Intricate Lace

December 26th What a stupid Christmas gift! I’m supposed to write stuff in ere. Stuff like: I’m fat, I eat too much, and I don’t have a boyfriend! What was Mom thinking? Diaries are for babies, not for fifteen-year olds! September 24th (a year later) Sure can have lots happen in a week! Mom’s looking for a job. Again! You’d think that with two jobs she’d have enough, but she says Christmas is coming and if I’ve got my heart set on that Jay-Z’s Rocawear outfit, she’ll need every penny of the new job! Why do mothers always have to exaggerate? It would save my life! I wouldn’t feel so out of place at school. Everyone has at least one item in their closet. Why not me? Mom keeps telling me she’s seen a lot of students that don’t at school, but I mean, I want, I need to fit in! Sometimes she makes me so mad! June 28th (2 years later) It’s so weird writing about this as if it never happened to me, but I need to get this off my chest, need to talk to somebody about what happened. It’s like the whole thing is crystal clear, like a carving behind my eyelids. And my ears! It’s going to be even longer trying to erase what he told me. I hate that! I wish I could just open a door in my brain, stuff what happened tonight in it and close the door and let it rot and dryout. But I can’t. It hurts! February 29th (age almost 18) Leap year! We get an extra day. I wonder what happens to the babies that are born on this day. Do they celebrate their birthday on the twenty eighths or the firsts of March? And how about April Fool kids? Gosh! I hope that’s not my delivery date! The guys at school are starting to call me Muscle Lady. I got really mad at Jerry yesterday. He said that he had to be careful of “the little woman because she was pregnant” and he laughed at me with the other guys around him. I saw red and turned on him. Me! Teena Danais! Me! The one who used to be so shy! I still can’t get over thefact that I stood up to him! May 11th “It’s okay to be upset and sad, Teena. That’s the normal process of grieving. Talking about it will help.” I don’t know what to do! I hurt bad! May 12th Mrs. B picked up on it at school today and asked me if there was anything she could do to help. I started crying and she (...) told me she understood what I was feeling. When I told her she couldn’t even start to understand what was going on with me, she stepped back and led me to her classroom. She sat me down and told me why my speech earlier in the year had so impressed her. Mrs. B. (....) made a decision that affected the rest of her life.