Surviving Freshman Year: A Personal Journey

“Leave the past where it belongs.”
High school is every kid’s dream: less rules, more freedom, more fun. That wasn’t necessarily how it happened for me. In fact, so far my freshman year has been the worst year of my life. It started out alright. It was like a fresh start. I stopped self harming. I started eating more. Actually, I started eating a lot more, bring me to my third and final eating disorder. Binge eating. I gained weight my freshman year. This entire school year, I did not participate in one sport.
I kept to myself in high school, because the monstrosity of people honestly intimidated me quite a bit. The January after Christmas break, a girl named Jaszlyne moved to my school. I soon enough befriended her because I was desperate

for a friend. We became best friends, and started hanging out a great deal. Jaszlyne kind of made me feel good about myself. She would always tell me she was jealous of my clothes, and how much she loved my stuff, which didn’t happen that often.
One day, Jaszlyne and I were hanging out and she wanted to meet a boy out for dinner when I was with her. She thought it would be better to have me accompany her, because she’s never hung out with him before. So we did. He was a junior boy, Jake, and I knew that I knew him from somewhere. He then informs me that I dated his brother. His brother was Brayden, the boy that I dated in seventh grade. That was extremely awkward with a sprinkle of embarrassment.
After dinner, he asked Jaszlyne if we wanted to go for a drive. She said yes, and honestly I don’t even remember her asking if I would mind. So we went on a drive which ended at Darren Osborn’s house. I had never met him, I think that they only had us go there so Darren could tag along because Darren was Jake’s best friend. Darren sat by me in the back of Jake’s car and the drive went on. For a while it was completely silent, except for the J. Cole album bumping through the speakers. We soon enough went back to Darren’s enormous house and sat there while the boys played guitar hero. Jake took us back to Jaszlyne’s way past curfew.
We all decided to hang out again after that night of the drive.

The only way Jaszlyne and I would be able to hang out was if we snuck out and lied to both of our parents on where we were both staying, so we told them we were saying at the other’s house. This is one of the two times I have lied to my parents on where I have been. We all went on another drive. The late night, windows down kind of drive. Then it got to be so late out that Jaszlyne and I couldn’t stay at her house, because we would wake her dog and get busted. It was about 3 in the morning and Jake had thought that it would be a good idea to go crash at his step dad’s

house.
We show up at his step dad’s house and Jake calls his brother to come open the door. That brother was Brayden. Brayden snuck us in the house and we all went into the upstairs room. We started out watching a movie with all of us laying on the king size bed, even Brayden. Then Brayden, trying to show off, went and got a frozen alcoholic slushie. I asked if I could try it and it spilled down my shirt. Brayden had to give me one of his shirts to wear. We all started to somewhat fall asleep, when we noticed that the bed was too crowded. Darren decided that it’d be best if me and him took the floor next to the bed so it wouldn’t be so crowded. We both slept on the floor, but not together, please don’t be mistaken. It wasn’t like that, it was innocent then. The next morning Darren had basketball practice, and we all had to get in Jake’s car. He drove 110 mph to Lewis Cass so he wasn’t late.
A few days later, we all hung out again and watched Lone Survivor at Darren’s house. We all started to watch the movie and then a little while in, Darren asked me to go somewhere with him. We went to his room and sat on his bed, and talked for a little bit. Then we started kissing and he tried to…. Advance and I stopped him. I wasn’t ready for that kind of stuff, I was a 14 year old girl. I have never watched a war movie ever since that day.
I went over to Jaszlyne’s that thursday, which was 3 days after my 15th birthday, and we ended up going to Sandis Carter’s house to hang out with Darren and Jake.

What I didn’t know was that Jaz had been texting Darren, talking to him as if she were me, and was deeply… flirting with him. I had no idea. So when we got to Sandis’ house, Darren asked if I wanted to go upstairs and watch The Walking Dead. We went upstairs and watched the show for a while when he started trying to kiss me. He then tried advancing himself onto me and I told him no. He asked me if I would have sex with him. I obviously objected, even though I did like him. He then guilt tripped me into it. Apparently in the texts that Jaszlyne sent him off of my phone, she said I would have sex with him. He kept saying things about how I said I would, but I never said anything like that. Eventually, I gave in because I knew he wouldn’t stop until he got what he wanted. I may have let it happen, but I never said yes and I did not want to. He knew that I liked him a great deal, and he took advantage of

me.
Completely mad at myself for what I had let happen, I didn’t talk to many people the next few days. Then, the Tuesday after I made the worst decision of my life, Jaszlyne told everyone what happened because I made her mad.