The thing about me is that at times I am the strongest person in the world, other times I am a lost puppy being kicked around. Other times I am a weak lost puppy who is a professional at looking like the strongest person in the world. When I was starting Jr. High in grade seven I was terrified. Century Jr Highschool looked really huge compared to Forest Lake Elementary and everyone was bigger than me. I felt weak and I hated that so much. Sometime in the midddle of October I got back from school and went onto my facebook. I suddenly got a chat from a girl named Jessica, who was always my best friend. She asked me if I was a lesbian and threw some nasty words at me. I did not understand why she was being so evil to me. She used to be my best friend. She said something like,"why do you have a.crush on Hannah and Dani? Thats so disgusting Tori. I cannotbelieve you have a crush on girls." I asked her why she was saying these things to me. hShewas saying things like that to me. I just did not understand. I also asked her who Dani and Hannah were. Ihad no idea. I had never even known those two girls had even existed. Then I got a message from McKenna. She was mean. She said so many nasty things to me. She also accused me of lying when i said I didnt know who Dani and Hannah were. Of course I know who they are now. I have been going to school with them for three years now.. That night i cried for hours. It hurt me really bad and the next day was even worse. I was walking to band and McKenna and Dani were behind me in the hallway. McKenna said, "Thats the dyke who has a crush on you.".Or something like that. It made me really mad. I just wanted to stop right there and make them run into me so i could tell them "Sorry.I really dont feel that way about you, or any girls for that matter." Thats what played through in my head. I never did it tgough. I was just not a fighter . I never have been. When it came to self defense I could fight but i could never start a fight. I dealt wit crap that whole day from multiple people, McKenna, Dani, Hannah, Christina, and I swsawguy named Brandon at lunch talking and laughing with two girls named Zoey Torgerson and Julia Frost and pointing and laughing. That made me so unconfortable. That night when i went to bed was the first night I cut myself. I had heard of cutting from my friend, who shall remain nameless. She said it made her feel better to do it and then you just cover it up with bracelets and no one wpuld ever know. I was terrified to do it. I sat on my bed for at least twenty minutes holding my pockey knife shaking. I thought of what she said. I could not understand what about it made you feel so good. It was ripping your skin open. There was not a reason I could tgink of when I thought about why it would make me feel good. Thhen I did it. That was the start of an ugly addiction that I still fight. When I saw the blood drip down it hurt; only for a couple seconds though. After that couple seconds I understood what she meant by 'feel good. It felt more than good. It almost gave me a buzz kind of. I cant explain the feeling. ai am not sating cutting is a reasonable escape; becaise it is far from that. Its a terrible addiction that leads you into a cycle. A cycle that never ends. What mean is once you get addicted to it, you have to feel good to cut to cut to feel good to feel good to cut. That is the cycle. It is a very unhealthy and overwhelming one. The next day I wore a sweatshirt, even though it was perfectly warm out. It felt weird but even though I still had to deal with the 'your a lesbian' crap, I knew that my friend, the blade would be there for me when i got home. Something terrible happened that night though. My mother came into my bedroom and she accidently saw my wrist. I hated seeing my mom like that. I tried to think of something to cover it up with, I couldnt though because it was too deep and too deep and too close to my hand and i couldnt think of anything to say to her.
It was a long night and soon we both just slept on it. I remember that night because it was the worst nightmares I have ever had. I guess thats what happens when you go to be so stressed out. I woke up the next day and it was really tense between me and a lot of people because when popular people talk; they talk a lot.I mostly just hung out with my friends Niki, Brianna and Phillip. They were my best friends and they were my only true friends at that time. That gave me so much relief that I had them there by me.That wednesday Niki and Bri came to youthgroup with me and Phil. We had a lot of fun and it brought us so much closer together, I think. It gave us something in common.It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Soon Sarah Neuman, Jarin Bakkestuen, and Ragen Hanton started coming too and we all were so close. They were my best friends and things started looking north. Every Wednesday we walked over too Bri's house and ate meatless spaghetti and hung out there until 6:20 and then we walked to youthgroup and got there by 6:45 when it started. Wednesday nights at Bris house was where we made the best memories. I started getting to know my youth leaders too. They are amazing. The second week of the year we did an activity called 'if you really knew me'. It was kind of strange to me because I was in a tiny room with 80 people who i barely knew and we split up into groups and basically shared our deepest secrets. It sounds like something that would maje me unconfortable but strangely I was not. There were a lot of tears that night and I ended up crying on the shoulder of a 17 year old who was our youth leader. I did not even know her name but when I was hugging her I felt so secure. More than I ever have. I learned later her name was Cerina and we became really great friends. She prated with me that night. and gave me her phone number and we texted back and forth a lot. Cerina is a really great, awesome and beautiful girl and I felt so blessed to know her. We had a lot in common. The next time I saw her after that night was when we were going to Trout Lake. Its a camp we were going to for two days. I saw her in the van and I sat next to her. It was a little bit awkward for the first couple minutes because I could not help but think that she was the girl I barely knew who saw me cry and I never crued in front of anyone usually.I mostly talked to the girl in front of me the wholr time. Her name was Kim. Shes Phils sister but I didn't know that at the time. I should have known. Thry look almost identical. I looked at Phil who was diagonal from me. I said to her,"that is my friend Phillip. Hes so hot I have such a huge crush on him." I was really embarrassed after she told me that she. knew him and that he was her brother. My face turned cherry red. Wheb we got to Trout we were really late and everyone was asleep because our bus broke down on the way. The next day though we went to the first day I hung out with Cerina and Cerinas boyfriend Dylan and Kim a lot. Cerina gave me a bible verse because I was talking to her about how God was so distant. The bible verse she gave me was Romans 8:38-39. It lists everything that cannot take you away frim God and that I learned that I was the distant one. That weekend was really fun as well as deep and spiritual. We played crazy games. One of the games we were playing dodgeball but we put granny panties on and paired up with someone. It was good to get away from life.
