Chasing The Wind

Pathways

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My name is Alana Mitchell, and I am eighteen years old, and I am a blond- haired, green eyed, five foot tall , slightly chubby country girl from Mocksville, North Carolina.

North Carolina is a beautiful, majestic state, with its beaches to the east, and the Appalachian mountains to the west, rolling foothills that extended out to the Piedmont triad, and finally, the state's history was something to be proud of.

My family had just recently moved to a new house Mocksville, home of the only highschool in all of Davie county, Davie County High School, and I wasn't even five minutes away from the school if I were to walk.

Enough about my childhood and place where I live; let's jump into the story.

You can brand me as a cover up.

That's all I ever was to the opposite sex- just a means of saying they weren't gay, bi, or forever alone.

Not that I had anything against the LBGT community; I have a gay best friend, who is always there for me. In fact, I dated him before he announced he was gay.

But not only did the initial breakup hurt; the fact that the person I was dating indirectly and unintentionally lied to me and themselves hurt, and took a big chunk of my self-esteem as well.

It didn't happen to me just once, but two times.

But what hurt worse was when you had a guy that came across as respectable, but your relationship didn't seem to feel like an actual relationship.

Let me elaborate.

First off, I have always been the older of the two in my relationships. Not by much, though.

I started dating Eric Lyons during my Freshman year of high school. He and I were friends since seventh grade, and he indirectly asked me to be his girlfriend.

More like someone from the class we were in told me that Eric liked me, and I guess things took off from there.

During the summer of my Sophomore year, I finally got a job, and I paid for my own cellphone so I could call and text Eric instead of sending messages through TextNow. I went that entire summer without hearing anything from him, and I should have broken up with him then, but I suffered through the heartache and the tears and forgave him.

Now I am a junior, and I am battling myself right now. Actually, I had been battling myself for the past year, but I didn't realize it until now.

I am sitting on the edge of my bed, hands folded together, eyebrows furrowed in deep thought. Here lately, Eric has acted uninterested in our relationship. Eric said he was trying to work out issues in his life last week, and he has been avoiding me since. It's been nearly two weeks.

I shrugged, then I pulled on my boots. I glanced at my alarm clock which read 6:25. I threw on a plaid shirt over my tank top, then threaded a belt through the loopholes in my denim skinny jeans.

My mother, Anne, poked her head in through the door, her Raven hair falling freely about her shoulders, her hazel eyes flickering from left to right, as if she were expecting something to pop out of the woodwork; I didn't blame her- my room was kind of messy from my negligence to clean it yesterday.

"Oh, you're up. Good."

"Yeah. I'm headed to the bus stop." I crossed the room to the door, and lifted my bookbag off of the floor. The bag had to weigh at least sixty pounds- I was given the nickname 'Packmule' because this was the normal weight I carried on my back every day.