Just An Ordinary Girl

Chapter 1: Just An Ordinary Girl

Hi, my name is Emily Andersons and I attend St. Adam's Academy. 'Why are you telling me all this?' You may ask. Well, this story is about my high school-for the most part. And in my high-school, I have been labeled as basic. "But being basic is okay, a lot of people are basic. Why do you make such a big deal about it?" You may wonder. In my high-school, nobody is really "basic." Everybody is the way they are supposed to be, perfect and 'normal'. I just had moved into the humble state of Texas after I had finished 8th grade in June. The reason why? In the early summer months (June, July) my dad had gotten laid off from his job and, because of this, I had to move to this unfamiliar state. There were no job openings in Ohio sadly. People would either tease me or accuse me of lying, and say that I just wanted to move 'for the fun of it.' After this happened, my mom, dad, my little sister, Chloe, and I had no other choice to rent an apartment room, as that was the only thing available at the time. I still am residing in that apartment, and that is where I am writing this story for all you Wattpaders out there. Our apartment obviously wasn't as great as our 2-story home back in Ohio, but it was at least something. Something I had to deal with.

After getting laid off, my dad was not angry with the business and it seems like he didn't mind staying into an apartment with little to nothing. We didn't have our furniture delivered by the truck yet, so my mom, Chloe and I stayed in a friend's house. However my dad stayed in the apartment. However in early August, my dad snapped. He would treat Chloe and I unfairly, he would become extremely aggressive, and desperately turned to alcohol, drinking a bottle a night. Mom describes him as 'too abusive for our environment'. My dad perished due to alcohol poisoning shortly after, and although he treated us horribly, I didn't want him to die. I just wish he could've gotten help.

My mom, Chloe, and I didn't dare to move in our things while my father was acting this way. We just figured he would have alcohol stains on the furniture and our personal items broke after we figured out that he would litter empty beer bottles all over the apartment! We obviously decided to stay with a friend after he started showing signs which eventually lead to his death, and gave dad the apartment. Mom still payed rent though, as most of the time my dad was too overloaded to handle bills. Mom didn't know that leaving him alone in the apartment made him even worse. I didn't have any say in what mom did whatsoever as she was my mom, but I wish she could've chosen a different way to cope with him. He probably wouldn't be dead if mom acted differently. I'm not going to pin it all on her though, she probably didn't know.

My life was unbearable, and I didn't know if I could go on, and in the first week of school bullies didn't help by calling me "white trash" everyday. I was getting sick of it but I didn't want to drop out or do another sickly thing, as my family counted on me. But now I try to ignore the bullies, even though they still call me what they did last week.
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I was sleeping soundly in my comfy apartment bedroom when the alarm on my iPhone starting going off. I don't adore school, but I don't despise it. So I just hit snooze and hoped I wouldn't be late in 15 minutes time.

I managed to fully open my eyes after about 2 times pressing snooze. I stumbled out of bed and heard every creak of the floorboards in my room. I spotted my reflection in the mirror on my door, and oh boy I looked awful. My bright blue eyes that were normally bursting with joy were just faded to a tint of light grey somehow, my thick brown hair that is normally perfectly wavy was unkept, and to make matters worse, I forgot to take off the one thing that held my face together: my makeup! I had mascara dried on the patches of skin near my eyes and lipstick smears on my cheek making both of my cheeks seem red as a child's nose in the wintertime. Since I had worn nearly a full layer of makeup yesterday, my face was barely recognizable with the leftovers. Don't even get me started on my nose. You could've sworn I had the flu! I stood up in a hurry to check if anything wasn't right with my appearance. Great, I'm still smaller than all the girls in my class. 5"6. And I looked slightly bigger than usual. Like I was 180 pounds! But my appearance didn't matter right now, as I had school in an hour. I grabbed 5 dollars from my dresser and quickly washed my face, put on my clothes, combed my hair, ate my breakfast, and brushed my teeth. It was 8:15, and I had opened my eyes at 7:30. I glanced at my calendar for a split second before I put on my Vans. I knew it was August 28th as yesterday was National Banana Lovers Day, August 27th. I would be normal and say that it was for people who were crazy, but...I like bananas. And I like national holidays. So why not? I checked the calendar to see if it was Monday, staring profusely at it. My joy came back after I realized that it was Sunday. However it was the day before I started school for another school week. Over the weekend, people from my high school mysteriously knew everything about me. Things about my parents, my past, and even personal things like how much money I have in my bank account. I've never told anybody this stuff, but it was definitely true. On top of that, rumours about me were surfacing my school after I had started, and I just wasn't having it.

"Why did my alarm even go off?" I thought to myself, confused. "Well, I shouldn't worry about that." I slowly let the straps of my backpack let go of my shoulders, and the backpack hit the floor with a bump. I let mom know I was heading out, but I don't think she heard me behind a closed door. I locked the door behind me with the spare key I have whenever I go out somewhere. With 5 dollars in my pocket, I decided to pick up a pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks. After all, winter was coming soon and they were limited edition. While I strolled down the street, I thought about three girls; Veronica, Bianca, and Jessica, and how they had bullied me last week. They were regular costumes at Starbucks, so before entering the store, I stopped in my tracks and looked inside through a window. I couldn't see that well as a table was covering half of my vision. They only had tiny windows. I just assumed that nobody was there and calmly bought my pumpkin spice latte. I must have caught somebody's attention, as a bunch of 12th graders yelled out to me at the table by the counter. "Hey basic, what are you getting today? Pumpkin Spice Latte with a few pumps of fake?" A boy shouted at me. They all laughed at his unfunny joke. I ran through the doors without my 75 cents while tears rolled down my face.

There was a small bench next to the Starbucks, so I sat with my pumpkin spice latte in hand. If anybody teased me about it, I had a great place to hide it; in the bush behind me. Suddenly a man plopped down beside me. I felt very uncomfortable.

"Bullies, I suppose?" He asked.

"Yeah, nobody understands me. I'm not trying to be basic, I just really enjoy Starbucks." I say quietly, making sure nobody's eavesdropping on us, but with a little bit of confidence.

"Well I don't think you're basic." He said, smiling at me happily. I noticed his facial features were familiar. "Wait...are you Todd?" I asked with a hint of positiveness. "Yeah, what about it?" He asked calmly. Todd was my ex. I still loved him when we broke up, but that's merely because he broke up with me. Long distance issues were what caused the problem short after I moved here. I looked him in the eyes and asked, "Do you remember me?" "Of course! My Emmy." He replied with a sense of warmth on his face. I hugged him and told him I never wanted to break up. I totally forgot that he told me he was moving here! I had to get home and tell somebody!However I could only tell this to 2 people. I decided to write in in q daily post from my blog. "Bye Todd!" I yelled out to him while walking home. He replied back with a, "Bye Emmy!" We remain best friends, but we still aren't ready to get back together.

I had finished my pumpkin spice latte on my way home, confident about the whole ordeal. I kept myself busy from 9-6, by reading other books on Wattpad, eating snacks, and writing this! My joy faded away in the late night when I realized I had school tomorrow. Another week of bullying from Monday to Friday.
I packed my sandwich in a hurry and stuffed the whole thing in my lunch can. Powering up my laptop, I started my school work from the past week until 1am, the time I finally went to bed. I definitely wasn't ready for school in the morning and waking up in 6 hours.