Toxic Friends

Cheating

A few days later I decided to clean up my room. I had to give my room a little makeover. My lavender walls filled with Corey Haim posters where calling out at me: "Throw it all out!"

It was time to get rid of all those posters and buy some new ones based on the bands I listened to. I wanted Aerosmith posters and Guns N Roses posters. I was going to Boston the following week with my parents to help my sister pack her things in college and put them all in storage for the summer. I remember my sister had taken me to this really cool music store and they sold a bunch of amazing posters. So I figured I would buy all my new posters there. My revamped bedroom was going to represent a renewed me! New bedroom decor, a new and improved Bernice! I was not going to put up with Karly's and Richard's shit anymore.

I also had to throw away everything Richard had given me during those past months. He had given me love letters, a teddy bear, a mixed tape with some of my favorite songs and a book filled with poems....

One of the first letters Richard had given me was written the day he made me the mix tape. He had also recorded a message for me on the mix tape. Back then we would make mix tapes in our boom box. We would hit the play button in one if the tape players and hit record on the other one. It would take hours and it wasn't a professional mix tape but we could record all our favorite songs together in one tape and that was the best part! I would spend hours listening to my favorite songs it just relaxed me. We could also record our voices. And so, before he recorded the first song, Love Bites by Def Leppard , Richard recorded a little message for me, kinda dedicating the mix tape to me. The songs he recorded for me included music by Air Supply, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Aerosmith, Phill Collins, Michael Bolton, Guns N Roses and Journey. When Richard gave this tape and I played it on my boom box after school I realized he really did like me. He had gone through so much trouble to find out what my favorite songs were and put all of them together in just one tape. It was incredibly romantic and so sweet. Richard sure made me happy that day!! That's the day I really fell for him.

I started cleaning up my room, garbage bag in hand, and started to rip out all the posters that decorated my walls.

Then I went through my drawers and threw out old ripped out tops, shorts that no longer fit me, and jeans that I hadn't worn in months because, well, I didn't like them anymore.

And, then, I went through my top drawer.  The one where I kept all my tapes, letters, notes my friends and I exchanged in class and some of my short stories that I had penned throughout the past few years. And the love letters Richard had written me. They were all there, neatly tucked in the top right corner of the drawer. Hidden below a some old socks I had placed in there to hide the letters from my family. They were hidden, but were in a place that I felt they were safe in.

I also found the mix tape Richard had given me a few months ago. I was going to throw it, along with everything else he had given me. But I just had to listen to it, one more time, before it went into the trash and forever be gone

As I put the tape in the boom box I recalled Richard had left me a message on the tape.

"Hi Bernice it's Richard. Well I guess you know that since I gave you this tape this morning at school. Anyways I hope you like it! I asked around and was told these are some of your favorite songs. Some, well, most of these songs you had told me you loved. So I put them altogether for you hoping this is proof that I am too Crazy For You," Richard said in the recording and referring to Madonna's hit and song I loved "Crazy for You." I stopped playing the tape and tears ran down my face. When he had given this tape to me he really was crazy for me. But I was scared of feeling the way I was feeling. It was to fast I was to young. I liked him so much but I was not even ready for my first kiss. It was a scary notion to me. Getting kissed and not knowing if I was a good kisser. I was scared about falling in love when I was just 12-years-old. So I asked him to give me some time until I was ready. But told him I was really into him and I didn't want him going anywhere anytime soon. He said that he wait for me and I believed him. Only thing was that he didn't wait. He moved on to Karly and left me there alone and heartbroken.