The One Where She Tells The Truth
I was raised in a religious household. Strict Pentecostal. No makeup, no cutting your hair, no wear shirts that didn’t cover your arms, or pants. You had to dress modest, meaning skirts that hit the knee and were shapeless. We went to church every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, but that isn’t where this story begins.
This truth begins in high school. I grew up with three girls A, S, and D, who also happened to go to the same church. They were everything I wished I was, but also never wanted to be. A was outrageous. She was always in trouble for something and couldn’t keep her mouth shut. I admired her courage to be herself no matter what. S was repressed. Her mom was extremely strict, and barely let her out of her sight, and was always on her about her appearance. Finally, there was D. She was the worst of all. She had a bad attitude and thought she was the shit. She had it worse than anyone. Her Aunt was extremely strict and since this all took place before it was frowned up to “spank” your children. D would get regularly beaten anytime she did something remotely wrong.
These girls were supposedly my best friends. Now before I continue with this story, it’s important for me to tell you that I am adopted. My mother gave me up on two separate occasions. The first time was deliberate and included my brother and sister. The second time, it was more like she had forgotten my existence and just never came back. I tell you this so that you can understand that when I met these girls, I just wanted friends. I wanted someone to like me. I wanted to feel like I belonged and that someone cared, because for the better part of the beginning of my life, in my head, I was worthless and something was wrong me. Otherwise, why would my mother not want me.
Flash forward to high school and we start to notice boys. I say we in a loose sense of the word. At this point in my life, I had had so many bad interactions with foster brothers, I didn’t actually care to deal with boys, but you do what you have to in order to fit in. Each of these girls was boy crazy in their own way, but S really took home the cake. She and I were closer than the other girls. I would spend weekends at her house. Help her with her paper route in the mornings, we would talk about clothes and talk about futures and being able to go shopping anytime we want. She met a boy freshman year and started bringing him to church. Her parents would pick him up and they would all arrive together. It started out really innocent, a few sneaky kisses here and there. Normal teenage stuff. A few months after she met him, she asked if I would sit in the middle of the van, so that they could share the backseat. I didn’t think anything of it, until I looked back and she had covered her lap with his jacket and his right hand was nowhere to be seen.
It didn’t last much longer after that, he got bored with not getting anymore action and he stopped coming around. After that, things seemingly went back to normal. I had just gotten my drivers license, and had been working my first job at Burger king for awhile, so I started picking her up on Saturday’s and going to the mall. One day while shopping, she tells me she needs to run to the bathroom and she will be right back. Twenty minutes passes by and she finally comes back and tells me she met someone coming out of the bathroom and she got held up talking to him. Again no big deal, we continue our day and once done shopping, calls her mom to ask if she can spend the night at my house and come with me to church Sunday morning.
That night around 10:30, she leaves my bedroom and I hear the slider open and someone comes in. I go out to see what is going on and she introduces the person she met at the mall. She’s invited him to my house, without telling me and asks me to stay in my room, while they hang out. This continues on for months, sometimes he comes to my house, sometimes she sneaks out to see him and comes back late in the morning and other times, she just completely ditches me at the mall and I spend hours shopping by myself until she has the courtesy to come back.
It’s not until she ends up pregnant that she realizes she’s in trouble. Not only because, the baby’s dad basically abandoned her, but also because her Mom is going to be pissed. She makes up a story and tries to pass of the pregnancy as not her fault. I won’t repeat what that story is, because I am sure you can all guess. Anyway, life goes on. She has the baby and we attempt to get back to normal life. As normal as life can be when one of you is a teenage mother. We start going back to the mall and about 6 months after the baby is born, the pattern starts again. Another man she has met at the mall, has been invited to my house. Only this time when she ditches me, I am left watching her baby, or taking care of him in my room while she fucks him in the other.
I give you all of this background to tell you two things. During this time all of their mothers/guardians think I am the bad influence. They think that I am the one flirting with boys, they think that I am the trouble maker and basically use me as a scapegoat to believe that their daughters are just the ones getting caught and I am just so good at being sneaky to get caught. And I let them believe it, because it’s better than the alternative. It’s better than sticking up for myself and having these girls hate me, because during that time they loved me. I kept everyone of their dirty little secrets. I never shared a damn thing. When they would talk about sex and the different positions, I would pretend I knew what I was talking about and share my favorite position, even though I had never actually had sex and wouldn’t have sex for the first time until I went away for college.
To this day their parents still believe that I was the bad influence. Even though S has three children with three different men, A has 5 children with different men and D is working on child 6 or 7, I’ve lost count with as many different men. Yet here I am with no kids and living my best life. This is not to say that you can’t do that with kids, because you definitely can. This is just to say that I am the one that was influenced by them. I was the one pressured to be more forward with guys, I was the one pressured to fit in and in this group pressured to fit in meant doing things you may not have always wanted to do.
I write this mostly to finally get it off my chest. To rid myself of the weight of this. This post is therapeutic in a way because for so long I have hated that part of my life. Absolutely loathed the pathetic way I wanted to fit in, but recently have been reminded that I have come a long way. I have done some good things with my life and will continue to do good things. I just have to love myself for who I am now and appreciate what brought me here.
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