Clarity

Still September

My mom and I haven't talked since the whole she lied to me about why we were really in Gem. I talked to Gloria a few times. She told me my mom moved us here because she needed help with me. 

I don't do drugs, I don't go out, I don't do anything, and I need help? I don't understand my mom anymore. I know she isn't too proud of who she was before she had me, but she didn't need to lie and make me believe her parents were dead just so I wouldn't find out she was a whore. 

I think she regrets what she did to Greg. Gloria said they were crazy about each other when they left Gem to go see the world. I don't know what was so alluring about my dad. It's not like he was actually living overseas and was some exotic tan man. She met him in Washington. 

It's funny how my mom never told me about Greg. Then again, I don't think I would tell my kid I left a honest, genuine, kind man for a jerk like my father. Adults are all so complicated. 

Perhaps Greg was turning her into someone more like Christine, and she didn't like it, so she found my dad and decided he would do just fine to keep her from being a boring old hag. 

Funny thing is, she's so high strung and demanding like Christina is now. She is even a teacher like Christina. I don't know, my mom was probably meant to be this way, and she took the painful route to get to this business type woman. 

I would like to go on an adventure like Greg did for ten years. He traveled all over the world, and saw all these amazing places. He even went to Africa. He was painting, and taking pictures, and writing. It sounds nice. 

I'm not into people though, so I don't know how well I would do backpacking through Europe. 

School is different than I had expected. I had overestimated how many kids actually exist in Gem. There's only a couple hundred high schoolers, and there's fifty-three kids in the graduating class. There hasn't been that many for like twenty years, and there's only twenty kids in my class, which is Sophomore, and forty in Noah's, he's a junior, so is Megan. They're twins, I didn't even know. 

I feel like the entire school is in my PE class, people watch me like I'm some kind of freak. 

It's not like I had intended to be able to do twenty five chin ups, or be the fastest runner in the class. I think they were all betting on if I could do the splits or not, and I can't. I sit away from every one, and the teacher is none other than Coach Gretchen. 

She's impressed with my fitness, so is Brie. She's Kenzie's older sister, she's a senior. She's cooler than Kenzie. She's a spaz, she forgets everything and writes reminders all over her arm, she's really funny in a weird way. She makes all these crazy faces and doesn't realize it. She always has ridiculous amounts of energy. The fact she's a cheerleader isn't surprising, where else is she supposed to put all of her energy? She told me she's going to show me some really awesome trails this weekend I can run on that will actually make me stronger, instead of just cardio workouts. 

That's dancing around the truth right there. She's going to show me trails that have steep inclines so I can die a slow and painful death. 

Kenzie and Brie have a younger sister too. Her name is Joanna, she's a sophomore like me, and is in all my classes but art and PE. She's a tomboy. 

I guess their dad wanted someone to throw a baseball with, and Joanna was just as good as a son. She never wears make up, and she skateboards, like serious skateboarding, with tricks and stuff. She's dialed in with all the guys, and she is like one of them. They all treat her like she's their bro. They're going to get a reality check the day when Joanna walks in the room dressed to break a few hearts.