By this time, I not only had my love life on lock with me holding the key-with options, choices and two men fighting to win my affection and exclusivity-as if ours was a romance novel brought to life and I was the damsel in distress damsel to impress.
After my setback, I had begun to put my “to-get-a-life” workout plan into action, by attending night-school that spring and summer-school that same summer.
I was a busy girl and my schedule was full. My in between time was proving to be too tight a squeeze, so I chose to keep kissing Pucker and gave the pink slip to Slip. Because I loved Pucker so passionately, his pull was winning this tug of war, and boy did he work hard for it. He began talking sweetly to me, tending to me, treating me and making love to me with his all his right, fight and might.
Despite how good and sweet Slip was to me, and actually the better choice for me; the fact still remained that I had feelings for Pucker that I could not shake. To add insult to his injury, I was still buried so deep in guilt for what I had done to him-and in front of his friends-although I felt he deserved it, the pain and embarrassment that I put him through plagued me. His fear of losing me even after all that, nudged my naivete something fierce.
By the same token, it was weird after I thought about it all. Yeah, it was dirty how he played me yet, all his friends adored me. On days when Pucker and I weren’t alone together, it was always 1, 2 or all of them too. We just hung out. Nobody seemed to treat me any different-despite everything Slip revealed to me. I feel that if they were thugs though, what they knew about me could have been pretty bad for me. When I thought about would life would be like dating Slip, I knew that meant life without Pucker’s friends and me and well, Pucker-the guy I loved. That also meant I would be dating a guy with his own domestic situation that I too had-my life outside of Pucker, Right Hand Man and friends. And well, times with Pucker and them all gave me the escape I needed to still remind me that despite being a single mom, I was still young. I just didn’t twice the seriousness that dating Slip would have given me. And what Slip told me was just something I needed to know but didn’t make Pucker love me any less or his friends disrespect me or treat me any different.
Ignorance was still just as bliss as knowing, but only for a short time as, bliss became a blizzard that I wasn’t expecting after Pucker was working Slip out of the picture slowly, meticulous but surely.
To keep himself in my good graces, Pucker was really on his P’s and Q’s, dotted all his I’s and crossed all his T’s trying to get me back under his spell-uninterrupted, the way we once were. Then one day out of nowhere, he pulled a three-sixty that caught me totally off-guard.
I came home from school one night with my girlfriend Kris over-about to do her.
I got a knock at the door. It was Nayba, telling me that Pucker called her and asked if he could come pick her up from school the next day.
I looked down at Kris (who was dating one of Pucker’s friends from school), and proceeded to look over at Nayba:
“And what did you say?” I asked her.
“I’m just going to take his money. I’m just going to make him take me to get something to eat!” she said-sounding stupid as hell.
She was more excited and flattered by the fact that my dude would offer her such an “opportunity.” And although she and I weren’t technically “friends” and had only gone to the same artsy school, Kris and I found it kind of odd but was thankful at the same time that she did run it past me. Most girls wouldn’t have done that. Nayba was the sneaky type who was known for being sneaky.
We lived in the same building, on the same floor and right next to one another-so she was cornered into giving up the ghost pretty much anyways.
Obviously she knew beyond a doubt, that it was curtains for Santana and me.
And too, she knew that I had been hanging out with a guy from our school that we both knew, named Nick.
I never discussed the details of my relationship with Pucker (or what, if anything Nick was to me) with her. She wasn’t a friend that I would talk about my personal life with-so, she had no idea how deep it really was with Pucker, either. In her eyes, he just appeared one day. But it was more than obvious that he (versus my hanging out with Nick from our school) was more special than an occasion-she could tell that much for sure. Additionally, Pucker was good-looking as fuck, so she didn’t give a fuck-and was down to fuck, per usual.
I was pissed and confused about what I had just heard because Pucker would fuck me like his life depended on it and turned it up after this Slip episode. I mean, he would fuck and love all over me so good-I never cared or gave into one thought what it was probably like with he and Soccer-because he was to into me and wanted every minute of my time that he could get. She was never a factor, conversation or point of my worry-ever. Like never. But the thought of him fucking the shit out of this broad next door to me made my blood boil because she didn’t deserve it-as far as I was concerned. I refused to react to her.
With my girl Kris sitting there while I was doing hair, I knew she would take over for me. Kris loved me to pieces and was lightweight overprotective of me being a teen mom. So was funny but too, could be a mean girl. Nayba telling us that she was about to hang out with my boyfriend did not sit too well with Kris.
Kris never liked Nayba because she was the type of bitch in your building that would peep through her door hole to the sound of somebody knocking at your door. Low and behold that “somebody” be your boyfriend of some dude you were kicking it with, she would come out and keep that motherfucker company until you get home-if you weren’t home as yet.
That’s exactly what she did with Nick one day.
Around this time, Nick was coming around my way pretty tough. We never kicked it in school but I knew he always liked me. He was in Santana’s class and although they weren’t technically “friends” but he did know Santana and of course knew Santana was fucking up royally, so he kept his ear to the school pipeline streets even after they had graduated and I had left our artsy school.
Somewhere in this thing, he and I ended up hanging out here and there after he got himself an apartment near where I lived and we somehow bumped into each other. So we would hang out sometimes. I would hang out over at his place or he would come over to mine.
Fast forward.
Low and behold happened.
I came home one day but was running a few minutes later than I had told to him meet me. When I saw his car outside in my building’s parking lot (without him in it), I was clueless as to where he could be because my mom hadn’t even gotten home from work yet, so I knew he wasn’t sitting inside talking to my mother.
Low and behold:
I watoosied my lil’ tail up the steps and the closer I got to my floor, I could hear conversation-so I took slower steps up…
When I split the staircase corner to reach our floor, there Nick was standing in the window sill with a mayonnaise glass of iced tea-swinging ice cubes in unison with this “whore” (as Santana called her). He calmly proceeded to explain to me how he ended up in her company while waiting for me.
I shook my head a bit. She was just that type. She wanted to get in where she could get in at all times. Loyalty to another girl or fucking behind a friend (be it a: BFF, BF, neighbor-friend, school friend, work friend or whatever), it was all the same to her. It was always rumored that she was notorious for fucking her girlfriend’s boyfriends at any given chance. That’s always code: “No-No”-even a casual friend who lived next door to you but that never mattered to her. Everrrrrrrrrry one knew that about her. As much as I liked Nayba; that was her main character flaw that would always keep me at arms length from her.
She was notorious for having fucked every boyfriend of some of her closest friends that she didn’t even know I knew. She never had boundaries. It was weird, because aside from that, she was a very likeable girl. It was like she was slow or something and we all didn’t know it. I couldn’t put it together-this thing about her. Along with friends from our school, she had friends from other schools who would get the word back to her lil’ circle of friends at our school about countless stories of her disloyalty to her girls when it came down to dudes. It was like she couldn’t help herself-like…she was a retarded succubus of some sort. It was fucking weird. I hated to not trust her because she always wanted to be friends with me and I really liked her, too.
All that being the case and with my having told Kris about how I walked up on Nayba and Nick in the hallway that day, Kris had it in for Nayba already. Kris loved calling her a “clueless fat slut.”
What was also weird about Nayba was that she would ease into another chick’s situation and try to act like it was all some “mack” move of something-just like she was trying to present this Pucker news to me. That was always her m-o. She would present her sneakiness to you like together you were supposed to “high-five” that shit-even if she knew the guy was a real, serious boyfriend that you liked or “loved.” It was all the same to her.
Kris personally knowing of Nayba’s ‘rumored’ behavior was in fact, true-via me, Kris’ own BFF-meant Kris had nothing but venom and tough-talk for Nayba.
So after Nayba told us about Pucker having reached out to her, I looked back down at Kris and in unison; we looked at Nayba like she was out of her fucking mind-having the nerve to come knocking at my door with this jaw dropper and heart stopper.
Kris knew all things Pucker and me-so she was pissed just like me. I didn’t even have to speak. Through my scorn Kris yelled at Nayba: “And then you’re talking about getting money from him and going out to eat? Is that all? Girl he doesn’t want you for anything! He’s not going to feed you and take you anywhere! You’ll do good if he takes you to McDonald’s! He doesn’t know you! Child please! You sound like a fool! You sound stupid as hell right now!” said Kris.
Nayba was at a loss for words. She stood there for a minute waiting to see what, if anything I had to add. I refused to offer her anything-and especially my hurt and upset. My “pretend to not care” look was enough to send her back out of my door.
You see, Nayba was known to return the attention of many-a-guy who turned the spotlight on her. She had no more loyalty to me as a friend of any kind, than she was in the know that I didn’t just ‘like’ this man, or just ‘dating’ him-I was in love with this man. But I sure as hell was not going to give her the pleasure of watching me bawl and squirm for her ego or for a conversation piece for she and Pucker over a McDonald’s Happy Meal and bus fare to ride home.
When she exited the door, Kris and I just stood there talking about what a whore she was anyway. I was too shocked, hurt and upset to even bawl or cry to Kris. While she kept spewing her venom at the ghost of Nayba, I continued to braid, stitch and weave her hair with my brows turned so far in, that each stitch nearly weaved my brows into a permanent angry frown.
I when I spoke to Pucker that evening, I did not mention what Nayba had told me, instead, I was waiting on some type of sign that he never even gave up. He was talking and acting so normal that I almost wanted to believe that Nayba was lying or hallucinating, and this whole thing was just a bad dream. I did not know who to believe, but I refused to react to either one of them-so I could only believe what time would reveal.
I could hardly get through my busy schedule and full-day that next day, from calculating the time he was due to pick her up, and what could be happening from that time until the time I could watch her come in, through my peep-hole of my door to hers.
That time came.
I peeped through the peep hole and watched her walk to her door-looking angry as hell.
I giggled.
My left eye peeking through that hole and looking at her body language told me he damned sure as hell didn’t fuck her, because she sure as hell would have had much more of a pep in her step than that. I knew better. Pucker’s lovin’g could send you doing pirouettes on your tippy toes.
(I giggled some more).
When she walked into the door and closed it, I waited a few minutes to allow her to get situated and then I boldly went over to knock on her door to get from her-the results of the story she so boldly knocked on my door, the previous day, the give to me.
She opened up and let me in. She was dry and moody as hell. Inside my mind, I giggled some more. I didn’t give a fuck about her feelings at this point. I cut the tension with an annoying, enthusiastic “I Told You So-You Idiot!” –like question:
“Hey! So what’s up? How’d your day go?” I jabbed, sounding as if I was apart of the setup of her letdown tonight.
“It was alright, I got so much homework and stuff to do-I’m probably going to be up all night trying to finish,” she said, as if school was the only part of her day (and evening…with MY boyfriend).
I let her off the hook and pulled back my jab.
She was obviously pissed off and did not want to be bothered-at all. Good. That was all the conversation I really needed from her anyways. I came for energy. Not her. Her body language and sadness told me everything I needed to know. She gave herself away. All that happened and all that did not happen, I already knew. Because if things had gone as planned and as her mind had fantasized about the previous night that she had the audacity to tell me of; she would have gladly been floating on air-in spirit, and in conversation because that was her style. But tonight she was left high and dry. To add insult to [her] fantasy, I was sure she was probably hungry like Kris said she would be.
As I opened the door to let myself out, I shut it and giggled inside of my mind again. I turned to her and squinted my eyes, smirked, and thought to myself: “bitch, do you know how much I love this motherfucker? That’s what the fuck you get! He only wants to use you to tell him what I don’t tell him about Slip and me, since you are in position to see it all! Dummy.” After I discovered that Pucker most probably didn’t fuck her or that if he did, something didn’t go her way. I figured that Pucker felt she would be good to use against me in the event Slip and me continued to hang out and she would be Pucker’s hockey puck to buck back at me. I could see what was about to go on here…
I pulled the door shut.
Though she played her part and played her self, I still had yet to pick at Pucker about it-because I could only assume why he would hurt me like that during the middle of trying hard to win me over, the way he had been doing.
To see if I was right about what I thought Nayba’s position would be in this, I called Pucker’s right-hand man, to find out what had actually gone down. He told me that they all treated her like the slut that she was and that she had let everybody take turns with her actually. Since, at school and city-wide, that was always the rumor about her; I had to believe it-because Pucker and his friends were some other side of the town suburb dudes. And this side of town was new territory for her ass. Now I knew for sure why the energy she gave off was so dry. She obviously didn’t feel good about herself and didn’t get treated like the queen whore she must’ve fantasized about.
I grilled Right Hand Man:
“Was Pucker involved!? Tell me the truth. What did he do?” I asked him.
“No! No! Angie, foreal. He did not touch her! It was funny as hell! Neither did I, but he was there. We all were there. Actually, this was supposed to go down a longggg time ago. Slip didn’t tell you? He knew about it too,” said Right Hand Man (salting Slip’s game to me for his closer friend Pucker-you know…just in case I was still seeing Slip).
I declined to respond to that because I didn’t know if Right Hand Man threw that in for shock value, in defense of his friend Pucker to find out if I was still with Slip too. For all I knew, he threw it out there in hopes that I would ask if Slip, too, was apart of this thing-just to see if I cared for him like Right Hand Man knew I loved Pucker—so that he could report it to Pucker. After all, that is Pucker’s right hand man.
He tried it again:
“Yeah, Slip knew about it a while ago but then came you and him; that whole episode-and I never knew what became of it, but then it resurfaced somehow. Your girl Nayba agreed a long time ago-way back before you and Slip took up with each other when he and Pucker stopped speaking. Slip never told you that-I guess,” he reiterated…well…jabbed.
I still did not reply to that-I refused to.
I cared about no body and no thing but that fact that Pucker did not fuck her. As much as I loved him and loved fucking him; that would have made me leave him-for good.
Still a bit confused, but feeling like I still did not have the right to question Pucker about it after what I had put him through with Slip, I was hoping that the worst of Pucker’s worst was over after this scare. I was hoping that after this-he would consider us even, but I was in for a rude fucking awakening. He started playing Jedi Mind Tricks on me like David Copperfield.
Right after that mess, it seemed like Pucker slowly started to grow horns at the top of his head. He began to drive me crazy and play all sorts of mind games with me every waking moment of the day. During conversations, he would often bite down on his teeth and was rude and mean to me-fists balled up and pointing in my face talking to me like some elementary schoolyard bully.
It seemed liked he worked a perfect plan to get me to all wrapped back up into him again to weed Slip out of my life and then drop bombs on me-nonstop, from the very moment that Slip graduated and headed straight off to the military.
Pucker instantly turned insensitive and dropped grenades in my mind and heart on a daily basis. I could not keep up with this battle, and was in such a state of shock from being caught off-guard by all this-so all of a sudden; that I did not have it in me to fight back.
He treated me as if I owed it to him to allow him this kind of power over me, considering the fact that I embarrassed him in front of all his friends + the one he lost permanently. The only thing that saved me from his mental terror was the fact that still, his friends handled me with care and kid-gloves and still-would disrespect Pucker in front of me if he tried to control me in front of them.
He had no power and no control over anything except whenever we were alone together.
He wanted payback, and it seemed like everyday, he was thinking of a way to be emotionally and mentally compensated commensurate to what I put him through emotionally and mentally.
The only time I could get any sensitivity from him was when I would make love to him. He would get weak and we would melt into one another like we would always do, but then his already awkward love-making style would get more awkward, because he would burst into a violent and aggressive thrusting rhythm in an effort to seem uncaring and heartless.
He turned cold and selfish in every way. It was like he was so mad at himself that he still liked me but that one side that wanted to hate me, hated me badly for what I did to him.
There was nothing short of letting him have his way with me, that I could do to get him back to the old “him” with me or “us.”
He had gotten to the point that he barely wanted to hear my voice unless I was giving him phone sex or having sex with him. With that being the case, I would make love to him so methodically and with so much concentration that, in my mind; I felt it would remedy and reverse everything hurtful. I would be apologizing and begging for him to stop mistreating me. He would even tell me that he would stop hurting me-in spurts (small spurts), but immediately after it was over, he would turn to me with what began to seem like horns on his head. And it was back to [what was now] our same, literally damned thing. He master-minded this payback mission possible.
Chapter Five
Although I would not be graduating with my friends at the artsy school that I had attended from fourth through tenth grade; we all would still be graduating the same year, but just, in spirit. I missed my friends there. Graduation time was special because my besties and bff’s that didn’t begin with us in fourth grade; started with us in fifth grade and we fancied our feat: “survivors.” We owned the word “survivor” before the tv show “Survivor.”
Graduation for those of us who attended from fourth and fifth grades and made to twelfth grade was considered that mountain-top of sorts. We did it all together-confined in one facility. We walked the same halls-year after year, through all the: braces, blemishes and bifocals, awkwardness, growing taller and expanding our horizons. We had that connection. It was special to us. It was school tradition.
I disconnected when I got preggers with Lucky. Before my belly could swell, my mom snatched me up out of that school like a woman getting snatched one direction and her wig hitting the floor another. She couldn’t bare the thought of me knocked up so young at an artsy school like I attended. It just didn’t look right.
I disconnected but I accepted and embraced my transition the same way I accepted and embraced my consequences and considered it just a minor setback.
Then awesome happened.
I accomplished my “get a life” workout plan with flying colors. I succeeded at passing night school in the spring, and as well-summer school, with all the credits required to enter my senior year which would enable me to graduate on time-with my fellow survivors although not with my fellow survivors.
Regardless, because of my accomplishment, my spirits were high and calm, but sprinkled with a dash of anxiety about what I was about to embark upon: A new, neighborhood high school.
That threw me for a loop. It was a complete culture shock to me and knew it was going to take a lot of getting used to. Because just like the continuity of being confined from fourth through to twelfth grade at the artsy school, my peers here at this new neighborhood school I would be attending my senior year pretty much all attended the same neighborhood elementary school facility, then moved over to the same middle school facility, and now, over here at the same neighborhood high-school facility. I was the “new girl.” And I was not apart of their transition, so, I stuck out like a sore thumb there. I knew it. And they proved it.
The school where I’d come from, our recreation and excitement was: attending the opera and the symphony. Creative arts and fine arts was our sport and consumed our spirits.
But at my new neighborhood school; it was sports that fueled the spirit of their school.
I had no idea what the fuck a “pep-rally” was until this particular day at the school, and was thrown into that lion’s den, feeling like a lamb being led to slaughter.
My TGGF was the only friend I had at the school, but we did not share the same lunch or homeroom. Our lil’ love-affair that we had since third-grade was one such that by the time we started liking boys around fourteen years-old or so, we began to call ourselves “besties” because we had a kind of fondness for one another that best friends really did have, despite the fact that we were loving all over one another from third grade until around eighth or ninth grade. I was her “Boo” before “Boo” became a single-syllable popular term of endearment the world over.
Throughout all my transfers and transitions, she and I remained inseparable no matter where in town I moved and no matter how many night and summer schools I transferred to-she was always there for me and never too far from my grasp, well…except for our senior year at this neighborhood school we both attended.
By this time, she was hot and heavy into a relationship with a guy a few years older than us and school was not much of a priority to her. If she did make it to school, it would be after lunch-time, because early mornings were never her thing. So, the morning that this pep-rally occurred, she was not among this wild shin dig.
When we were directed to the auditorium, I was completely alarmed and caught off-guard.
It looked and sounded as if a riot was about to start. I was startled. The only roaring sounds close to anything rallying I was used to were the sounds of some mad-raging future Amadeus’ or Gillespie’s on saxophone in the hallways.
The school, the people, the activities, the rallying-everything, was far too much a culture shock for my psyche to take. It was way too wild for me. I almost felt like I should have received some kind if itinerary in the mail to tell me about all of these happenings. I needed that kind of a warning-about how “regular” high school got down.
In an instant, that made me hate that school even more.
My emotions were already delicate during this time and this atmosphere did nothing to ease it. Due to my new life, surrounds, stressful love life and angst of this last important year, you practically had to tip-toe on my emotions and in my surroundings. And this scene was merciless and offered the antithesis of that.
At this wild scene, I turned sideways, picking my nails-inattentive and uninterested while sitting at the edge of the bleacher. Courtesy of my TGGF, I was dressed in black, leather thigh-high boots and my black and white plaid Chanel skirt and jacket in the middle of this pep-rally with a gym full of screaming cheerleaders and cheering and gym shoe wearing wild people. I had to keep giving myself pep-talks about how much I had accomplished to get to this very point. I couldn’t just come undone and fall apart right now. I had to keep reminding myself that if I were to graduate on time, these devil-awful next nine months at this school was my last option.
Pucker had already graduated and would come to pick me up most afternoons during my lunch time or afterschool.
With Slip gone to the military and completely out of the triangle, and my being at the new school; Pucker was about the closest thing to the familiarity of what was for me. So I clung to him even harder-despite all the ways he was mistreating me by this time. I didn’t care. I just melted myself into it with him because I loved him, but also because he was that last thing familiar to what I was used to. Everything else was far away or far too new and way over my head. I needed him even more than I did before-when I was in love with him “just because.”
Now, I had a tangible reason to love him: I secretly began to need him by all means unnecessary, regardless…
~~~~~~~~~~~~
While on this mission to graduate on time, things really started on roll and my self pep-rallies were more frequent from my having to endure making it through one class in particular where I was constantly heckled by a girl whom I had never seen a day in my life. She badgered me like it was a part of her homework assignment every Monday, Wednesday and Friday that I would have this “secretarial science” class.
Speaking of “secretarial science:” What the fuck is a “secretarial science?”
At every turn: the teachers, the curriculum, my schedule, the priorities and the atmosphere-this school was proving itself to be the complete antithesis of what I was used to and never expected. At this school, they prepared you for working in an office, complete with two smoke breaks and a thirty-minute lunch to be had in a lunchroom equipped with vending machines stocked with bad food, hard chairs and a hanging television looking down at you.
Where I had come from, was used to and preparing for-we were being preparing to be on that lunchroom television during breaks and lunches; looking down at a crowd of people looking up at that television.
Considering the fact that I already stuck out like a sore thumb at this school and I had no friends there, I always remained quiet but friendly in passing. That was all I could do since pretty much eighty percent of the school all attended the same elementary school, middle school and now this neighborhood high-school together. They didn’t even know my name. For the ones who did address me, directly or indirectly or when they would talk around me or toward one another; I would only know they were referring to me by their use of: “the new girl,” “the new stuck up girl,” or “Miss Pretty.” I had no name or knowledge about who I really was outside of these three monikers. I was simply: very stylish, very sexy and very pretty-period.
They played their positions in: pep-rallies, football, basketball, volleyball etc.
I just played my position: stylish, sexy and pretty-period as far as they knew (or even cared to know).
Unlike where I came from, talent or skill outside of basketball or football was unheard of and self-expression and individuality was unheard of at this high school.
I would observe.
And when I would, I would see in the atmosphere around me; something representative of a tightly closed fist. And in this “fist,” there were hundreds of people all stuffed and packed in the palm of it-but comfortable, because that’s all they knew.
I would observe.
In contrast, where I’d come from; it was like an open fist with all five fingers visible. All five fingers representing various people-the four spaces in between the five fingers: freedom. Free to be themselves. Free to dress how they wanted to dress. Free to speak the way they wanted to speak or free break out into song and dance if they wanted to. Where I was from, no one would laugh, stare or shun you-they would either: give audience, perform with you or join you, blending with you-their way-doing their own thing with you.
While in the closed fist in front of me, everyone talked alike, acted alike, used the same slang and even dressed alike: In low as well as high-end multi-colored designer labeled sportswear digs down to the shoes and book bags.
Courtesy of my TGGF, I wore designer digs as well-however, black and whites or grays, natural or neutral colored high-ends. They all recognized Adrienne Vittadini, Chanel and Carol Little, suede and leather digs, so, I blended in-in my own way. Thank God I had grown out of my pink high-top Converse, Madonna bracelets and pinned up jeans and such. My sore thumb identity would have been a broken one-indeed. They would have laughed at me here.
Outside of the names they would call me, these people had no idea that I was classically trained and exceptionally, academically and creatively gifted. They had no idea that “Miss Pretty” and “The Stuck up Girl” and “The New Girl” could sing and dance and act and write and draw and paint and sketch and sculpt.
They had no idea.
I wondered if they had any idea about those things or how they were cultivated or whether they thought it just showed up on a lunchroom hanging television or a living room or office wall.
Funny thing is, if either one of them could sing or dance or act or write or draw or paint or sketch or sculpt; the school itself-the curriculum-did not go out of its way to let it be known, unlike where I had come from.
So, it turns out that I really was living a fairytale, fantasy and illusion up until this point in my life. Because every year of my life up to this point, I had countless teachers take me under their wing and take special interest in me-during lunch and afterschool, but not here. I could tell that the teachers who appeared to be interested were either afraid not to appear interested or at most; were only “interested” until three o’clock until that damned bell rang.
I could tell that these people around me got no phone calls to their homes and long conversations weren’t had with their parents. I could tell that no weekend excursions or personal one-on-one time with teachers who cared about them both personally and academically, was a thing.
Uh-uh, none of that.
This was a school of hard knocks of the unanswered kind: no knock at that door afterschool or during lunchtime by invitation.
I could tell most probably none of the students ever had that luxury before.
I would observe.
I could tell they felt that because they may have seen the teacher on a Saturday night picking up a pizza and soda, and because the teacher shot the breeze with them while waiting in line; they somehow felt that the teacher was ‘cool” or cared.
I could tell they felt that because they could see the teacher in the hallways and give then receive a high-five; that was enough for them to feel and say: “Mr. So-In-So is cool as hell!”
They somehow felt cared for, special, or some kindred kind of kinship over bullshit like that-as if that meant the teacher liked and cared for them-personally. They had no idea the bare minimum care the were getting and mentorship wasn’t even in the picture here.
I observed.
I observed that and I knew and had experienced much better than that.
I knew what it was like to have a real mentor-all my life. And I did not seek, lure, or knock, or exhibit any exceptional way about me in search of what I had been used to.
Although I did not blend in at this school, with these people; in order to find a happy emotional medium, I did roll with what was real life as it was for me now: No illusion and no fairytale as-was.
I accepted that like a big-girl, because the consequences by which I had to accept it; I never regretted and for life-loved wholeheartedly, single-motherly and would have to care for, for the next 18 years, automatically.
I accepted that there were no fairytales.
I accepted the fact that there would be no fame or living forever or learning how to fly.
At this school, there was no such thing as dreaming, or making plans to make it big.
“Fame? I’m gonna live forever? I’m gonna learn how to fly?”
What the hell? They had no idea that there was such a song. To them, that song would sound real corny and “Tinker Bell-ish.”
https://youtu.be/tze87LfeOtY
Real-life for the majority of them was a lot like this school and the monotony after the eight hour day of it: go home, go to work (perhaps), chill out with a couple friends, get drunk, smoke a lil’ weed (maybe), get into some mischief-and five-finger discounting (possibly). Get up the next day: wash, rinse, dry cycle and repeat.
I eventually mimicked it, by not necessarily dumbing myself down; but rather, merely melting myself into the atmosphere, by accepting that my situation was no longer the fairytale and illusion that I lived-up through this particular time in my life.
Although a tear rolled down my face-reminiscing about my life then versus now, I about-faced it all like a pro, though.
To cope and find the strength to move forward, I totally gave up on any thought about the “as-was,” because real life for me now, was “as-is.” And Ms. You Know Who, is “Ms. You Know Was.”Although I didn’t grow up like “these people” I had to accept that for now, these next none months at least; I was like “these people.”
Make it through life and live?
Yes.
Fame? Live forever?
No.
Learn how to fly? Why? What the hell, why try?
Just make it through this life with the cards that I am dealt, be happy and in it-just get to getting-whatever that “getting” may be.
It’s time to rock and roll. No. Not like creatively or musically.
Literally….
~~~~~~~
NOT YET PUBLISHED☝
Sequel – “Angie Situation (NAIVETE)☟
Prequel/Book1- “Angie Situation (Innocence)” published☟
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE 5
- The Roots of Picked Fruit 17
- The Precocious Ripening 33
- Ripe & Ready. Gangs, Bangs & Pangs 39
- The Queen Bee in Me 63
- Another Level. Blossoming. Beautiful. 80
- TGGF, Male Model & Me 101
- TGGF & Me 112
- Divorcing Dad 124
- You Know Who 130
- First Flings First 139
- In the Lion’s Den 170
- Cold Shoulders and Frozen Dancing Feet 195
- Pills & Frills 204
- You Know What: I Told You So 209
- Dichotomies & Dazes 228
- Situations, Decisions & Transitions 241
- Up, Out & Away 244
MEET the AUTHOR Q & A 254
READING GROUP GUIDE 257
SNEAK PEEK into book2
(“Angie Situation NAIVETE’” )’s CHAPTER ONE 260
OTHER BOOKS BY ANGELA SHERICE 269
ABOUT the AUTHOR 270
