Living with my Aunt Bev and Uncle Antonio was different to say the least. First of all, I moved in the same room as my youngest cousin Alexandria, Lexi for short. There was also my two older cousins, both boys, the younger being Clark, who is an amazing diva like gay guy, and the oldest of the three, my cousin Johnny, who was the one who moved in with us in Chilliwack before having the cops called on him by my mom. Clark had the basement pretty much all too himself, Johnny had the room next to mine and Lexi’s on the top floor, and the parentals were across the hall in the biggest bedroom.
First things first, when I moved in Aunt Bev tried to get me into school right away. In the city, the schooling system was a bit different from what I was used to in Chilliwack. Middle school here went from grades 6-8 with grade 9’s being in high school. Because I was a year behind, I was supposed to be in middle school. So off we went; the nearest middle school was not accepting any new students, so I went to a different one a little bit farther away called Banting. I was accepted into a group of friends pretty quickly, being older than them, and seemingly having more experience in life in general. My cousin Lexi even hung out with us quite a bit. After moving in, we got super close, we were always good friends before hand, but being towns away can put a damper on that!
Where I spent 2 months of my life
Lexi also happened to be a big ol’ lesbian, and started dating one of my new friends, which did not sit well with her parents. It always amazes me, to this day, close minded people. It must be the way I was brought up, and I can only be thankful that I didn’t have those type of people in my immediate family. I remember one day being at my grandparents house when I was much younger, and they were talking about how Lexi had just come out as bisexual and Clark had said he was gay, I didn’t truly understand at the time, but there were no bad words said or anything like that, it was just a discussion. Clark and Lexi tell me to this day how bad a reaction Uncle Antonio had at first, when he found out about Clark, which can also be understandable considering how he found out (it wasn’t a carefully planned out sit down and talk kinda thing). Any kind of big news like that can come as a shock, but they are a great family, lots of love and support always..
My aunt calls herself the ‘Queer Cheer’
I’m getting off subject here! Anyways…
So my cousin had someone, and I had someone too. My boyfriend at the time Ryan was 3 years older than me, and he seemed completely taken with me. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was visiting my cousins once when I was twelve years old, and we were at this ‘Teen Swim’ event, where this guy sat next to me, and was talking to me, and saying how he liked me, but I was twelve! I didn’t know what the hell was going on, in my world, random guys don’t just come up and start talking to you. My cousin’s knew who he was, he was a friend of their’s, so Johnny being the protective older cousin that he is, ran him off when he realized how uncomfortable I was. However, at a ripe 14 years of age, Ryan saw his opportunity had come to be with me, and took it.
This would be me the first time I met my boyfriend.
Just younger.
If we weren’t hanging out with the friends I made at school, me and Lexi were hanging out with Johnny and his girlfriend at her house, with my boyfriend, and a bunch of other friends. We smoked weed a lot. A LOT. We usually had weed on us, and we occasionally smoked it with Lexi’s girlfriend as well. Rumors started flying around school that I was dealing weed to all the other kids (I was too paranoid to carry it for myself to smoke, how could I deal it?). Needless to say, the principal got word, and myself and my Aunt Bev had a meeting with him. Supposedly my test scores were so high (I got 89% on a fucking social studies exam) that I just wasn’t fit for middle school, so I should go to grade 9. Highschool. Welcome to hell as they say…
A Lesser Person 