When the Party's Over

February 28

I'm not on till anymore at work. They don't want me working the front cash. That's better though, I'd much rather be doing stock and working the floor more than always being at the front and having to greet every person that walks in. People have been ignoring me when I greet them lately, sometimes I get glares, and other times people walk right up to me and call me out.

'How could you lie like that? My son's gone to school with Matt and Logan since elementary, I know them. They would never do something like that.'

'You're just a little slut. You young girls going around and sleeping with everyone, you build quite the reputation you know. No wonder something like this happened to you.'

'I don't understand girls your age now a days. Going around, getting drunk and having unprotected sex, I bet you were into it. I bet you just regret it all now and you're trying to blame other people when you should really be blaming yourself. Don't be a skank.'

'You know accusations like these ruin lives, right?'

Complete strangers come up to me, everyone knows who I am now. I don't know how, I didn't go to the press or anything, but someone gave my name out and they all know who I am now. They all know where I live, where I go to school, where I work. Sometimes reporters will sit outside my house, wanting me to comment on the case. I just want everyone to leave me alone. Why can't I just be left alone?

My managers had to step up and say something to some of the customers that called me names. Sometimes they're so mean and yell and won't let me leave, like they just follow me around the store if I try to get away from them like a lost puppy. Like they're trying to lecture me on what a terrible mistake I've made or how I'm such a slut or how I deserved this or something. I cry most of the time, I can't help it. And sometimes my managers tell the customers to leave, and they let me go on a short break to pull myself together. Or other times they've let me go home early if there's a lot of staff on the floor. Why are people so mean? Why do they have to be involved? Why is everyone blaming me? Is it really all my fault? It must be, right?

Everyone at work looks at me funny. Like, all my friends and coworkers. They don't talk to me like they used to, they don't joke around anymore with me. They do with each other, but it's like the moment I walk in the room or by them they completely shut down. The air turns stiff around us, it gets hard to breathe. I'm like the giant elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about, or talk to. They say hi, but that's it. Even some of my managers are weird around me. Not Yvette, she talks to me, she seems to know what to say when I'm feeling really bad some days, or after a customer says something mean to me. After my shifts sometimes I've even gone into the office and just talked to her for awhile, it's kinda nice if I'm being honest. I feel like she kinda understands what I'm going through, she just seems to get it. Maybe she's gone through something similar in her life or when she was younger, I don't know. But I don't mind talking to her.

My coworkers don't say anything to me about what's happened, but they don't really talk to me at all. It's like they just don't know what to say. That doesn't help, I'd rather them joke around with me again or talk to me about something, then I could get my mind off things, even for a few minutes. I wish.

But now that I'm working stock I don't really see my coworkers all the time. My managers have me organizing some of the shipments and stock in the back, and putting it out on the floor. That's better, then I don't have to see customers as much. I like that.

But I wish all of this would just stop. I just want everything to stop. I can't believe I used to like my life. I used to enjoy it, well, sort of. It was hard when my dad died, but just those short few months before school started and the first month of school I was really starting to like everything again. I was starting to get my life back, the way it was before everything went to crap the year before. But now it's just turn to shit. If I thought everything was bad last year, I was definitely wrong. It's worse this year. And here I thought everything was going to go my way. I don't think anything will ever go my way. Why couldn't I just have gotten my happy life back? Why did these two years have to even happen? Why did this year have to happen? Why did my dad have to die? Why did that party have to happen? Why did I go to it? Why did Matt and Logan have to do this to me? Why did their friends have to be in on it? Why couldn't one of them stuck up for me and tell them to stop that night? Why did they have to ruin everything? Why did I have to ruin everything?