8. Messed up

ELIZABETH

The week literally flew by,like literally flew by. Aunt Rose and I went to the doctor's on Tuesday. The OBGYN was very sweet until she started talking about sex. She began with the perils of having unprotected sex besides being knocked up aka STDs. Herpes , HIV, Hepatitis B and she produced a book out of nowhere that had graphic images of the various 'skin lesions' they produce. Her words , not mine. Trust me when I say you don't want those images in your head. I got brainwashed about abortion, criminal abortion, teenage pregnancy, the psychological effects of it, how real postpartum depression is and oh my god my brain got fried. It was like my brain got tazed. She even elaborated on the various diseases that are caused by oral sex. Oral herpes and boom another picture out of thin air again. By the time the session came to an end, I became pale, cold and clammy. Aunt Rose enjoyed looking at me like that. The look on her face was pure evil. They even took my blood to run through some tests. What for I have no idea! The OBGYN Dr. Padma told me the minute I turn 18 she would put me on oral contraception, not until then and then she went on and on about the side effects of oral pills like weight gain, migraine etc.Then she started talking about drugs and that was when I tuned her out. Enough for one today. Enough. She might've realized that I was no longer paying any attention and asked a few questions about my period , if it's regular, how's the flow etc but I didn't tell her about my irregularity and heavy flow in the past months. I just said everything was fine. I wanted to get away from that place as soon as possible. She even took a mini psychological evaluation. It's a regular drill Elizabeth, we do this to everyone. She told me how the female body is hormone driven and how we can feel emotional , depressed for no reason other than hormones. Its normal she said. Human body is a wonderful creation Elizabeth, a master piece, there's perfect balance in the way we were created. It's funny how we go out of way to destroy what we were normally blessed with. By taking drugs, booze, those god awful fastfoods, stress what not. Learn to strike the balance Elizabeth. Work on it.

Her words stuck with me. Strike the balance Elizabeth. I was born on October 4th making me a Libran. If you have any idea about sunsigns you would know that the symbol of libra is a balance. Is this one of those moments Aunt Rose experienced? The signs of the universe? I thought a lot about all the things she said yesterday. For the first time in my life, I thought about how NOT messed up my life was. It gave me a new perspective. It also made me think about God, the Universe, it's workings, it's existence, religion everything. Do I believe in God? What do I believe in? That was when I realized that I got so much work to do on myself. Not that I've not known that before but now I see the need. I guess I'll starting working on myself when I feel the need , know what I mean. The rest of the week I alternated between thinking about everything Aunt Rose said and tried my best to not think about her son. He's got a nickname already ;it's MC and it's dumb. All of the week he ate lunch with whoever David had lunch with. It was as if he was David's shiny new toy and it looked like he took pride in that fact. I shared English and Math with him, two of the classes I was failing in but my assignment seemed to save my ass in English. Professor Blair did call me into his office on Tuesday. I had an A+ on that assignment.

" You have talent Elizabeth Taylor and I don't know why you are not putting it to good use or is it just a one time thing?"

Right. Like a challenge is gonna change my personality and attitude I've accumulated over the last 17yrs. I've always hated challenges and competitions and I tried my best to avoid them. I absolutely do not work well under stress. One of professor Blair's most used quotes :Its the pressure that turns coal into a diamond. Nope. Not for me. Everything original has its own value, big or small. Competition and ranking always make people feel less or more important than they actually are and I'm not gonna get into it. I just want to pass and be done with highschool. Another pain in the ass activity I had to do this week was send out my college applications. Since I realized that the only thing I'm good at is art, I wanted to go to art school. Better work on something you are good at right? Am I interested in art? Honestly I have no idea. Mom was a really good artist. She's well known for her art all over the world. Some of her paintings were auctioned for unbelievably high prices. That was my major problem. I can't help but obsess over the fact that day by day not only was I looking like her, I was feeling her too! Numb.Is that how this is gonna end? By me ending like my mom? That one thought was enough to send me down my spiral. How do I get out of this? My art teacher Professor Magdalene loved me. I was her trophy, I was the star kid of her class. She wrote me an excellent letter of recommendation and I'm pretty sure that one letter is enough to take me to any place I want. But the shitty part is I like none of the work I've done. Not one. Deep inside I knew that I was holding back that I can do better but the fear , the fear of looking at myself and seeing my mother in my reflection holds me back. I have no idea what to do about it. So I went back to live in my head. I felt instantly better. But reality had Michael Carter in it and he was getting on my nerves everyday. You know bees? You know the sound they make, zzzzzz , that nagging irritating buzz they make that was exactly what Michael doing to me. Here I was sitting at my usual lunch table sipping on my usual milkshake trying my best to listen to the advice belly was giving about my college essay and there he was Michael Carter sitting one the opposite end of the room, almost 15-20 feet away in that stupid white shirt calling me for my attention. It's very distracting. Why did he wear a white shirt? Does he know how distracting the color is? It's the only color that stands out anywhere! You are bound to notice anyone who wears white. Period. Surely he knows that right? Then why did he wear it? And why was he wearing a shirt? How old does he think he is? Why isn't he wearing a T shirt like he does everyday or any other normal teenager? Of course I'm noticing! The guy is what 6'1 6'2 , of course I'm gonna notice. At 5'8 almost 5'9 I have not many options like an average sized girl. My options are limited and I know it. And to make matters worse, ALL my fellows females like tall boys. Like come-on, find someone who's your size appropriate. Almost 80% of the tall guys , when I say tall guys I mean guys who are 6 feet and above okay, so almost 80% of them are involved with girls who were less than 5'6. Can you believe it? Ladies who are less than 5'6 leave boys who are 6 feet and above, ALONE. Back to Michael, no back to belly.

" Hello, excuse me, earth to Elizabeth, hey come-on I know that you don't pay attention to me half of the time but these days you're not paying attention ALL of the time. Can you be anymore distracted than you actually are? This is college essay we are talking about, it's important, come-on focus-

I stopped hearing her words the second I realized his eyes were on me. I could feel them. No I did not lift my head to actually check but I know when someone's staring at me. Why wasn't he averting his gaze, come-on. Is he actually staring at me? Fuck this shit. I lifted my head and he seemed to be caught off guard by my sudden movement. He snapped his head down in a jiffy and that's when I noticed Rachel fawning over him. Rachel Johnson, the head cheer leader aka queen bee of our school has a liking for anything shiny or glittery. I swear to god, everything she wears is sparkly. From her headband to her heels, everything's either glittery or shiny and currently the only thing shiny in our boring school is Michael Carter, everyone else is old business.She was obsessed over David for the last 2 years but David being David made it very clear that he's only going be with someone for a maximum of two weeks. Of course she made a scene over it , trashed his party and wrecked his car but I guess she got over it. Nonetheless she's always hanging on every word David says , clutching onto him like a leech. But now with the shiny new toy in town, of course she retracted her claws from David. Soon she's going to plant them in Michael and I absolutely did not like the image of it. So I started paying attention, to Michael and every other female in school. I never did that until now and here is the information I gathered. Almost everyone in the school has a crush on Michael. Especially the girls in junior high. They were literally fan girling over him. Michael , like the shy boy he is, either froze or marched in the opposite direction whenever he encountered such things. He's been here for how long exactly? 3 days and the girls are already fighting over him? Give me a break. I've heard that one of the girls in our class actually asked him out and he politely declined. The key word being polite.

"God he was soo soft, soo gentlemanly, I didn't even feel bad that I got turned down."

" Oh my god, the other day in biology, he answered the rapid fire questions that the devil puts us through without breaking a sweat"

" I swear to God, his math is better than our professor himself and his writing gave me an orgasm"

I did not want anymore information other than that. I did not know how I felt with all this newfound information first hand. I've never pined over a guy, ever. Hell I don't think I've ever had a crush before on actual people not celebrities, that was a long ass list. The first boy I kissed was Aron, he IS good looking and we have art together. It went pretty well for a first kiss. I don't remember the names of the rest of the guys I've fooled around with, yes, I'm that petty. It's just that I don't pay enough attention to remember okay. Sebastian on the other hand, worked hard to get into my panties. He wooed me, gave me all the attention in the world, did not talk much, just followed me around like a lovesick puppy. I drank it up immediately. I mean when you've been neglected in the essential years of growing up, you are bound to fall for attention I guess. That's exactly what happened with all of the guys I was involved with. I just liked the attention they gave, I liked feeling important even if it was for one brief second. Of course those things never last , they fade away and with time they disappear, like poof, as if they never existed. That's what has happened to me atleast. I don't even remember most of the things I did even the night with Sebastian. That was a major flop. We planned to have a one night stand and that was it. I had to work my hands on myself to complete the task he was supposed to complete. Never again. So when he was lurking at my art class I thought he was waiting for someone else, not me. But he was waiting for me, wanting a round 2 of what we did. No fucking way. How long was it gonna last anyway? 10 seconds this time? I'm not putting myself through that again. So I turned him down but he did not get that into his head. He begged and pleaded, followed me like a goddamn stalker as if this torture was not enough, another guy whose name I don't even know started doing rounds around me as well. What is this a bet? Do they think I'm a slut? I mean I know that half of school thinks that but hey I don't care and I'm not planning to do anything with anyone for the time being. All the HIV , herpes messed up my head. I even had bad dreams with those dreadful pictures from the doctor's visit. No fucking way. They're gonna get bored and back away themselves I thought to myself. Apparently not. Sebastian started to wait for me outside every class and I made it a point to walk right past him. This new guy who's name is Liam, is a fucking junior. Come-on, so when I told him that I was not into younger guys and asked him to find someone in his own class I thought he'd finally come to his senses. But no,that didn't happen either. He started leaving me love notes, on my chair, everyday. Of course I tossed them aside without reading them but if he thinks that's gonna get my attention , it's wrong . It only does the opposite. Growing up I had a lot of male attention. So I really was used to all kinds of things. Flowers , love notes, gifts, chocolates in my locker, decorating my chair , everything. That was what made me immune to the charms of a lot of boys. But when I thought Mom was in rehab, I hit my all time low. Suddenly it became too much and that's when my dating spree began. If you even call that dating. It was a good distraction, served it's purpose, made me take my mind off things but I don't want to indulge in this anymore. I know the reputation it's earned me and seriously that's not who I am. I don't care about what everyone else thinks about me, I don't want to reduce myself to that. It's something I want to do for myself and these idiots are not getting the point. When anyone says NO , it's a NO. It's as simple as that, you've got to respect that boundary. Things went from worse to worst as the week progressed. Sebastian literally blocked my way to the class. He did not let me go. How dare he? Why can't he get the memo. Why is he doing this to himself when there are literally hundreds of girls in the school or any other school for that matter. I gave him my death stare which I only preserve for kids, (yes I hate kids) and that made him back off.I swear to God if he does that again I'm gonna kick him in the balls. So I was very frustrated the entire day and I might have slammed my locker a lot harsher than I intended to.

" Having trouble, Taylor"

" Big trouble David, big trouble" I must've looked really upset because David's whole demeanor changed after looking at my face.

"I feel like shit David, I swear to God I'm gonna kill him" Now David and I have been friends ever since we moved here. He's one of the two friends I have in this school. I still remember the day he walked up to me casually and told me we should be friends.

"Are you Elizabeth Taylor? I'm David Roosevelt. Your father and mine are friends, so i think we should be friends too,"

" Don't talk about my father and we'll be good"

We shook hands and that was it, that sealed the deal.

" Who Sebastian or the jr guy?"

So everyone has been witnessing this drama first hand live then.

" Both of them, if I can"

" Come-on tell me what's wrong"

" So I slept with Sebastian on my birthday, I made it very clear that it was gonna be a one-time thing, he wanted it to be a one time thing too, now suddenly he's coming up to me with I can't get you out of mind bullshit which I completely don't buy because firstly I didn't even cum and secondly the whole activity lasted like 5 seconds"That made David laugh, hard. He laughed for a full minute clutching his stomach and I stood like a statue. Because as hilarious as it looks like, it isn't. That guy is harassing me and I don't know what to do with it.

" Okay I'm sorry but seriously must've been the guy's first time not that it's an excuse but it happens you know"

I wanted to add that I was my first time too but I didn't. Too much information, not for David. Hell I didn't even tell belly!

" Whatever, that doesn't mean he's going to harass me"

" Do you want me to do something about it?"

Now David's a really cool guy, he rarely loses his chill. The only time I've ever seen his lose his shit was in game along with everyone else in the stadium.Last year David got into a fight with the quarterback of the rival team. In all honesty, he wanted it. He said something about David's mom sucking his dad's dick to get a job something along those lines and David saw red. He pounced the guy and battered him. It was so brutal , I ducked my head and closed my eyes. His last name saved his ass and everything went back to normal. He didn't even get one day suspension not from field or the school. He just got a red card in the game. That's the power his last name has and David was well aware of that but the guy never ever , not once took advantage of it. He's very...humble for the lack of a better word. It's as if he knew the amount of hardwork his family put in from generations together to get to where they are today. It's as if he's working on living up to the expectations people have over him. That's remarkable, having that maturity at such a young age. His parents must be proud. Speaking of his parents, they are the best. They are kind, grounded and very very well mannered. I met them once at their annual ball when we first relocated, when mom did show up at social events, back when I was 12. Every year there are invites to all sorts of social events, balls, charity events, parties. Mom and I attended a few events in the first year we were here and that's it. She was gone after that and it's not like I can go alone or want to. I know my Dad was gonna be there and I don't plan on talking to him anytime soon. I still remember the look he had on his face when he saw me at the hospital. It was as if he couldn't believe I looked like that, so much like my mother. I already have a hard time coming to terms with that and I don't need anything adding to that.

"Hey , what are you thinking about"

David touched my arm and that brought me back

" I don't know David, I thought I could handle this but we'll see, I'll let you know okay"

"Okay, remember that I'm only one word away alright".

"Yeah sure" I gave him a tight lipped smile and waited for the day to end. Can my life get any more messed up ?

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