Freshman Year: sHE beLIEveD & sHE's brOKen

4: "Real eyes realize real lies"

That week in my public speaking class, which I was doing quite well in for someone who doesn’t speak, we were to do a narrative for a speech. I chose a song that perfectly described my anger towards Carter. My friend Izzy chose a children’s book. We practiced together and she knew what happened between Carter and I. Also, Carter’s girlfriend had ended the relationship because she felt like Carter wasn’t giving her enough time. So Carter was single, he and I didn’t speak anymore, and I knew Izzy liked him.

            Izzy never verbalized it, but when I was confiding in her and her roommate, I could tell she was happy to hear that Carter and I weren’t on good terms, so I should have expected what was coming next, but I didn’t.

The thing that I tell everyone when I first meet them, is Honesty and Trust are the most important things to me, and that as long as you’re honest with me I can’t get mad at you.

            We had a week to prepare our speeches, and when the day came for Izzy to give her speech, I was speechless. On her neck I saw bruises, which of course were hickeys! Steve had told me over the weekend that he thought he saw Carter holding hands with some girl. I kind of brushed off what Steve had said, but now, Izzy had my full attention.

            After class I waited for Izzy to pack up. We left class and were doing small talk as we walked to the bus. I couldn’t take it and pulled her aside.

            “Okay, I am asking you this straight forward, and I want you to be honest. Are you with Carter?” I asked as Izzy looked like a deer in headlights. “Just be honest, I won’t be mad, okay?”

            “Yes, Carter and I are a thing, not like together, but a casual thing, and I felt so guilty. I didn’t know how to tell you or how you would react. I am so sorry,” Izzy said.

            “It’s okay. Honestly. You told me the truth; I appreciate that. Thank you, and I don’t care. You can have Carter. I’m over him,” I lied.

            “Okay, thank gosh! I was so afraid,” Izzy said as we continued to walk to the bus.

            The bus ride home I was upset. I was over Carter, but it still hurt. I mean I looked like the biggest idiot! One thing I hate is to show my emotions or let someone know how I feel about them. I know, you’re going to say, “Well you need to do that if you plan to ever be with someone” and I know that. Thank you.

            But seriously, I do hate it. I hate getting hurt. That’s what I really hate, so I just always pretend like someone never hurt me that way they don’t win. Again, you’re going to say, “It’s not a game. They aren’t trying to hurt you” and again, I know. Thank you. It’s just that’s been my experience growing up. That it was a game to hurt people. So, that was why I said win.

            Getting back to the dorms, Alli was there and Mary was on her bed video chatting that wretched boyfriend of hers. She hasn’t even met him in real life and he has nudes of her! What has this world come to? I mean, seriously people, how can you be in a relationship with someone you’ve never even met in real life?

            And hell, I am old fashioned. I was born in the wrong decade. I liked it when guys courted girls and asked for the parent’s permission before taking them out. And maybe goodnights kiss at the end of a date. It was sweet and romantic. And I know that doesn’t happen anymore, but can’t a girl dream?

            Maybe that’s the problem, dreaming. Or Disney. Either way they totally ruin love. Love is so romanticized. When in reality love is nothing to be what you expect. Expect the unexpected when it comes to love, and even then you won’t know anything! Love is unpredictable. No matter how much you want to plan or dream of how it is, it will never be anything you can dream up. Because, it’s a dream, not reality. And reality…well, its reality. Nothing special, no prince to whisk you off your feet. It’s you, just going day by day, hoping that you’ll meet someone when you really wont if you’re looking. It’s when you aren’t’ looking when you meet someone.

            Sorry for the rant, but Mary’s “relationship”, gets me annoyed, to say at the very least. But anyways, when I told Alli about Izzy and Carter, she was surprised.

            “I know right! Seriously! What happened to the girl code?” I asked rhetorically.

            “I’m sorry,” Alli said.

            “It’s okay, I’m over it. So what if I lost all my friends besides you because of Carter. I can make new ones,” I said positively.

            “Yeah! That is if we can become social,” Alli said.

            “Hey, I’ve been doing quite well. But now I have to start from scratch,” I said.

            For the rest of that quarter I didn’t make any new friends besides one girl in my English class. She was cool. We totally bonded over our strange love of serial killers. Yes, you heard me correct. No, I’m not crazy. I love psychology, and getting into the mind of a serial killer is quite interesting if you think about it.

Besides that one friend, I was too focused on school to make others. I spent all my time working, and catching up on TV shows and gossiping with Alli. We had a table that we sat at and gossiped. Well, gossip isn’t the right word. More like we talked about ourselves and our issues and how to overcome them. Alli and I both are…anti social you could say. But I was working on getting Alli to be more social, and working on myself to be more social.

            The only big thing that happened between midterms and winter break was that we found out that Mary cut herself, or “used” to. We knew she still did because I found bloodied gauze in the garbage and Alli said she noticed cuts on Mary’s arms and legs. I totally missed that one. We even confronted Mary about it, but she said she used to. She soon after started seeing someone we believe because she actually left the dorm room during the day, which she never used to do.

            Alli and I talked about how scary it was to think about cutting. I knew I was freaked about it, but in the end it wasn’t our responsibility to take care of her. We did our part and now it was up to her to get help. With me, if it’s out of sight, it’s out of mind. I “forgot” about it easier than Alli did. I just didn’t focus on it. There were a couple of scares with Mary though. She would stay in the bathroom for hours and that worried Alli, and quite frankly me too. We knocked and she would come out after a while, and there would be no sign, so we would let it rest.

            Though the night where the new president was to be announced, that was another shocker. We were all in bed after the announcement and all the democratic students were going wild outside and celebrating. Mary was in her bed pulling at the rubber bands on her wrist. Alli and I were about to lie down when Mary got out of bed, opened the door and shouted, “Shut up you fucking bitches! People are trying to sleep!” and slammed the door and crawled back into bed.

            Alli and I looked at each other in shock. After a couple of minutes Alli texted me to talk outside. Grabbing my glasses I walked outside with Alli.

            “Holy shit, what the fuck was that?” I asked.

            “I know! That was scary,” Alli said.

            “Completely scary. She has a temper. Woah. People are just celebrating. Obviously she isn’t a democrat,” I said as Alli laughed.

            “And the rubber bands, you saw them yeah?” Alli asked.

            “Yup, but at least she isn’t cutting. It’s an improvement,” I stated.

            Alli nodded and we went back to bed. That was basically the rest of our quarter. School work, talking, and hoping Mary didn’t cut. Over winter break Alli and I got a message from Mary saying that she wasn’t going to be coming back. Alli and I were happy about that.

            And winter break was way too long. It started before thanksgiving and got back on the second of January. I hated being back home. I had nothing to do. I mean, I wrote, and did my photography, but I was bored. At school I was used to being busy. Now I was trapped in my mind. I had changed so much since I went to college. I gained confidence, spoke, made friends…but when I was at home…I lost it all. The only good memory about winter break was finally getting my license.

            Fall quarter and winter break. I thought that was crazy, but little did I know that it would be winter quarter where I would meet a wonderful person, and right after meeting him, would meet someone who would do something terrible to me.