Chapter Text
April 21st, 1989
Dear Diary, (that’s dumb, why would i write that ???)
I have moved from the east coast to the west coast and back more times than I can recall rereading The Great Gatsby, and now Pops landed us in a small town in the midwest— Sherwood, Ohio.
My first impression is that everyone here is either a judgemental asshole or a future housewife who attends church and does everything around the house, with absolutely no in-between.
... Except maybe the few people forced to be apart of the usual cliques by the threat of social isolation.
Like this one girl wearing a blue blazer and a black and white pleated skirt who had approached me in the cafeteria, for instance. She didn’t seem bitchy like her friends, who I learned were all named Heather—, she was just ... in the wrong crowd, with nowhere else to go with the threat of social suicide constantly preventing her from doing what she truly desired.
I told her in passing that those swatchdogs and diet cokeheads (I couldn't help but laugh at that—, I saw her crack a smile after I finished speaking,) she called her close friends were going to absolutely ruin the poor girl nicknamed Martha Dumptruck. The unfortunate nickname stemmed from the fact that she didn’t fit the standards of the rest of the average American woman. Tall, slim, full lips, and the other batshit things girls and guys alike wished to see more of. Martha is the complete opposite of the beauty standards of Westerburg High School. She is short, on the heavier side, wears glasses, and the most childish clothing a teenage girl can wear.
Everyone here is fake and cruel and they do not deserve to live. My psychiatrist back in New York used to tell me all sorts of stupid advice— like “feeling alright for the rest of my life” (which I’m pretty sure he took from March of the Falsettos)—, but how am I to do such a thing if everyone here is just so ... infuriating!? Whatever, he was terrible help anyways. I don’t need him, I don’t need anyone’s help aside from my own intervention.
Anyways, that girl in blue doesn’t seem nearly as bad as everyone she surrounds herself with. In a crowd full of date rapist jocks and insecure, bulimic cheerleaders, she’s truly a saint.
I wonder what her name is, especially since she was so eager to get to know me. Me, out of all the semi-interesting people in this shitty school.
My hand still hurts from beating the shit out of the quarterback and linebacker, Kurt Kelly and Ram Sweeney. They’re both assholes who think any man who keeps to himself is a faggot with a boyfriend at home. ... My usual eyeliner and black nail polish isn’t helping my case—, and neither is the fact that I’d made out with some random boy in a storage closet at a house party back in November. Haha, just a joke.
Where was I in November again? Right, back in New York ‘cause Pops said he missed the liveliness of the city. I just missed my home.
New York wasn’t too bad that time, aside from Dad going out on Fridays after work to bars and coming back home smelling like cheap booze and blacking out on the couch almost immediately after coming home. The least abusive thing he’d done that whole time was buying me a motorbike, so that makes up for all the near-death beatings that I’m sure I didn’t deserve.
Nevermind that—, Kurt Kelly and Ram Sweeney are stupid man-children who will never get anywhere in life, even with their NFL dreams and state school football scholarships in clutch. I’m grateful I was able to put them in their place so early into my coming to school. They deserved that, and so much more.
This is stupid and childish and it’s immature of me to write about every few lines, but all I can think about is that girl. I have not a single clue who she is or why she’s taking over my thoughts, but the suspense of not knowing the slightest thing about her is killing me. She must feel the same, especially with how I’d blown her off when she asked for my name in the lunchroom.
She seems different than all the other bystanders in this school. She looked as if she was paralyzed in awe (was it aimed at me?) as I so easily dodged their fists and various other attempts to injure me after I initially knocked them down. Getting physically abused by your father when he’s drunk out of his mind has some perks. You learn to dodge, to fight back.
Well, what else do you write in a diary? Crushes? Hopes for the future? Your failures? Your suicidal and intrusive thoughts?
That’s embarrassing. These things should stay in your head, never revisited, and certainly never to be brought up to anyone you know. Their help, their condolences, are just pointless. Talking it out will never fix anything, so it’s better to get through your emotions alone.
Maybe my life is just one big, gray cloud of bad memories waiting for the sun to brighten and fix everything.
I’m surely going to get at least a 3-day suspension, and knowing how much the schools in the south and midwest prioritize their athletes, Kurt and Ram will face not a single reprimand for beginning the fight. These idiots should be grateful that I don’t carry a gun with me to school. I’d shoot them with blanks if I had to just to get them and everyone else at this school off my ass. Just joking.
Well, bye. I don’t know why I’ve decided to continue my journaling, I haven’t done that since my father moved us last.
Maybe I’ll stop by 7-Eleven tonight before my dad gets home. A nice cherry slurpee will stop whatever crazy thoughts plaguing my mind. And then I’ll finish reading the next few chapters of The Catcher in the Rye.