this is just me. you don't have to read it, but i wanna show you guys all of me. not just the sarcastic jokes i say, or the character i put on. this is me. and if you don't like her, get lost.
I call this my authentic self. This is me, and it's up to you whether or not you still wanna be friends with me after you know.
I was born may 5, 2004. My parents got married about a year after that, right before my dad had to go to jail for possession of weed. He was in for a year. Up until age 9, i was pretty much raised by my three great aunts and great grandmother. They taught me a lot, but I was sheltered. So sheltered that, when I moved to Jackson in fourth grade, I had never really said a curse word.
We'd moved because my parents were in a shoot out, where my mom got shot and my dad got shot and my dad's friend got shot. My mom's car got totaled, and you know the really fucked up part? It was right around the corner from where I was, so I heard all of the shots. I don't know the exact number of rounds, but it was enough to where my mom's car almost exploded. That whole time, me and my grandmother were listening to the shots, wondering who was shooting. My parents and some asshole. We moved because it wasn't safe.
To Jackson we went. I went to a smart people school in fifth grade, where I met a girl named Carmen and we were best friends for three years. During these three years, my favorite color moved from being pink and yellow to pink and blue to black and blue to black. My music taste went from big time rush to 5sos to panic at the disco to twenty one pilots. I went from naively homophobic because of what i'd been taught to very confused, afraid to be who I was. I was slowly molding myself to be her. During this time, one of my great aunts who'd helped raise me died of brain cancer and I don't think I was ever quite the same. I latched even harder onto Carmen. She was my lifeline.
And then, I moved again. I moved into a freezing office with no shower, only a giant plastic storage bin that we used as a bathtub. My parents were struggling. I was struggling. My grades were struggling. I was always so angry, but it was never about my surroundings. It wasn't that bad...but maybe it was. Maybe I was angry because of what was happening. Maybe it was puberty. I don't know. Anyway, we moved again, and this time it was into an RV, on the property we live at now. (we have a house now) I could not breathe in this RV. It had so much mildew in it, it was suffocating. Me and my mom fought a lot. My brother and I had to sleep in the same bed, a puckish spring mattress that was on a pull out couch. Seventh grade ended, and summer began. It was the summer of internet friends, because guess who wasn't around? Carmen wasn't around.
I met Matt and Aylah online, and I still talk to Aylah. I'd do anything for her. But Matt was a different story. He said he lived not very far from my town. I believed him. We never actually met, but he knew me well enough. He'd talked me into sending him pictures of myself. It started as just a bra, and then my boobs. We kept talking like we were friends, and the nudes just became a normal thing, I guess. He made me feel like I was liked. He made me feel special. But the guilt was eating at me, still.
Eventually Carmen got back in touch with me. She said all this stuff about her. I listened. I sympathized. I tried to relate I tried to be her. And then I told her about everything. She was the first person I'd told from school. About the no running water, the RV, the bullshit conditions. And all she said was 'Youre still alive, aren't you?' I cried really hard that night. I'd let her consume me. I was no longer Alayna. I was Alayna and Carmen. I'd given her three years of my life. Nothing but me and her. But I saw what she really wanted me for. It wasn't to be her friend. It was to be her crutch when she was in need, and when I wasn't there on time, she threw me away like used napkin. And I had been used.
Eighth Grade started. New school, new people. I was so uncomfortable. Here I was, this light-skinned girl who read books for a living. In a school full of strangers who didn't seem to read books at all, who didn't know what the constitution was, and could hardly do 5th grade math. I was best-friendless. And apparently I 'acted white' and black girls aren't supposed to act like that. I didn't really listen to black people music, so i didn't know the songs everyone else did. My racial identity is still something I struggle with.
But life went on. I was still in an RV. I was still sending pictures to Matt. And then, I stopped. I asked to stop, and he said okay. And we talked, like nothing had happened. He said he was 14, but I don't want to know if it was true. If it wasn't, I don't know what i'd do. It probably wasn't. I'd like to think it was. So it was just me and Aylah, and a kid who went to school with me, Cade. Cade was my best friend, and a lot of shit went down behind that. Me and Cade texted about everything under the sun, and my parents found it. By then, I'd come out as pansexual to a select group of people, and he told me he was bisexual. They didn't like that. My parents were upset, so upset that I had my phone taken for a year. And then my mom went to his house and outed him to his very homophobic dad. We stayed friends, even though it was basically forbidden. Me and Aylah did, too. I met this girl named ArNella, and we're best friends now. I've made new friends on the internet and in real life, and I'm almost happy now, I guess. But yeah. That's my story, what's yours?
-layna
