Our Final Days As Teenagers

Background (1)

****This story starts by looking in on the past of a young girl named Nicole Castro. It starts in about 8th grade and then she catches you up to the present which is her senior year of high school, I hope it's not too confusing****

Have you ever looked at someone you don't know and just tried to imagine what they were like? Who they are?

Somewhere in the middle of the summer after freshman year, I looked at her and she was just a complete stranger to me. When I say she, I mean me. I didn't know who I was anymore. I had become someone else. I used to know exactly who I was, exactly who I wanted to be, exactly where I was going in life. Now, I am lost.

I am a smart girl. Not just smart. I am talented and athletic, the girl everyone should get along with. Or at least they used to. Until eighth grade, when i developed and suddenly had the attention of any boy I wanted. But all my brains and common sense couldn't stop me from dropping all my Honors classes to hang out with the popular girls and the guys who so desperately wanted my attention. Honestly, who would turn that down? Looking back now, I should have. They were popular and pretty, but I was more. I knew who I was. What eighth grader can say that?

But, instead, I let it all go. I forgot how sweet and innocent I was. I started fighting to make the girls think I was cool. I dressed differently, with lower cut shirts and shoter skirts to keeep the boys around. I dyed my hair and wore more makeup. I was making stupid decisions and everyone saw it but me and my beloved, popular, and gorgeous friends.

My dad noticed it the most (my mom really couldn't notice anything since she lived in North Carolina with her new family). He said I had developed a rude attitude. I suppose I had, but I wouldn't admit that to him. In fact, I insisted that it was just part of growing up. But he knew better and he moved my family, which included my older brother, my oldest sister, and my grandma to a new town in Southern California. It was only about 30 minutes away from the city we lived in now but the friends I had given everything up for, gave me up.

I was alone and about to start high school. What could be worse?

It wasn't easy getting thorough the summer knowing that I had no friends. On top of it all, my fabulous footballl star boyfriend dumped me too. I looked up to my older sister for advice and direction because she was going to be a senior in high school and she seemed to have the whole world figured out, even if she wasn't smarter than me. Anna really had no way to help me though; she ws horrible at meeting new people because of how terribly shy she is and freshman go to a smaller school than the seniors.

There were days I would cry until three A.M. and she was the only person there to comfort me. You would think that this experience would change the attitude and lifestyle I had chosen to adapt in eighth grade, but no, when school started my first new friend was a more than handsome soccer star named Alex. He introduced me to a whole group of girls who were all really pretty and everyone knew their names. Soon enough, everyone knew my name because I was the beautiful new girl.

I had this long, dark hair that I always wore in perfect curls down to my waist and I never wore it up. My bangs slanted to the right side of my face and shaped it well. It never hid my big, beautifu,l brown eyes. My lips were always covered with the perfect amount of lipgloss that made them look like they belonged on a model and when I smiled it revealed a perfect set of shiny white and straight teeth. As for my body, I was an average 5'4 but instead of being skinny, I was curved in all the right places. I attracted boys like crazy but I was only interested in one. Alex. We were so close, the best of friends, but everyone knew that it was more than that. No matter what boy liked me, no one would ask me out or anything because "I was Alex's girl." I loved the sound of that. And I loved the way we looked together in our homecoming pictures. I had changed, but not much; at least, Alex had inspired me to get back into Honor classes again and I was rocking those classes.

November came around and my sister was about to turn 17. She wasn't doing so well at her school, but did I care? Of coure not, I was happy. Did it cost me? Would it be life if it didn't? She ran away from home and I never saw her again. It killed me on the inside all over again but it was my fault and I could see that. I was hoping school would cheer me up and when I heard the rumor that Alex was finally going to ask me to be his girlfriend, I almost forgot about my sister. We were together at lunch and today he had his arms wrapped around me, totally flirting! I couldn't have been happier, it all felt so natural to me, and the butterflies in my stomach agreed.

Lunch ended and he didn't say anthing. But he always walks me home so I knew he would do it after school. When that bell rang at three o'clock, I couldn't get out of that any faster I did. I was waiting at the front of the school where I usually waited for him and I saw him walking up. I couldn't help but admire him. Hehad swagger like I had never seen before. It showed the way he walked. He walked up to me and I threw my arms around him and he whispered, "Can we just be friends?"

It's funny how life goes.

Alex said friends, but we lost all contact. The friends I had were gone but this time, I was truly alone, my sister was gone too. But I had gained experience and I wasn't so hurt. Infact, I was better off than the girls I once knew. The girls I knew from middle school broke apart and went their separate ways; one of the two girls I had met and gotten close to had become a drug addict as a freshman, while the other got pregnant.

I knew that somewhere, someone or something had bigger plans for me.

I grew up so quickly that year and when the school year started, no one could touch me. I was completely unreachable. I allowed few people in but I had grown so used to the people I had let in. It seemed like I had real friends for the first time in years. I was loving every second I spent in school. My favorite class was Algebra II. MY teacher was so inspiring that I decided I wanted to be a math teacher. But at the same time, my mind and my heart were battling to decide how I spend my time. My mind knew that math was a reasonable future and I could do very well. My heart ached to dance and to spend every second of the day choreographing new routines and finding new songs to dance to. It was a never ending battle. It consumed my sophomore year.

Junior year was starting with the utmost intensity. I didn't have a hard schedule but my plans for my dance team were running through my mind like a nonstop marathon. The year had just started and I already plans for every performance we were going to do. None of those plans included moving back to my hometown and destroying all the plans I had made.

Regrettably, I restarted my junior year at a familiar school full of unfamiliar people. I completely understand that life is forever changing but this was ridiculous. I was happy. I wasn't prepared for this.

Seeing all the people who had helped in tearing my life apart three years ago was beyond strange. They were all so different. I was the same person, just older and more mature. I had found who I was, who I was going to be, I knew myself better than I ever had. They can't touch me.

Well, Gabriel can.

I must have been eleven years old when I met Gabriel for the first time. Sixth grade. Before I was me.

He loved me the. I loved him then. Had he changed like everyone else I used to know?

**********

bored yet??

it's about to get better because her senior year is coming up and thats when the details start pouring in.