming, this is why she was to afraid to say anything. They both stop to cross the street and she grabs his shoulder and says "I understand, believe me. You don't have to walk me home. This is my street anyway, how about you go home and take sometime to think about everything. It's a lot to take on. With how crazy my life is I often times it wasn't me living this life. Someone stronger than me should be in my shoes." He refuses to let her walk the rest of the way home alone and the silence continues. Until he speaks, "Why are you afraid of me? This really confuses me. I haven't done anything to you to ever make you feel scared." As they approach her door she says "it's not you, it's the fact that every guy in my life has hurt me, Lincoln, Wyatt, my dad and many others. I just don't want to get hurt again." He promises not to hurt her, but at this point these promises are just words. Words can to easily broken. "I'll talk to you at school tomorrow" she whispers as she heads inside her house. She shuts the door on him because she was about to burst into tears and she didn't want him to see her like that, so broken and lost.

As she stumbles downstairs to her room trying to be quiet she misses a step and tumbles down the rest of the way. "Dammit" she says as she is getting up. "I always count wrong. It's 7 not 6 steps." She gets to her room and throws all of her stuff on her bed. It didn't matter her room was always a mess anyways. She pulls out her phone from her pocket and flips it open to text Ashton. She wanted to make sure that he got home safe. As she starts hitting all the numbers to get to all the letters she gets a text from Jenny. Anna rolls her eyes and opens it. It says, "sorry but this isn't over. He will be mine." Anna types back the only thing she could think of that was clever enough for this situation, "lol". Even though she actually really was worried about everything. She finishes texting Ashton and starts getting ready for bed. 

She figures that this was the best time to write so she pulls out scrap paper to start and new poem. She starts to write the only thing that she has down is "I'm sorry". Wanting to continue she taps her pen and brushes her hair behind her ear. She could still feel where Ashton did the same. She puts on her headphones and tries to ignore the world. She finally has one more line. "I hurt you and I can't take it back." She scribbles below it,"but sometimes this is just the way it has to be." This was really how she was feeling. 

"Anna wake up!!!" she hears. She had fallen asleep on top of her sloppy hand written poem. She grabs her back pack and guitar bag and heads upstairs to meet her mom. She didn't feel like actually getting ready this morning. She looks at her phone to see if Ashton texted her back and nothing. Just another text from Jenny. As she gets to school Anna regrets not actually doing her hair or make up or anything. Jenny looked really cute and that made her confidence drop way low. She spots Ashton across the hall but didn't go say anything to him figuring this is how it was going to be from now on. She looks up after looking through her backpack trying to find her homework and Ashton was right there. She says "don't worry, I get it, I'll keep my distance." He takes one more step towards her and brushes the hair behind her ear and kissed her. "Now why couldn't you have been my first kiss" she says as he smiles at her.

 Could this actually be something real? 

©Amanda Catherine

Where Friendship Goes Wrong: A True Story: Anna Tells All

Anna had kind of put herself into her own little bubble where no one could bother her. From her perspective no one wanted to talk to her anyway so this was just easier. This is why she found it very confusing when she was actually getting noticed by boys, and not just boys but nice boys! Not saying that she didn't have crushes, but she never thought about acting upon them. She was always dealing with enough without adding boys to the mix. This is why what happened next was very strange... a boy approached Anna and didn't immediately ask her to talk him up to Jenny. He talked to her with respect and didn't bring up any of the other rumors that had made their way around school earlier that year. After talking to him in guitar class for the whole period Anna felt like she was floating on a cloud. No one had ever complimented her before without jokingly taking it back later in a conversation or by making it a perverted joke. While walking out from class she felt so high on romance that she didn't even notice anyone around her making fun of her or trying to talk to her. 

Later that week, as their relationship grew she found out that he was a transfer student that just started this last semester. His name was Ashton and Anna became infatuated with him. When all of her friends found out about him since they always took the bus together and sat in the same seat most of them were very happy for Anna but of course Ashley and Jenny had to put thoughts into her head that were not true. They kept saying that he was only talking to her because he wanted to get into her pants and that he just felt sorry for her. At first when they said this it made Anna question everything that had been going on with him but as their relationship became more she knew that they were both wrong and trying to get inside her head. Anna and Ashton carried on their High School fling for quite some time, and all was fine until he became friends with Ashley.

It wasn't surprising that Ashton and Ashley became friends as they live close to each other and share a lot of classes together. What was amazing is the thing that happened next... Of course Ashley had to introduce him to Jenny since they were such "close" friends. Ashton was trying to play it cool as Anna was not around when this was going on but then Jenny tried putting the moves on him! As Ashton was trying to play it cool and avoid Jenny's awkward attempts of kissing him Anna walks in. Ashley and Jenny had invited her over once she was done with dance class. Anna walks inside as Jenny is trying to tackle Ashton to the floor to kiss him since he kept refusing everything that she tried with him. Anna knew that they were trying to get them to break up because Jenny was jealous that someone actually liked her for a change. As Jenny is straddled over Ashton Anna bursts out laughing. It wasn't the time or the place to start laughing but she couldn't help it. The look on Ashton's face was everything to her. As Anna went and helped him up after Jenny tackled him he looks at Anna and says "so this is why you never noticed me trying to talk to you before. You where to busy trying to be invisible so you wouldn't have to deal with this."Anna smiles as she said "Wow you really get me. Do you have sisters or something?" He stands up and looks at her intently and says "actually I have a younger and an older sister." Anna smiles and says "I freaking knew it. I'd love to meet them sometime." He wraps his arm around her and they walk out the door talking about how they should head over to his house to hang out since this was the first time they had seen each other outside of school. 

As they get outside and make their way up the street Anna stops him and says "before we continue this I have something I really need to tell you." He brushes her hair behind her ear and says "I'm listening." Anna takes in a really deep breath and tries to talk but nothing comes out. Frustrated she puts her head down and tries to compose her thoughts the best she could. Ashton gets closer and says "don't worry... I won't judge you." She looks at him and tells him about all the rumors and everything that Jenny and Ashley had started about her. "I just fell like you needed to know what you were getting into when you hang around me" she says. "My life is a mess and more often then not I have to deal with more than I can handle and I don't want that to scare you away but you really need to know the truth. I want to give you an out know before we get even more involved." He takes a step back from her and says "but it isn't like you did all those things right?" Anna stares at him speechless. She was really upset that he asked that, even though it was a valid question. Thoughts began running through her head. "Why did I tell him? What did I do? Why do I always mess everything up? I should just walk away and avoid this... I was fine before this..." She eventually was able to open her mouth and say "no". She waits a few seconds and then begins to turn around and walk away. She gets a few steps away when she hears "I don't care...I don't care at all." She stops wanting to go turn around but keeps walking thinking to herself "if he wasn't able to handle this very well how would he handle everything else that happened and is still happening with Lincoln." She starts shuffling through her backpack to try and find her CD player and headphones to play sad emo songs about romance as she walked home in the dark when she feels a tap on her shoulder. Anna starts getting a little upset because she thought that it was Jenny for some reason. She looks out of the corner of her eye and sees Ashton. Anna freezes, she didn't know what to do. 

Ashton walks in front of her and says "I'm sorry that wasn't cool but you can't just walk away when someone asks you a question." Not knowing what to do because she wanted to walk away again she kind of gives him a stink eye. Finally able to mutter out some words she says "What if I were to tell you that that wasn't even half of it, What if I was to tell you that it only got worse from there. Ug.. things happened to me, things I couldn't control even though I tried." Anna starts getting all teared up because this is what she was trying to avoid. She continues and says "I'm terrified of you and I am afraid to tell you why. You don't want to get involved with me. I want to tell you now because I know if I don't you'll find out from someone else later and they'll make me seem like the awful one." Anna was on a roll and full of emotions as she continues muttering random things when she accidentally says "I was sexually assaulted by Ashley's brother and their mom made me apologize because they thought I was ruining his chance of a football scholarship." Her eyes get big as she puts her hand over her mouth. Shifting his body weight from leg to leg he turns around and starts heading back to Ashley's house. She starts following him trying to ask him where he was going, even though she already knew. After that didn't work she kept trying to get him to stop walking. Her efforts always failed. As they get to the door she gets in front of him before he can enter or ring the doorbell. Trying to calm him down the only way she knew how. He rings the doorbell and as Ashley answered the door Ashton didn't say anything. Anna didn't know what was going on she so she improvised and said "did I leave my headphones here. I just can't seem to find them. " She shuffles around in her backpack and then says "oh here they are! Oh man I'm such a ditz... see you guys later and pulls the door shut on Ashley. "This is over you, you can't make this better. "What happened is done and over I just thought you should know my past because it made me pretty fucked up" Anna says trying to push Ashton away from the door. As they finally make their way out the the street a few houses away Ashton says "I'm not mad at you for what you said  I just want you to know that I am not OK with this." 

To Be Continued...

©Amanda Catherine

Where Friendship Goes Wrong: A True Story: High School Questions!

1. What was my craziest memory? Telling the vice principal to go f*** off because I was wearing a t-shirt that showed my stomach by the littlest bit and I got sent to the advisers office but there was a girl that walked by with a cleavage popping vest. I ended up getting suspended and on my first day back I wore the same shirt again. The vice principal came over to talk to me again and I ran away and ended up getting the cops after me, but what they didn't know was that that shirt was reversible. So they were looking for a blonde  girl in a blue T-shirt, but I had flipped it to the green side... And I walked back into school and no one even knew until lunch when the vice principal came over and made me apologize. 

2. What was my favorite grade and why? My favorite grade was 12th, by this time I had figured out who my true friends were and was becoming more OK with myself so I didn’t have all that high school drama.

3. Did I have a high school sweet heart? Yes, I am still with him as well.. We started dating our senior year.

4. If I could go back and change something about my high school experience, what would it be and why? I would change the fact that I always let people opinions of me control me and control how I acted. I was never really true to myself. I would also change how I never really cared about my grades or college test scores. It really hurt me later, to this day I am unable to get into most colleges I want to go to because of that. I feel like I have to settle for less when I want so much more.

5. What cliques I was in or wish I had been in? I wasn’t really in a clique, I hung out with anyone and it’s because of this that I did make some really good friends. I never wanted to judge people by their appearance or let other peoples opinions of them make me not want to be friends with them.

6. Was I  in it for the grades or for the fun? Honestly I wanted to drop out as soon as I turned 16, I had fun but my home life wasn’t that great and I was always put into remedial classes because I stutter, this made me think that I was stupid and then I really never wanted to be there. I guess my reason for being there was to prove to myself that I could finish something even when everything and everyone was rooting against me.

7. Sports? I had always wanted to be in sports but I never really was. I would go to “tryouts” and then get scared and leave. I did dance outside of school and that became enough for me.

8. Was I in clubs or activities? I was a stagehand for all the musicals, plays and concerts. This was my favorite period/ activity. We made sets and backdrops for all the productions. We also ran all the audio, lights and changed the sets for each scene. I also did the make-up for the cast members for a lot of the productions. One other activity I did was I was in pep club, to “pep” you for cheerleading, I never wanted to be a cheerleader, I just enjoyed dancing at all the football games and pep rallies.

9. Am I  glad to be out of high school? I miss the social aspect because I really don’t have very many friends now but I am glad that that period of my life is behind me.

10.  Am I  happier as an adult or as a teenager in high school? As a teenager you don’t have as many responsibilities but I am enjoying being an adult more. I feel in high school everyone is judging you and as an adult you don’t have all that drama and you have more freedom to roam.

11. What was your favorite band in High School? I listened to a lot of different types of music and even to this day I still do. Back then I was really into pop punk so I constantly listened to bands like Simple Plan, Motion City Soundtrack and Saving Jane. But I do believe that my favorite band back then was Papa Roach.

12. Ever bullied? I think everyone can say that at some point in their lives they were bullied so, yes. The sad part is that I was always bullied by the people that were closest to me. Many of my girl friends knew my weaknesses and used them against me. I was and will probably always be self conscious about my weight and overall appearance so they used to always tell me that I was fat and to go starve myself. I used to not eat very much all day, I'm actually surprised I wasn't skinnier back then. One of the worst moments of this was when I was heading to class after lunch and I of course never ate anything and when I got to my class I got really dizzy and almost passed out. My teacher gave me food and told me to put my head between my legs until I started to feel better. It took a while but I did start to feel better. After that day I always made a habit of eating lunch in her classroom because I knew that she wouldn't judge me. She would just be happy that I was actually eating. I remember seeing her again after I wasn't in her class anymore and she would always smile and me and say "You look good. Keep it up.."

13. Would you do High School over again? Yes, but only if I knew what I know now. Otherwise no.

14. Favorite memory? Dancing with the nerdiest most disliked boy in school because everyone deserves to feel special and not alone. I got made fun of for weeks afterward but I wouldn't change it for anything. It was awkward and I got my feet stepped on but I am glad to say that he was my first official slow dance. <3

15. What were you obsessed with in High School? I was absolutely obsessed with trying to be liked and it was just never worth in in the end. 

<3 MandAnna-------- 

No feelings were hurt in the making of this blog post.