Prologue
“Do you know what happens after strike three?” They’d ask. “Do you know, Sera Marie Austin?” The thing is, I do know. I just never thought they’d actually allow me to strike out so many times. My parents are big baseball fans. They love the Yankees. They have a Yankees everything. Yankees hat, jersey, plush toy, pillow, mug. You name it, they have it. If not, they’d start weeping for hours and going on about how they aren’t the Yankees number one fans, just as they thought. I’m pretty sure they’d drown everyone in tears but they only stop after about an hour or so to spend the rest of the day looking for that one little Yankees themed object they don’t have. When I decided to talk to them about their stupid obsession for this baseball team, that’s when they started striking me out. “That’s strike one little miss missy!” My mom would yell in her girly, high-pitched voice. “Now you just march right on up to your room!” She’d always send me to my room if I did something she didn’t like as if I were still five. Who would I be if I listened to her? A weakling. That’s who. So I never did listen to my crazed mother just to show that I wasn’t a weakling because I was anything but one.
That was back in the past. I don’t have to deal with them anymore. I’m glad I don’t have to. I would have grown gray hairs if I hadn’t left sooner. Then again, I did wait pretty long but I pretty much had to. I was in high school then and although I seemed like the type that would, I never would have thought of dropping out. I had plenty of reasons to but they were never good. I was misunderstood, bullied because I was different, ostracized, abused. Dropping out because of those cruel things would have shown just how much of a weakling I was. I know I am, deep inside but showing it publicly is a whole different situation. It’d take way more than others inconsideration for my feelings to make me fall to my knees. There was just no way in hell I’d do it. So I didn’t. I passed with the second highest grade among the sophomores. I graduated my senior year and didn’t bother to go prom. Instead, I went straight to my new house where I now live with my best friend Audrey. It’s pretty far from my hometown in Turkey where my parents live now which is one reason why we moved here. I won’t stay on my parents though. It’ll just ruin my new life.
