"No! Don't put me back in! I want to see the world!" Pretty much my first thought when I tried to emerge from the womb. Yes, tried. Instead of being a normal baby, I decided to be different. I came out of my 9-month home face-first. Not head-first. So I got stuck in my mother's vagina. After two hours of my head being pulled, the doctor's finally gave up and put my mom through a C-section. When she was sliced open, the doctor's pulled on my feet and pushed on my head to get me out of her uterus.
"Oh, Jesus Christ! Stop! I changed my mind! Put me back in! It is way too cold out here!" My first thoughts actually being outside of a baby-making factory. Unfortunately, the doctor's only heard strangled cries, and they did not pay any attention to my desperate request.
A year after my birth, my parents and I moved all the way across the country. Actually, it wasn't really my decision, but I had no choice. My dad got a job in a very small town in Arizona -- one of the driest states in America -- and we had to leave our entire family who were all in North Carolina -- one of the most humid. It was a major transition for all of us, especially for my mom. She had been living in that town for her entire life, and now she was moving 2,000 miles away from it. Not to mention she is highly allergic to Juniper trees, and the town we moved to was named the Juniper capital of the country.
Well, after a spring of a few hospital trips because my mother could neither breathe nor see, an evacuation because a wildfire had sparked near our house, and apparently my parents doing the do, I had my baby sister in the fall. She cried a lot. She still does. What a wimp.
I went to a private Christian school from preschool until 1st grade, when I had to go to public school because we could not afford the tuition anymore. Fortunately, my best friend came with me, and we remained best friends until fifth grade, when we had to go to separate schools again. She went to one of the public middle schools, and I went back to Christian Academy, where I reunited with my friends from kindergarten. My elementary school BFF and I sort of lost contact after that, because society started to engulf her. However, my ten friends at my private school were basically my second family. However, one was closer than all the others. Zoe and I became very close.
But then, Zoe had to leave. She was having a hard time at school and had to transfer. We still stayed in close contact, though, unlike Mikayla and I. Things became extremely exciting when we learned that a new school was coming to town, and both our parents were considering putting us there. The only thing is, the school had a reputation for being the school that "the smart kids" attend, so I started to get teased by my supposed second family.
Once eighth grade started, I only really continued talking to two of my classmates: Kaylee and Jake. Zoe and I were so happy to finally be going to the same school again, and we grew close to other people. We had a circle of friends, and we all had pretty much the same classes: Zoe, Edward, Amelia, Nathan, Anton, and me.
And that's where the interesting stuff happens. Within just a couple weeks, I fell head over heels in love with Edward. But it was so pointless, to me. I mean, why the hell would a guy like him love a girl like me? I kept this little detail of my life quiet, though, because no one would leave me alone about it if I said anything. Besides, Zoe admitted to me that she had a crush on Ed. Still, Ed and I were close friends. One day in math class, I guess I was messing with my cuts from the night before, and Ed saw them. He asked me about it after school, so I told him the pathetic story of lonely old Kaitlyn who was socially anxious and was beginning to wonder about her place on Earth. From that night, Ed and I grew closer. Of course, I was ecstatic about this, because he made me feel good about myself, and he called me his best friend. The night before a major test, Ed and I were videochatting, "studying." Clearly, he needed to say something important, but couldn't find a way to get it out. He was acting weird the entire phone call.
"Alright, Kate, I have to go," he said. "But before I do, I just want you to know that I think you're an amazing person, and I kind of have a crush on you."
Oh my god! I thought. What did he just say? Apparently, I spent too much time thinking about what he just said, because it had been like 20 seconds before I realized, "Oh, shit! I haven't said I liked him back yet!" I snapped out of it, and said, "Well, I have been meaning to tell you this for a long time, Ed, but I was just too nervous. I have a crush on you as well."
Boy, do I wish I said that! No, what I really said was: "Thanks." Yep. God, I can be such an idiot sometimes.
So we hung up, and I immediately texted him screaming how sorry I was, and that my brain was not functioning correctly, and I finally got it out that I liked him, too.
After weeks of pathetically attempting to hide our feelings for each other, our classmates and friends finally caught on. So, after a while, we figured, "Fuck it," and we started holding hands publicly, and hugging, and sometimes we would even kiss after school. Wow, we were in love. And everyone loved us together. We were apparently tied with Garrett and Arianna as the cutest couple in eighth grade.
Everyone always thought I was one of the happiest people to walk the planet. I made everything appear perfectly fine. I had pretty good grades, my family was nice, and I always wore a smile. They didn't notice that the happy look I put on every day to make people pass me by unnoticed was a way to...well, stay unnoticed. Neither did they ever see the scarlet red marks I put on my own body to release my inner pain, because I did strategically put them in places no one would ever see by just passing me in the halls. That's the way I wanted it to be. Always.
