Yours Truly, Ramona

chapter nine | tension.

Growing up the way Mason and I did, you learn a thing or two.

You learn how to sneak around and how not to get caught. You learn how to handle people when they're drunk or high. You learn what it's like to feel immeasurable amounts of emotional, and sometimes physical pain.

I find myself reminiscing on my childhood often. I try to remember the good things, and block the horrible and negative events from my mind. It's hard, especially when you've experienced the latter more often.

Mason and I's bond was formed through these horribly tragic events that we had to endure. Most of which, thankfully, he doesn't remember.

He was far too young to remember the way our father treated our mother, and the way our mother cowered before him. He doesn't remember it, and I am so incredibly glad that he doesn't.

I, on the other hand, remember it all. I find it playing through my head often, thinking about all the ways I could've stopped it—all the reasons why I blame myself for not doing anything.

But I, like our mother, was too scared. I hate myself for being a coward and not stopping it. I let it continue until it destroyed our mother, until it ripped her fragile heart up and stomped on it. Until there was no chance of her ever healing.

Even after, I blame myself for not picking up her pieces, even though she didn't deserve my sympathy; she was no angel, either.

You see, many adults nowadays think that every teenager's self-hatred has to do with appearance. They think kids don't like themselves because of the way they look, and while that may be true for some, it's not always the case.

What people don't realize is that in some cases, intense self-hatred comes deeply-rooted in the foundations of our childhoods. It's not always something we develop when we hit puberty and suddenly don't like the way we look.

Don't get me wrong, that happens too, but in my case, it's not something I developed when I looked in the mirror the morning after I got my first period.

It's not something that hit me like a brick when I first walked into high school—it was always there.

From the first time my parents hit me to the first time I cut myself. It was a pot slowly simmering, anxiously awaiting the moment when it could boil over and burn my self-image to ashes.

When you look in the mirror and shudder at what you've become; when you see how broken you really are just by staring into your own two eyes—it breaks you inside. You wonder why you deserve to feel so hated, not by other people, but by your own mind.

Thing is, I've never been self-conscious about the way I look—far from it, actually. I don't think I'm ugly, and I don't think I'm fat. But I don't exactly think I'm drop-dead gorgeous, and I don't think I deserve to be loved.

My bruises from Joseph are beginning to fade away.

Sometimes I wish memories could do the same.

The music coming from downstairs is loud and pounds in my head like my heart does during a panic attack.

Luis had been wrong about this 'small get-together'. It was in fact a big, sketchy high school party with a bunch of stoners.

I'm not too fond of all the people being around, but I'm staying for Luis, because he was already drunk off his ass by the time I got here after jazz practice. After he got Mary pregnant, I officially decided that Luis makes retarded decisions while drunk, and I need to babysit him.

Jasper had also said he was coming, but I haven't seen him since I got here twenty minutes ago. I won't be surprised if he doesn't show up, as parties aren't really his thing. I don't really like them either unless they're smaller parties, and this one is not.