My Only Hope

Chapter 9

After three minutes of mom counting how many jumping jacks we did, I got tired.

"Tired?" mom asked, stopping to catch her breath. She was catching hers faster than I was catching mine.

"Very." I replied.

We took a five minute break, then starting jumping rope. Why did my mom have to be an exercise instructor? Why, why, why! This was torture. We jumped rope for five minutes, and my side started aching. I was slowing us both down with all of my out-of-shapeness and it made me discouraged. I was this fat person that couldn't exercise, couldn't take a day off of eating sweets and unhealthy foods, and couldn't do anything that involved running or jumping. Mom was now my motivator, and I was glad to have her, but she was punishing me for sneaking out by making me exercise. Sure, I wanted to get in shape and lose weight, but seriously? She was working me too hard, even if I did want to get in shape.

"Kasey, I believe in you. Keep it up." mom encouraged when she saw I was slowing down. "You can do this, just stay focused."

"I can't do it," I discouraged myself.

"You can." mom motivated me to try my best, but my best was my worst. I stopped out of laziness.

"Okay. What's getting you so discouraged?" mom asked.

"Everything." I replied. I sounded so depressed.

"You can do this! I'm going to tell you a story." mom sat on the floor and made me sit down too. "There was a girl, about your age. At her school, she had two best friends. Andrea, and Amelia. She told them everything, from her arguments with her siblings, to her deepest, darkest secrets. One day, someone at school was spreading rumors about her. The rumors were about how she tried forcing a guy into being her boyfriend, and people were giving her a hard time about it, when it wasn't true at all. She didn't know who was doing it, but the week after the rumors were started, she was about to walk around the corner to get her books out of her locker. She thought she was early and no one else was there, but she saw her best friends, Andrea and Amelia talking to the popular girl. She hid behind the corner to see what they were talking about. Andrea and Amelia were telling the popular girl about the secrets she told them, and they were telling lies about her. She ran home crying. Her parents were very disappointed that she didn't tell them what was going on until then, but they also wanted to put a stop to it. So, they did. But when they did, the kids started picking on her even more, even Andrea and Amelia. They were calling her fat and ugly, and stupid, and many more names, until she had to be homeschooled. A year later she was put back into the school, but she stood up for herself when people called her names, and they stopped. She never said anything mean, but she made sure they knew it wasn't going to bother her anymore, and when they found out it no longer hurt her, they got tired of it and stopped. Then the girl became friends with another girl who was being bullied by the same people, and together, they ruled the school."

"That story can't be true." I looked down.

"It is true. And you know who the girl was? Christina. Your own sister went through the same thing you are going through, but what she went through was even worse." mom replied.

"Christina? Carter? My sister?" I was surprised anything like that could happen to Christina, of all people!

"Yep. Now, if she could do it, you can do it. You're blood." mom got up and urged me to keep going. I was really surprised at what Christina went through, but it encouraged me. A lot.