Little Kitties (Garrence, Zanvis, Vylante)

Listen...

Alright, I'm just going to be honest here. I've been having a really rough time throughout these past years. I've been so disappointed with myself for never getting around to updating and I feel you guys need to hear my reason. I really want to continue this story, I have a plot line for it, I have plans and ideas that I love for this. However, there has been so much happening that I think it's the reason why I haven't been able to even open the drafts I have.

I started this story when I was beginning high school. Second semester my sophomore year, I had gotten a job. Two weeks into having this job, like a domino effect, is when things started going down. A tree had fallen through my bedroom and I had almost died. I was about a foot away from where it had landed. That night, I became very fearful of storms and the sound of wind.

I then had nothing, I wore my older sister's clothes and went to school the next day to distract myself from happened the night prior. Luckily for me, my oldest sister took me out cloth shopping and my school gifted me a $200 Unclaimed Baggage gift card as well as a stack of gift cards to random stores donated to me by the local Unclaimed Baggage. However, I unfortunately could not prevent myself from having a break down in my English class listening to the audio book for Julius Caesar. That was the day I learned I could no longer handle storms.

Junior year became a blur to me, my grades were heavily affected, going from A's to C's. With a dad constantly taking breaks from work constantly giving me anxiety about our financial situation, I was also berated for not having a drivers license yet. I still do not have my license yet due to the lack of time available. My parents both took me out to practice driving roughly 10 times these past few years. The only eventful thing that happened was that I pulled a nerve in my back due to my book bag and numb my left side for a day. That was a fun hospital trip.

Senior year rolls by faster than I expected, and I reflected through the years and saw how I've changed. I've became confident and rather social, felt empowered with knowing who I was. I slowly and subtly started to come out to my classmates as transgender and no one dared to bother me with it. One day, though, I had to storm out of the classroom to avoid beating someone up for being transphobic and homophobic. I have a very bad temper, but can manage through most situation without giving any reaction in the slightest. What brought a smile to my face was how the class reacted when I left the room. The did not fully understand why I was so upset, but they stood up for me and didn't expect any recognition for it. Nobody even mention the class rallying up for me except my friend that was in that class.

Last semester of senior year is where the most had came down on me. The first thing to happen was a lock down drill, this gave me an anxiety attack and had me going home because they forgot to say that it was a drill. We're in the band room and our substitute has no idea either that it was a drill, we all thought it was real. I'm crying in the dark thinking 'Oh my god. It's actually happening. We can die. Fuck, they can die. I can't just sit here and hide if someone gets shot. I'm not just gonna hide and let someone bleed out. I can't live with myself if I don't put my everything into making sure no one dies.' Needless to say, I wasn't the only one that went home after that drill. I was more terrified than when I actually almost died, I'm serious.

Two weeks pass, I'm at work casually chatting with my friend/co-worker when I hear these dreaded words. Two words. It took only two words to send over half the store into a sobbing mess, co-workers who you never see get emotional are sobbing the hardest. Almost everyone paused what they were doing as the mood shifted drastically. Emily's dead.

Emily was a very sweet, outgoing girl who had just turned 19 a few weeks before getting into a fatal car crash with her best friend, both dying on impact. She was great friend and co-worker and we have her picture up in the store for her memory. At her funeral, me and my co-workers took up 2 and a half pews, we all loved her dearly. Upon hearing this news, we were also hit with a dinner rush, so us servers were taking out orders with tears streaming down our faces and quaking voices. I had to take a week off school for that, I could not pull myself together.

Two more weeks and my school is finally closed down for quarantine. Hours at work go up to 30+ hours a week and my parents are finally divorcing. Graduation and all activities are pushed back for months. I move into my sister's house to avoid all the conflict with my parents. Prom gets cancelled, everyone already has their dresses and reservation and appointments booked. Prom's gets rescheduled, then cancelled, then rescheduled. I learn that I'm very likely to have bipolar disorder as it appears both my parents possess it, one refuses to be diagnosed, one is diagnosed but kept it hidden. My back pain has grown unbearable, to the point where I'll stop and curl up on the floor not caring where I am.

At work, we have a server diagnosed with covid, staff goes from 49 to 14 in two days due to people getting tested or mandatory self quarantine. 14 goes down to 11 as my store manager sends me, my friend, and her brother home for self quarantine. I'm sweating bullets as I wait for my test results, luckily they were negative, to come in because I'm living with a newborn baby. Only thing that waits now is doing graduation with two parents that are divorcing.

I'm not telling you guys this for sympathy, I hate that stuff a lot. I just want to let you guys know why I suddenly fell off the Earth. This was also more for myself truthfully, as it had me feel so much better finally putting this into words. You might think this fake or over dramatic, but honestly this all had happened. I really want to get back into writing, especially this story, but it's taking its sweet time to allow me to write anything good. Thank you so much for waiting and especially for reading this and listening. Hopefully, I'll update soon.

Thank you,

Mel, aka Jimanita