pretty thoughts.
7.13.2001, 1:13 a.m.

i held the half gone cigarette inbetween my thumb and index finger. i realized, "this is my first cigarette since probably october." i took another long drag, cyndi went on about troy, i believe. i sat there, looking at the burning tip, "i wonder if it really does hurt to burn yourself with a cigarette." i didn't realize i stated this out loud until cyndi started searching her arms for the place where cara (a girl from the clubs) burnt her. i debated my milky white flesh, to burn or not to burn. nah, better not with cyndi sitting here.

i had refused alcohol and drugs my whole life. especially after seeing what it did to destroy my older brother. after seeing him get his head and face ripped apart like a prey being ripped apart limb by limb. i saw him be drunk, high, all of it. i decided not to. the most "hard core" drug i ever did was cigarettes. now, i had been drinking vodka regularly. and i was smoking cigarettes.

i flicked the ashes into a weird shaped things and looked at cyndi. she was talking about troy still, i believed. we had just read through all her letters from rich. we read all of them, taking turns, and he said she was perfect and they'd get married and he couldn't wait to wake up every morning next to her. then, i remembered rich sitting on cyndi's couch while her parents weren't home, and me sitting there, him giving me a pitying look. fourteen and never kissed..and with such "lips and eyes." i thought he was disgusting. i had bitched at him several times on cyndi's side, but that's what best friends do. we lay into our best friend's boyfriend because we can't stand to see them hurt.

i thought about picking up a butcher knife and helping troy realize the pain it caused cyndi whenever he pulled this shit.

i wondered if cyndi would do the same for me. i realized she probably would, but probably not without me being desperate.

then i realized, i am desperate. but it's quit funny. watching the sun rise every morning is weird. being sixteen is weird. being a teenager is weird. i looked at my cigarette, cyndi had dropped hers, we were laughing about it. she dropped it on her bed and it took her a few seconds to realize it. we laughed, she put her cigarette out. i took a few more hits from mine.

i decided then and there, i'm going back to high school different. they aren't going to see me as the "kristy" they saw me last year. i'm going to be completely different. they can make up their own excuses as to why i disappeared the last day of january of the new year. maybe i'll humor them, tell them i was a spy, or pregnant, or hiding out. but no, they saw me as the girl in the corner with way too sarcastic remarks.

maybe i would go back with those boots i saw in the magazine, i could be like josh. hang with josh's crowd, except i would shower. or maybe i would buy those pink shoes, no i'd get them anyway. fuck being preppy. i could never check my hair and makeup in my mirror between classes, spend my lunch hour doing my make up, spend my weekends shopping. i couldn't go goth because i dunno, i just couldn't. i could go back as "me." that's what i'd do. i'd figure out who the hell "me" is and go back as that person.

we went through all the pictures of cyndi's "boys". it was weird, some of them were really attractive, one looked like justin timberlake. no, no, make that two of them. there was the guy from last summer, matt (scooter) and then there was "tyler." how could she always pick out the most attractive people out from a screen? she has a knack, i guess. she has a knack for picking up the assholes too.

i guess i do too. first there was joey, he was the dick extraordinare. why did i stop being cyndi's friend over him? first boyfriend, first real crush, i guess. not first love. hell no, joey wasn't deserving of that phrase.

jay? what about jay? asshole? yes. i wasted almost a month of my life on him. quite funny. i went to such lengths to be excepted by his asshole friends, his stupid girl toys, and i almost kicked the girl that "bartended" at quake because he thought her ass was cute. he would always ask her to bend over for water and then not drink it. i wonder if he fucked her. if she would let a grub like him part her legs. he was a scrub to the max. he ran through a glass window, for christ sake. funny, the first time i met him was at quake, and i didn't give him two glances. didn't even really remember his name. then he started calling ally's from the payphone near his house (he had lived there a few months...still no telephone...) and told her to tell me i was "bomb." i would just laugh it off. just another club junky. another druggy. another sex-a-holic. i wanted someone with depth, with eyes that could choose right from wrong, with arms, and someone with a heart and not just a dick.

i would walk to his house from caseys (a good 45 minute walk) and we would sit on his front porch (we weren't allowed to go inside) and i would get sick. it was february, and continually rainy. we would go to quake and it was crazy. it was crazy because we got together strictly because i wanted ally to come back to my house. fucked up. he was fucked up. he tasted like cigarettes and dirt. i don't remember much of his looks, well without the stitches (remember, he ran through a glass door). i remember his "kisses." no, not kisses, tongue rapes. he was fucked up.

i thought over the last year of my life as i put my cigarette out.

i immediately started paying attention to cyndi again.

i would not let the hell i'm living in raid my mind at 7:30 in the morning, the sun was just newly up. think pretty thoughts.

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