She wished all the pictures would go away. Ever since it happened, the mental picture, the flashbacks, wouldn't stop running through her head. It was as if those terrible nights would never end.
My name is Alessandra Castellano. When people look at me, they see the bright, cheery exterior that has boundless energy and a wonderfully positive outlook on life. This used to be me, so the facade was an easy one to keep up.
Before we jump into the details, let's start from the beginning. I won't bore you with all the nitty-gritty details like "well, when I was four, my mother said '_____' to me on my birthday" and all that other crap. No one needs to know that stuff. Let's start at the beginning of all the stuff that matters. I grew up in a small town near Olympia, Washington. Having been with the same people from preschool to Senior year in high school, it made it a very close, sibling-like environment. Even though it was a very small school and every one was close, there were still those that were 'outcasts'. I was one of those. I was the girl the people were friends with when they needed help with their homework, but I was fine with that. Being the only non-white person in the entire school, I had to take friends when I could get them. I didn't care about the reasons why they wanted to be 'friends', just as long as they talked to me every once in a while. Even though it was all fake, I was happy. I liked having people to talk to every once in a while to distract me from my own world.
My own world was something else completely. Absorbed in my books and my own little fantasy world (largely including Fitzwilliam Darcy and Fred Astaire (yes, I know that Fred Astaire has nothing to do with books... but you get what I'm talking about)), I lost the need for friends, family, or any social life at all. This is what, ultimately, led to my demise. Without friends, it makes the hard times unbearable. If I had known how hard the times would be, I wouldn't have isolated myself as I did, but what is done is done.
Don't get me wrong: I had a few friends. Jeanine and I became friends in the seventh grade. She was a friend of convenience, at first, but after a while, it became more than that. She became more than a friend of a friend. Jeanine was the girl that taught me how to put on makeup, tweeze my eyebrows, not look like a complete and total dude... she allowed me to be a girl in world full of boys. She allowed me to figure out who I am and who I might want to be.
My name is Alessandra Castellano. When people look at me, they see the bright, cheery exterior that has boundless energy and a wonderfully positive outlook on life. This used to be me, so the facade was an easy one to keep up.
Before we jump into the details, let's start from the beginning. I won't bore you with all the nitty-gritty details like "well, when I was four, my mother said '_____' to me on my birthday" and all that other crap. No one needs to know that stuff. Let's start at the beginning of all the stuff that matters. I grew up in a small town near Olympia, Washington. Having been with the same people from preschool to Senior year in high school, it made it a very close, sibling-like environment. Even though it was a very small school and every one was close, there were still those that were 'outcasts'. I was one of those. I was the girl the people were friends with when they needed help with their homework, but I was fine with that. Being the only non-white person in the entire school, I had to take friends when I could get them. I didn't care about the reasons why they wanted to be 'friends', just as long as they talked to me every once in a while. Even though it was all fake, I was happy. I liked having people to talk to every once in a while to distract me from my own world.
My own world was something else completely. Absorbed in my books and my own little fantasy world (largely including Fitzwilliam Darcy and Fred Astaire (yes, I know that Fred Astaire has nothing to do with books... but you get what I'm talking about)), I lost the need for friends, family, or any social life at all. This is what, ultimately, led to my demise. Without friends, it makes the hard times unbearable. If I had known how hard the times would be, I wouldn't have isolated myself as I did, but what is done is done.
Don't get me wrong: I had a few friends. Jeanine and I became friends in the seventh grade. She was a friend of convenience, at first, but after a while, it became more than that. She became more than a friend of a friend. Jeanine was the girl that taught me how to put on makeup, tweeze my eyebrows, not look like a complete and total dude... she allowed me to be a girl in world full of boys. She allowed me to figure out who I am and who I might want to be.
