It started when I was twelve. I never had many friends growing up. I never had the sense of feeling accepted. I never could relate to anyone, until I meet Megan. Megan was a short and roundish girl with dark hair, green streaks and snagged tooth. Megan and I started to hang out when Liz, a friend from school introduced me to her. We clicked almost instantly because we were different from our peers and they disliked us for it. Megan and I started hanging out everyday. She got me to sign up for a self defense class with Liz. I never signed up for any school activity because of the fear of getting made front of. Everyday after school Megan and I would go to the local beauty supply store and steal red, purple, or blue hair dye or whatever else we needed.  That was about as dangerous as things got. Megan was my best friend. Things were good for awhile. We would take turns walking to and sleeping over each others houses.. She and I were inseparable. However, the same old things started to get boring after awhile. We were kids and we were hungry for excitement. The first cigarette I smoked I had with her. See, she would take them from her mother. Her mother was always drunk so she never noticed anything. I took my first pull from the cigarette and Megan said to me, “Are you in hailing?” I said, “Whats that?” She said, “You got to suck the cigarette like your sucking on a straw. Watch like this.” So I did what she told me to. I swear I could have coughed up a lung. When we couldn’t get cigarettes from her mother we would stand outside local convenience stores asking strangers to purchase them for us. One night Megan and I ran out of cigarettes and Megan was sleeping at my house. So I made up some dumb excuse to my mother to go out at such a late time. She only gave us 20 minutes. Megan and I hopped on my bike and I stood on the pegs. We rode a couple of blocks. Megan just wasn’t peddling fast enough and we were in a hurry. So about a block before the accident we switched.

Now I was peddling much faster and she was on the pegs. As I was peddling across a side street I looked right and then left. All I saw was head lights speeding at us. I peddled faster but it was to late. When I became conscious all I felt was tremendous pain and confusion and all I saw flashing lights and all I heard were sirens. It wasn’t till Megan yelled out “where is my friend?” in a panicky voice did I start to realize what happened. As I was laying there it felt unreal almost dream like. Before I knew it there was a mob of people surrounding me. They started to ask me a series of question that seemed awfully stupid. Questions like “do you know your name” I answered with something similar to”what do you think I am stupid?” They asked me the presidents name. I replied with “bush that asshole”. They asked me who was the president before bush and I didn’t even know that answer to begin with. I started to get frustrated with all these dumb questions. I was more worried about Megan. I could hear her screaming out to me, I started to scream back. I couldn’t really hear what she was saying, but it didn’t matter. I heard her voice and that meant she was ok. It was a traumatic night for both of us. I think it brought us closer as friends. Luckily we didn’t have any serious injuries. I had a concussion and some short term memory loss. Megan had fractured her tail bone and had a concussion as well. About a couple of weeks later we were back to normal. Back to our normal routine of sleep overs, stealing cigarettes. Even the excitement of stealing cigarettes got boring after awhile. I needed something more. All the older kids in my town hung out on this one street. Watching as an outsider they seemed to be doing innocent things like skateboarding and going into stores. I thought it was harmless. Megan and I started going there every night. So there we were hanging out with the cool, older kids watching skaters and smoking cigarettes. It’s not like we actually talked to anyone, I was way to shy at the time and Megan well I guess she was the same. One night though I was out, just me, Megan and I, and this kid comes up to me and tells me I am hot. What? I am hot? I never heard that before. Well, at least directed towards me. I liked the sound of it especially coming from a 15 year old. His name was Joe, my first boyfriend. You see, he wanted to hook up with me. I told him I only hook up with guys I date even though I have never dated nor hooked up with a guy before. I didn’t even know what hooking up implied. All I knew is in one of the movies I had seen, a girl was asked to hook up and that was her reply. So, he ended up asking me to be his girlfriend.

Three days later Joe told me he was having a party.  It wasn’t any kind of a party that I have ever been invited to; this was a cool party with older kids and alcohol. The night of the party we told Megan’s mother she was sleeping over my house and I told my mom that I was sleeping over Megan’s. We go to the party and nobody was there yet except for Joe and his friend. I was a bit skeptical about this but I ignored my intuition. I just wanted to to fit in. The four of us went into his basement. Joe pulls out a bottle of Tequila. We all take a shot. Two minutes passed and I didn’t feel anything. I take another shot. Three minutes later, I don’t fell anything. I take another shot.  Four minutes later I feel a little funny and take another shot. After four shots we decided to go outside to smoke a cigarette. When I stood up in his basement, I almost fell. I felt dizzy and my vision was blurred. We get outside and we realize we don’t have any cigarettes left. So Megan, Joe’s friend and I decided to go and get cigarettes. I don’t really remember much of the walk except I fell down a few times and I came back to Joe’s house in my underwear and a bra. I remember arriving at Joe’s house and in my drunken state I asked him to have sex with me. My thought process at the time was so distorted. I thought to myself if I don’t do it now, I never will. I will be a loser that graduates high school a virgin and be made fun of like in the movie American Pie. Little did I know about double standards and how attractive I was becoming. Like in the movie American Pie, guys are considered losers if they remain virgins in high school, but if girls didn’t remain virgins they were sluts.

So he took me into his basement. I told him I had a sex before when I really didn’t. He pulled down his pants, and placed himself inside of me. I screamed and then I blacked out for my first time. When I woke up he was standing in the corner. He asked me If I had my period. I said no. I couldn’t understand why he had asked me that. He asked if I was a virgin. I hesitantly said yes. I asked him how he knew but before he could answer I looked down and realized I was bleeding. He explained to me that when a girl loses her virginity she bleeds. I cleaned myself off with his T-shirt and we went up stairs. I woke up to some one throwing an empty beer can at my head. “What time is it?” I mumble. “Six.” someone replied.”In the A.M or the P.M” I asked. “The A.M”someone answers. I finally gained focus, I noticed that everyone finally arrived to the party. All I remember after that was getting asked numerous times if I was really twelve years old. At Seven am Megan and I walked home. By the next day, most of the town already had known what had happened. Joe was getting harassed and teased at school for sleeping with a twelve year old. Three days after the party he couldn’t take it. He broke up with me. The night he broke up with me he called me and asked me to meet him at the high school. I got to the high school. There were a bunch of people there. I didn’t recognize anybody, until I saw my friend’s older sister, Cat. We laughed and talked. She ended up giving me her number and told me I should come chill at her house sometime.