Not in That Way ➝ hs | DISCONT.

* Chapter One *

Note (do NOT skip this or the TW): Hello, and welcome to the new and updated chapter one! I am going to try to post new chapters on Wednesday's and Saturday's, but it might just be on Saturday's. I'm still trying to figure out my schedule.

DO NOT READ ANY OTHER CHAPTER AFTER THIS ONE. I am going to unpublish the other chapters because I'm tired of every comment being about how it suddenly doesn't make any sense. I'm not attacking anyone, but every comment is now a complaint. You guys thought I was annoying? Just for future reference, don't be rude in any comment on my book because I will mute you, and I am not a child anymore. Every one has their own opinions, and that is okay. I get that, but there's a difference between having an opinion and being rude. Don't forget Treat People With Kindness. It isn't my fault if you didn't read where I had put "DON'T READ AFTER CHAPTER ONE" on every single chapter I rewrote in 2016.

Anyway, most of these memories are my actual memories, except three or four of them, and even those have some truth. I hope you enjoy my new writing experience! As I wrote this, I thought some of it was still too juvenile. However, I know it's always been an essential part of this story, ever since it first began. I can't bring myself to actually take some parts out and replace them. I hope you don't mind.

Trigger Warning: this chapter contains underage sex, underage drinking and smoking, the use of a schedule II substance (aka hard drugs with a high chance of addiction), light abuse, and the mentions of anxiety.

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Often people say that it isn't possible to have memories from the first year you were born. They say it's just absurd that a brain knows how to work that much at such young ages. However, I believe if something leaves a lasting impression on your mind and heart, then that is not necessarily the truth. The first thing I can remember from my life is my very first birthday party. I can't see it from my own point of view, and instead it plays out like I'm watching my personal documentary.

I have memorized every single, fine detail that I can play the entire day in my own mind as if I am just creating a film or reading my own autobiography. I remember how I sat in my high chair at the old farmhouse, in America, that I lived in with my father and mother. I remember how my pawpaw dressed up as Winnie the Pooh, and the way my older cousin chased me around the dining table to try and help me play with my brand new toy.

This is a happy memory. A memory that was created in my mind to remind me that my life isn't sad, perhaps. That's one of the very few good memories that I can remember.

When I was three years old, I remember my mother and my dad's sister strapping me in a car seat. I can remember the way my aunt was driving to a different town, my mom in the front seat dialing frantically on her old Nokia phone. We pulled up outside of a run down trailer I'd never seen before, and I cried as my mom got out and slammed the car door. This was the first time I can remember feeling fear. I never knew what was happening, but now it makes perfect sense. I watched as my mom banged on the front door, and my aunt tried to calm me down, holding me as she watched on as well, albeit pitifully. My father had been seeing another woman called Amy. I remember her name even to this day, and every time I hear it, I can't help but think if it's the same one.

When I was six years old, my mother came out of my suburban family home crying. She climbed into the car, as I sat in the front seat, and told me her and my father were getting a divorce. She mentioned she was pregnant by another man, that she'd been cheating on my dad for a few months. I remember, before she broke this news, that I had wished on a dandelion for a little, baby sister. However, the words, "I'm sorry. I'm pregnant with a baby girl, and it isn't your dad's," aren't what you need to hear at the mere age of six. That was the first time that I felt the bad kind of butterflies in my stomach, the kind that flapped their poisonous wings and crawled their way up into your throat, burning like deadly acid. That was the first time, as I'd come to know, I had ever felt anxious, and it was the first time I saw my father cry as well. I haven't seen him since.