Right now I’m jittering away because my body can’t handle caffeine but I had a 7 am shift on 5 hours of sleep… Hate caffeine jitters!
So after my cousin moved in, we moved to a bigger house, far enough away from my school that I had to start going to a new one. This is where things started to go downhill. I guess you could say I ‘fell into the wrong crowd’ however I was too naive to realize it. I still had my cousin Lynn, and our friend Nicola made us the three musketeers, having sleepovers all the time, general shenanigans, the occasional sexual experiment (omg you kissed a girl!) and talking about boys and mainly listening to Eminem (cause he just was the coolest thing back then). But when I wasn’t spending time I was hanging out with the new girls I met at school. I started staying out longer than I was supposed to, I barely went to school, and gave my mom a hard time.
Because he was just so right about life back then >_>
My mom was working two jobs; half the time she was working at a bar, either cost checking or cleaning, and Tim Hortons doing everything from cashier to baking. There were a couple of nights where Lynn was supposed to spend the night, so she would come over, but my mom was working into the wee hours of the morning, so we stayed out alllll night with the new friends I had made. Looking back on it, I can’t believe us 12 year olds did something as risky as that, when in this day an he there are so many creepers and just generally evil people about. Granted we got in major trouble after said nights, but it didn’t stop us from repeating them a couple times.
This was also the year that I ‘became a woman’ as they say. Started getting boobs and visits from Aunt Flo >_>. Anyways, I remember the night it really went wrong. I had gone over to one of my ‘bad’ friends houses, and her cousin was there, and she wanted to play shot for shot with me. It was like 11 pm at night, and I agreed at first, but my shoulder started to hurt after a couple of punches, so I backed out, told her she won, and got up to go home. She followed me to the door, attempting to egg me on, but I’ve never been a violent person. Finally, she said if I punched her shoulder one more time, she would let me leave (she was blocking the door). So I did. And what I got in return was a punch to the face. I had never been punched in my life. She let me go after that and granted, I ran to my mommy, who was working at Tim Hortons that night and luckily was right around the corner.
My mom did what any mom would do and pressed charges. I had no idea what that meant of course, but I didn’t question it and just stopped hanging out with those so called friends. Then one night I had Lynn and Nicola over for a sleepover. My mom was home that night and we were all gonna watch a movie, but us girls wanted to go get some candy from 7 eleven before hand, and it was just down the block. So off we went.
Who knew gathering candy could be so dangerous?
Right before you get to 7 eleven, there are a couple of apartment buildings, and across the street in front of one, there was a group of kids drinking. We didn’t pay any attention to them, just walked on by, got our candy, and started heading back, but that’s when they noticed us. They ran across the street to us, asking us our names, and general questions, what school do you to, who you friends with, that sort of thing. One of the girls happened to be the chick who punched me, and she finally recognized me and starting freaking saying ‘this is the bitch who charged me!’. Well her best friend certainly had something to say about that and starting beating the shit out of me, with their friends joining in. I was curled up on the ground with a group of drunk belligerent girls shouting mean things and continuously kicking me, while my friends stood by and did nothing. Now I understand being faced with that situation when you are 12 years old can be quite daunting, but it still stings that they did nothing to help me.
Eventually they stopped, and walked back over to the other side of the street. My friends helped me up, and we walked back to my house to face my mother, who was absolutely furious. My mom isn’t really the typical mom, she is quite the bitch to pretty much everyone, including me when I don’t agree with her, but I love her all the same. I went upstairs to take a shower, and after staring at my mottled swollen face for a while, I washed it all away.
A Lesser Person 