𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐒 by A.P.Mary

Three years ago

Rumors are lethal, especially in high school, and sophomore year had given me a soft break from them. At least people stopped coming and saying things directly.

What I don't hear won't hurt me. I got better at eye liner, and that's a start. Then I saw a girl sitting back, being friendly with everyone, and so I started being friends with her, starting to seek out compassion from people who seem to have some, and we literally became best friends.

"Hey I like your hair" I told her

"Thanks, I like yours too" is the most basic conversation you'd ever hear, but It got me somewhere.

We always stayed together during breaks, I started listening to her favorite artists so that I could use that interest to glue her to me, and I loved to make her enthuse about how much she loved that singer. I've seen less and less people look at me weird, when I was alone people tended to be more confident in attacking me. Her presence was guarding me somehow, and I might have used her for that. But I loved the girl.

Less people actually cared about my life, and I found peace in my transparency. Not even professors knew I was there, and I always was the last one they would choose to answer something. I was better off outside school, because that's where I started actually hanging out with people.

School started being saved by that girl, until It all went back to factory settings.

We were inseparable, until she started staying outside during breaks with one of my bullies, and then she started splitting her attention, slowly taking it away totally for a period of time. She then told me she was annoyed with this split situation, and I think seeing people attacking me again got her in a mood where she introduced me to Camilla. She was nice, but I was still judgy, and she was too. I was uncomfortable to even look at her, and she first spoke to me by questions Lara asked. We still disliked each other. Until one day I was on facetime with Lara, and as she was about to end the call to get on skype with Camilla to study, I asked "Can I join?".

Give us two weeks and you'll see us three on skype everyday after school, talking and spilling all the tea there was. We became inseparable. And that's how me and my bully became partners in crime. Me and the first girl, Lara, radically changed Cami, and we became the perfect trio. People started hating us and loving us, but what mattered is that I finally got out of my own survival alone.

That year got us starting to socialize with what was before the highs of high school, and as we started hanging out with them because of Cami, we grew bored of them. They were definitely overrated. School got better as I adjusted myself more and me and the girls started having real personalities. Lara was the mom of the group, she was an animal lover, a diy enthusiast and a music machine. If you think about a hobby or an instrument now, she probably already does that greatly. Then there was Cami. A true crime fan, elegant and vicious. Then you had me, the middle. I am the perfect mix of the two of them, but add 'introvert' to it, because I'm the sole closed up bitch that finds it hard speaking up before overthinking it ten times.

School grew easier and easier, and I suddenly had straight A's without even trying. I was called a nerd, but in reality I was the laziest person with a great memory, and when reading twice a subject, I could tell you all about it without issues.

I found myself fighting alone some battles too, rumors about how I got into a private school were still around, but this time I found something to deal with it. One night, I opened up a notebook, and my pen swimmed through the lines, and when rhymes started showing, I started to write poems everyday.

I wrote on paper, bathroom doors, tables, chairs, hands, everywhere, because anything, pretty or ugly, sweet or gory, all is material for something beautiful, just like art.

I started writing about what I did not have, and love was my main subject. I played with the pretty side for a bit, until I started getting better vibrations from the ugly side, and I grew a fear of having someone. I hated the idea of starting to date, but I dreamt about having a romantic experience just like in books or movies. I knew love was far from just pretty feelings, and I didn't want to find out even if the price was to be delaying a bit of events in my teenage life. I liked thinking I'm just trying to extend the duration of these normal events, but I felt empty when someone told me I was running late. I can't fight time, but I liked to dance with it.

I loved writing, that's how I filled every section of my clothes with papers. Dresses with pockets too. I liked feeling, but I hated showing, that's why I write what I feel. In my head it made more sense.

I delayed many things in my life, but it didn't stop me from imagining. I had a great creativity, and scenarios played in my head everyday, and also my hormones played a big part of them. What held me together was my mind and a pen, and sometimes what I wrote was only for my eyes to see.

Sex wasn't a taboo since my early days, I was exposed to reality at a great age to not be shocked by it, and I partially thank the internet for educating me on the subject. In its own way. I read fanfictions, books too mature for my age, and the over romanticization of it makes me fear to get disappointed.

Fear is the main problem for many of the reasons I'm stuck in a time loop.