Perspective of Bad Company

Chapter 1

I do not like High School, but it doesn't like me either, so it's a mutual dislike. My name is Allie. I have dark black hair and green eyes. My favorite thing to do is listen to music and play it. My least favorite thing to do is being in big crowds… for example, High School. It’s not that I choose to hate High School. It’s just that things have happened that made me hate it. The average person would pretend all the things in High School never happened. But me? I see things for what they are. Not for what I want them to be. Too many things go on every day for me not to notice them. But hey, that’s just me.

                So, I’m guessing your expecting a story of a girl who didn’t fit in at school and then discovers herself because a guy takes notice in her. No. Or, an anti-social girl who thinks she doesn’t belong in the world and then at the end the popular group of people starts talking to her and she has lots of friends. Well, this isn’t that type of story either. Neither is the story of a girl who falls in love with a vampire. So, if that’s what you want to read… I suggest you close this story right now and stop reading and find another “lonely girl finds hope” book. This is my story. My story of how one year can really change a person’s perspective on things. Like mine.

All this didn’t happen within a year. That’s just when most of it occurs. The things that shaped my look on the world occurred most of my life. Let me brief you on the first few years of my life. My mom had me when she was 19 years old. She gave me to my Aunt Tracy not to long after I was born. I still saw my mom, but not as much as I wanted to.

                My Aunt Tracy made me believe for the longest time that my mom didn’t want me. The truth was she couldn’t take care of me. My mom had just graduated, had no job or money to take care of me, and the guy that got her pregnant didn’t stick around. So, who was there with open arms ready to take her in? My Aunt Tracy was. She let my mom and me move in with her till she could get back on her feet again.

After about a year, my mom still didn’t have enough money to really take care of me. She found a job waitressing, but that wasn’t enough. My Aunt Tracy convinced my mom to give her guardianship of me. You know, to help take care of my needs and all that. Then told my mom that she needed to have custody of me to take care of my medical needs and for “protection”. Of course my mom let her. Aunt Tracy was her aunt too. And she thought she could trust her. I mean Aunt Tracy practically raised her. She even told my mom that she would give me back after she got on her feet and got her own house. But when it came time for that, Aunt Tracy wouldn’t give me back. She could do that because she had full custody of me. My mom was too young when I was born to know what Aunt Tracy was really doing. But it was too late.  

I went to school in Oklahoma for a while. Then moved to Missouri. Then to Arkansas. Aunt Tracy and I stayed in Arkansas because I was starting Middle School and she wanted me to “adjust” and “make friends so High School would be better”.

                I made friends and spent time with them. I was just like any other Middle Schooler. From seventh grade to eighth grade I was in the same school. Yeah, I got in trouble a few times. Mostly because my Aunt Tracy was a tight wad and was way too strict on a lot of things. But I followed the rules she set. Well, most of them anyways. The ones that mattered. Like no drugs, no sex, and no parties. All that. Even though most of my friends were doing that, I always declined when asked.

I guess I was a good kid. Well, as good as I let my Aunt Tracy believe. She wanted me to be a good Christian girl who had good grades and rarely got in trouble at school. Truth was I did believed in God, but sometimes I doubted. I had average grades in most of my classes. And I didn’t really get in trouble at school, but Aunt Tracy and I always fought. She was all hormonal because she was getting older and I was all hormonal because I was a teenager. It really didn’t mix well. Plus I had a lot of anger towards her.

After years of Aunt Tracy not letting me contact my mom, she finally let me have her number so I could call her. When that happened, my mom told me the truth of her wanting me, and of how Aunt Tracy tricked her into giving her custody. I mean, really? After finding that out how could you not be mad at someone.

So naturally I got back at her every way I could. Not right to her face, but I did things I knew she hated and would never let me do. I did it all without her knowing. That made it better because I felt I had power over her. She couldn’t stop me from doing certain things because she didn’t know. And if she ever did find out, well, I wouldn’t lie about it. I would tell her the truth about it because it made her even madder. This made me feel even better.

As I got older though, the fighting got worse. She would always ask “what happened to the sweet little girl I knew”. I know exactly where she was. I just wasn’t going to show her to Aunt Tracy because she robbed me of my life with my mother. I’m not saying I hate my Aunt Tracy. She took care of me and kept me safe. She raised me. But she lied about the most important thing. My life. Every question I had about when I was younger and question of how I was brought up, she lied.

Finally, after my eighth grade year, my Aunt Tracy let me move in with my mom. I moved to Little Water, Arkansas. I had never been to this part of Arkansas so I knew nobody to hang out with during the summer. This town was very small, too. It took probably five minutes to go to one end of the town to the other. The town was pretty run down. There were some buildings that looked new, but the others looked ancient. Some buildings had paint coming off of them and chipping away. I kind of liked it. It gave the town a sense of history. Like if you go back 10 years, the buildings you see there today would still be there back then. Not like some towns where everything was tore down and there was new everything.

I moved in with my mom and my little brother. I was happy. I missed my mom a lot and wanted to spend as much time with her as possible. But she had to work during the day, and my little brother was mostly at his dad’s house. So during the day I was alone. I did laundry during the day and cleaned. Mostly because I didn’t know what else to do with my time. I eventually started going on walks around the town. I wanted to get used to Little Water. I don’t know if my mom cared or not if I did this because I really didn’t tell her. I didn’t want to get in trouble after only living with her for a few days.

On my daily walks I took my IPod, phone, and sketchbook or journal. I sometimes would stop and sit at a random bench or under a tree and just sit there and look around. The town was pretty quite during the day because everyone was at work or staying home. Most kids my age probably were inside playing video games or on the computer. I had video games and a computer, but I figured there is more interesting things to do then sit around all day.

After my walks I would head back home and wait for Mom to get back home. When she did we would start dinner and eat together. Life was pretty good. I finally had my mom back and I lived in a small town. My little brother would come back home on the weekends and I missed him a lot. Things couldn’t get better. My mom eventually got me an acoustic guitar for my birthday because she knew I loved music. We had a whole conversation one night about it. So I was pretty happy when she got it for me. It added something I could do during the day while she was at work to so I wouldn’t be too bored.

Of course summer had to end. And you know what that meant. School. Not just school, but High School. I had to start my freshman year at a new school not knowing anybody. This was going to suck big ones.