7/7/12 I'm starting a new journal today. I don't want to look through my old ones right now. It's too much. Dr. Wei says that's okay. I can look at them whenever I'm ready, or throw them away. I've got a long way to go in "unlearning" all these shitty coping mechanisms. A new school year is coming up. I'm going to try my best. 7/10/12 Had an emergency phone call with Dr. Wei. Why does school send my anxiety through the roof? I asked him if he thinks I should change my meds. He told me to write out a mood journal separate from this one and we'll discuss it next month. 7/11/12 Yesterday, I was riding my bike and I saw Eric for the first time since May. I've been avoiding him, because, you know. Didn't say anything to him. I mean, what am I even supposed to say? It was really awkward. He didn't call out to me either. I don't know why I expected he would. That bridge is already long burnt. I need to accept that. 7/16/12 So, I did something really stupid. I kept thinking about how awkward that other day was and about how I want to fix my behavioral problems, and somehow I got it in my head that I'd go over to Eric's house to make amends. I figured it'd be okay because Zack said Eric was having a party. God, what is wrong with me? I made a complete ass out of myself. I want to stay inside until I die. 7/25/12 I called Zack earlier to ask if I could hang out for a while. Eric's over there right now. He's spending the night. This must be annoying for Zack, that he's friends with both of us and we can't all be in the same room together without shit hitting the fan. I'm so stupid. Sat down by the creek for a while to think about stuff. We used to sit down here a lot in elementary school. 8/6/12 Saw Eric again today. I wanted to say something to him, apologize for everything from the last few years, say anything, but I couldn't do it. I'm such a coward. When I got home, I looked through the old photo albums, mostly the elementary school stuff. There's the three of us together in so many photos. Then, sixth grade, the pictures change. I know it's my fault, but I guess...it's possible it could have ended up like this anyway. People drift apart. I wonder, with Zack being stuck between us, if he's going to pick one of us at some point. Zack and I still talk a lot, but he's always been worried about Eric since things got weird between the three of us. It's probably going to be me. Guess that's another thing I'll have to accept. My parents don't even stay in contact with anyone from high school. That's normal, right? 8/7/12 I did something stupid again. Eric skipped school again, first week back. He's always skipping school now, ever since we started middle school. I don't know what I was thinking, but I went over to his house to see if something was up and...we ended up arguing. I don't know why I thought anything else would happen. I should apologize, but...I'll probably screw that up too. Think I'll call Dr. Wei later. *NTS app. tom. 5pm DON'T FORGET* 8/8/12 Dr. Wei's upped my prescription for now. We'll see how that goes. I told him about everything from recently. I don't know what to do about the situation with Eric and Zack. I'm just going to keep to myself for a while. 8/12/12 Noelle's staying over tonight. Her parents are going out of town for a wedding, and she doesn't want to go. Been thinking I might tell her my secret tonight. I know how she'll take it. It's not really about her, but more...IDK, working myself up to telling other people. 8/13/12 Last night was a little awkward, but it went well. I knew it would, but saying it aloud is...I'm not going to be doing that again any time soon. Dr. Wei was right. I was so focused on Eric and Zack, I've been ignoring my other friends. Even if they end up not being in my life in a few years, I have other friends and I'm sure I'll make more. It's not the end of the world. It hurts, but I'll move on. 8/25/12 Not doing so great. Mentally, I've been a lot better, but physically...ugh. I think I'm having a reaction to the medicine. It's been like this on and off since Dr. Wei changed the dosage, but I figured it would stop at some point. I'm going to call him later to tell him about this. Talked to Mom about it. She showed me some info about an experimental anti-depressant that's not officially on the market yet, but she's been looking into for herself and me. She asked me to bring it up with Dr. Wei, but knowing him, he's not going to like the idea. 8/29/12 Had a weird dream last night. I was floating in the sky. Stars were everywhere, and the earth was down below. In the dream, I was the "moon", but not literally. I looked like me, but I was the moon, somehow, in the dream. I wanted to reach down at the earth, but I kept drifting. It was so cold. I woke up before my alarm by two hours. Outside, the moon was not quite full, but close. It seemed so bright. I went for a walk in the darkness. Early in the morning, everything's so quiet. No cars on the road, no birds. Only a train passing by in the distance. I stopped in front of Eric's house for a moment and looked up at his window. I wondered what he might be dreaming about. When I got back, I lay in bed for a while, listening to music. Couldn't think right. Took my medicine after breakfast, and felt sick the rest of today. I don't think I can take this. *Spanish project due next Tue* *NTS app. tom. 5pm DON'T FORGET* 8/30/12 Changed my dosage back down, discussed trying a different medication. He shot down my mom's idea, as expected. I asked him why he thought it was a bad idea. He told me it was partly because of my age, drugs can sometimes have different effects on teenagers than adults and he doesn't want me to try something that hasn't been out for a while. The other reason was the company. Said he didn't like the company who's making the drug. Thought that was weird. Moone & Wolfe Corp. employs a lot of people around here. I've never heard anything bad about them before. 9/3/12 No school today. Finished up my Spanish project. Took another walk early in the morning. Stopped in front of Eric's house, but I didn't stay long. I mostly looked over at it as I walked by. Don't want to look like a creep. On the way back, I passed by some roses growing off the side of the road. There used to be a house there a few years ago, but it burned down. The driveway's still there. It's kind of creepy. When I was in fifth grade, Zack, Eric, and I went exploring through what was left once. Stupid, in retrospect. No one died in the fire, thankfully, but the people there lost everything. I remember when we went there, Eric almost fell in the basement. It was so dark in there, it almost looked like a bottomless pit...like if Eric had fallen through, we'd never see him again. We threw some rocks down there to listen for how long it took to hear them hit the ground, but we didn't hear anything. Zack and Eric were really freaked out by that, but I think it was just that the rocks didn't make much sound when they hit the dirt, so we couldn't hear it. Anyway, the roses reminded me of that suddenly. I don't know why. I pass that place all the time. I ended up walking up that driveway to look at what was left, but I couldn't find it. Maybe they filled everything in. It was dark out. Speaking of stupid, now that I think about it, doing that was dumb too. I could have fallen into that big hole if it wasn't filled. When I gave up, I walked back down and picked one of the roses. The family that used to live there used to have flowers growing everywhere. I picked one, not really for any reason, and took it with me on my walk back. I couldn't see the exact shade in the dark, but it was a pinkish color. Once I got to Eric's house again, I stopped a little longer than before. I let the rose fall out of my hand and walked away. The wind was really bad this morning. I'm sure it carried it off down the road. 9/15/12 Another weird dream. I was walking with my biological father somewhere I didn't recognize. My mom wasn't there. He put a crown on my head, and then he was someone else. I can't really remember the face of that person, but the crown became heavy and tight. Something was said. I can't remember. Then, that person turned back into my father. He took it off and said, "Don't wear this." I yelled at him. When I got up this morning, I took another walk in the dark. 9/25/12 Got an email from Juan. Sent me a link to one of those weird forums again. I joined it to see what it was about. Found his account right away, posting about aliens. Did have fun reading through some declassified documents. I wonder how much that person who redacts everything gets paid. He sent me some photos too. It's been a while since I took some photos myself. My camera's been sitting in its case abandoned. I need to get back into that. 10/7/12 Sat down by the creek for a while this afternoon thinking about stuff. My mom and Eddie are going on a trip next week. I was going to stay over at Zack's, but I don't know. Going to stay with Noelle instead. 10/22/12 Been sick. Finally went back to school. Sat with Zack on the bus. He told me Eric skipped school again. That stayed stuck in my head all day. I went on a walk down by the creek to forget about him, but he was there. We got into an argument. I'm not sure which one of us started it. That summarizes a lot of our interacts over the last few years. Why do I keep doing this? While we were arguing, my mind thought about how hard he hit me, how hard I hit him. How many times we got into fist fights with an audience. How could I do anything like that? What is wrong with me? At home, I tried to focus on schoolwork, but I couldn't. I half assed all my assignments. Of course I have math homework tonight. I should apologize. I need to apologize. I can't. We'll probably just fight again. 10/31/12 It's Halloween. I'm watching old episodes of Tales from the Crypt, listening out for kids to give them candy. I may have eaten a few of the chocolate bars. In my defense, there aren't many kids out this year. From what I heard at school, a few of the local churches decided none of them should do Halloween this year because it's the devil's holiday, or some bullshit. Can't remember which ones. There's probably thirty within walking distance. That, and it's Wednesday. No one did this when we lived in Atlanta, but some of the people around here do this thing where if Halloween's not on a weekend, they turn their lights off or don't let their kids go out because, you know, school night, or something. Some of those people do it on the weekend, but a lot of them don't do it at all. Honestly, I think it's a way to just get out of taking their kids out or buying candy all together. I'm going to keep some candy around for the weekend too, but I don't expect there will be much. People out here are so weird. I don't believe in ghosts, but come on, who doesn't like a little spooky stuff? I kinda miss going out. The October night air, wearing some cheesy costume, the smell of candy in my orange bag, the neon green glow stick necklace my mom always made me wear, laughing with other kids in the dark. I wish I could go back to those days, but I know I wasn't always happy then either. I remember one Halloween, it was a full moon, first grade, I think? it was big and bright in the sky. One of our neighbors went really all out and had a fog machine, speakers for creepy sounds, animatronics, a whole graveyard set-up, and a bunch of other stuff. It was crazy how much they put out, and amazing. I was really superstitious back then, and really little. I thought some of the ghosts and skeletons hanging from trees might be real ones hiding with the props, and I was so scared I refused to go up to that door at first. Eric looked at me and said, "Uh oh, Zack, Alexis is too scared to go. Guess we better leave him." Zack laughed and counted off, "Three, two, one..." Then, they ran into the fog. I didn't want to be alone, so I chased after them and that's how I made it to the door, searching for them. The lady who lived there was dressed like a witch, and she gave us all these green and black treat bags with handmade candies in them. She had a white cat, a fat fluffy one. It rubbed against my leg, then disappeared into the fog. At the end of the month, she disappeared too. She moved away, from what I heard. A lot of the older people in the neighborhood didn't like her. My mom told me later it was because she was actually a witch, as in she was a practicing solitary witch. Apparently, someone in the neighborhood thought they would send her a message by slashing her tires the day after Halloween. Kids at school told all kinds of stories about her in that last month, about seeing her riding on a broom and killing dogs and cats in her backyard. Stupid stuff. A lot of those same kids were the ones teasing me about my name. That was why I started going by Alex in second grade, but some kids still made fun of my name being "girly". I don't get why people care so much about things like that. I wonder where she went off to, and if she's still decorating her yard like that. I wish I could see it. 11/10/12 Dr. Wei is having me try a new medication. Really not doing great on this one. Yeah, don't think I'll be sticking with this one. 11/22/12 In math class today, my asshole teacher was going on about how students can drop out at sixteen, so they have no right to complain about anything once they hit that age. She went on to say those who wanted to goof off or were falling behind should hurry up and drop out as soon as possible so teachers can teach the students who actually want to learn. She looked over at me and tried to praise me. I told her that students who drop out have greatly diminished job options and that a lot of people found the GED hard to pass. She gave me such a death glare. I hate people like that. Tearing someone down, and then complimenting someone else in the same few minutes...Don't sit there and try to pit me against people I have no beef with. People like that always act like they're really nice and sweet, and they're just mean to those "bad" people because the "bad" people forced them to have to be like. It's just emotional manipulation. I'm not your little pet. What made me really mad is she was looking at Eric when she said that. I know Eric probably hates me right now, but he shouldn't have to hear that. I don't know if he was really listening, since I said it. I don't know. It's not right. 11/29/12 Thanksgiving break was okay. Still having bad reactions to the new medicine. 12/6/12 This semester is almost over. I need to do more studying to bring up my math grade. It's been a rough semester. Spent a lot of time with Noelle, lots of back and forth emails with Juan, but overall, it's been lonely. Zack asked me to spend the night yesterday. I went over and we talked for a while. He asked me if something was up, since I haven't been talking to him as much as I used to. Told him I was trying to keep the peace, because of the situation with Eric. "I get you avoiding Eric, but don't avoid me. Come on, you know my number." Yeah, I know. That's easier said than done. Since we were talking about stuff, I told him my secret. He was surprised, but that was about it. I asked him not to tell anyone. Then he told me, "You know, if that's really it, you shouldn't avoid Eric either. I don't think he hates you." I wish I could believe that. 12/20/12 I tried to called Eric yesterday, but I couldn't do it. I sat at my desk and stared at my phone for a few minutes, then turned my phone off. Can't do it. 12/25/12 My parents and I volunteered down at the homeless shelter again for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. There were a lot of people, but I think it was less than last year. I hope that means less people are sleeping out on the streets tonight. It's so cold. One of the women who came in had an infant with her. She was breastfeeding the baby in the corner, half covering the baby with her coat. It didn't look nearly thick enough to protect them. 1/1/13 Spent New Years with Zack and Eric, and it wasn't a disaster. My parents went crazy with the fireworks this time. Mom let me light one of them. After the fireworks, Zack, Eric, and I lit up a bunch of sparklers. There were five packs, I think? It was a lot of them. I love how sparklers and fireworks look, watching those lights spark and gradually fizzle out, the smell of it...I wish more holidays had fireworks involved. I wanted to invite Eric to stay over, but I couldn't do it. I'd probably mess something up. For a moment, I thought, maybe things could be like how they used to be. We always used to light sparklers together on New Years and Fourth of July back in elementary school. I was so nervous when we lit them earlier. I know he couldn't see it. It was too dark. But I know my face was red. There's really no denying it. I don't know how I convinced myself for so long that nothing was there. Before I went to sleep, I kept thinking about him. It was a little more than just thinking, you could say. He'd probably be disgusted with me. I really want to kiss him. Yeah, that's never going to happen. 1/15/13 Eric's been skipping a lot of school again. I know he's been doing stuff like that since sixth grade, but now that I'm thinking more clearly about things, it worries me. In middle school, I used to resent him and think he was lazy, being like those stupid teachers I hate so much. There's something else going on. The Eric I knew in elementary school wasn't a lazy person, he didn't struggle in school, he didn't get into fights. If the reason I was doing reckless, awful things was because of something I needed to work through, then...maybe something is going on with him. I hope he's okay. I might be over-thinking it. He might have the flu, for all I know. 1/29/13 Went out to eat with my parents for my birthday. They got me a new camera. I took some pictures earlier to test it out and it makes my old camera look like shit. I love it. Juan sent me one of those dumb e-cards, but somehow he found one with aliens. I don't know where he finds this stuff. Noelle gave me some bird feathers she cleaned up with cards detailing the information about the bird and the location she collected them at. It's a little weird, but I like it. I've been to a lot of these places before. Maybe next time, I should see if I can get pictures of the types of birds they came from. Zack got me a slice of one of those fancy cheesecakes. "Everyone likes dessert, right?" Zack and Eric always thought about food before anything else. I didn't see Eric today. I guess he's sick. 1/31/13 Tried to ask Eric about why he was out so much this month, and we argued. Started a new medication. So far, worse than the last one. I'm going to bring up that one medicine again. I know Dr. Wei didn't like the idea, but I'm running out of options here. 2/5/13 It's Eric's birthday. I thought about telling him happy birthday, just that, nothing else. But he's been dodging me all day. Fair enough. 2/15/13 Dr. Wei finally approved for me to try that experimental drug. He has to do some more paperwork for me to actually get it, but I'll be able to try that soon. Crossing my fingers that it won't be a disaster. 4/3/13 Some stuff happened. Dr. Wei took me off that one drug. I can't really remember much of anything about the last couple of months. The medication gave me some serious brain fog. I've never had it that bad before. My grades dropped during that time. Here's how bad that reaction was. I had to look at the bottle the medicine came in to remember the name of it. Mom flushed everything down the toilet earlier. Now, the plan is to switch me back to the drug I was on before we started all this drug hopping over the last several months. I hate this. Oh, Juan's back in town. He asked me if I wanted to do an EVP session in an old Confederate cemetery. I said I'll pass. Might have been fun to watch Juan freak himself out, but sneaking around in the middle of the night at a cemetery is not how I'd want to be arrested if he did get caught. He suggested the "haunted" tunnel on the Silver Comet Trail as an alternative, but fuck that. I'm not going out that far after dark. Last time I was in there, there was gang-related graffiti everywhere in the tunnel. That, and a giant dick, and that's honestly not really spooky. That tunnel was such a disappointment when I went out there last to take photos. Said I'd do one behind the McDonald's in front of Walmart. I'm sure some shady shit has happened there. He laughed. Gotta wonder though. I bet someone really has been killed there. Didn't someone die in Zaxby's years ago? Don't think I was old enough to remember that. I think it was in 2003. Don't think we lived here yet, or I don't remember it exactly, but I remember adults talking about it. Murdered by her ex. Don't think they ever did anything to that guy either. Fuck, this goddamn county, Jesus. Tried looking that up, only got paulding.com forum posts. Figures. I need to stay focused. See, this is what I'm talking about. I can't concentrate on anything for long. Feel like I'm losing it. Can't wait for this shit to be out of my system entirely and the old meds to kick in again. 4/14/13 Got into another argument with Eric. Why? Why does this keep happening? 4/20/13 Eric skipped school again. I asked Zack if he knew why, but he didn't. Later, I went out to Lucille Creek Trail to take some photos. I haven't been over there in a while. Looking through my old photos, I think I've hit nearly every major trailhead along the Silver Comet Trail and most of the connecting trails. I'll have to double-check that later. I forgot what that small trail was like. It's short and there's not a lot of people on it, but it's quiet and peaceful. 4/22/13 My grades are back up again. Brain fog is there kinda, but about to the level it was to start with. Nothing like when I was on that damn drug. No more experimental shit. Never again. Next time, just listen to Dr. Wei. Went out to Lucille again. Got some nice shots of a hawk above that tiny pond a ways off the trail. 5/1/13 Went over to Zack's yesterday. Played some games. Asked him about Eric, but he hasn't talked to Eric much lately. I'm really starting to wonder if something's going on at his house. 5/15/13 Had a long talk with Dr. Wei about my biological father earlier. That was harder than I thought it'd be, but I think I needed that. 5/20/13 Semester's almost done. Summer vacation! No more homework, aside from all that summer reading bullshit. My parents haven't decided where we're going on vacation yet. I'm going to play video games and look for rabbit holes to fall down online. I already made a bet with Juan that I'll find one better than any he finds. All that conspiracy shit is dumb as hell, but it's entertaining to read. Can't believe Juan actually thinks some of that shit is real though. I'll get through to him one day. 6/2/13 Juan and I went out to that cemetery after all, but we did it during the day. Got nothing but some decent audio of birds chirping and us talking to the air. I've always wondered why if ghosts were real, that they'd haunt cemeteries when so much of the ghost lore is about them haunting places they either died at or were important to them, or a specific person and shit like that. Why would any ghost be attached to a graveyard unless they somehow died there or it was important to them for some real reason other than it being where someone buried their body? I asked Juan. He didn't have a good answer. He asked if I'd come do another session. I said no. That turned out to be really boring. I'd have more fun watching horror movies. At least I'd be guaranteed something actually happening at some point. 6/18/13 I asked Zack for Eric's cell phone number. That was already a stupid idea. Then I texted him, acting like a jackass. I can't believe myself. Why do I keep acting like this? Here's our text exchange. I won't be surprised if he blocks me. me: hey this is alex Eric: what do you want? me: i was wondering if you got your report card yet Eric: yeah why me: so you pass or did all that skipping catch up to you? Eric: (he texted me a photo of his report card) me: good but you know you can't keep skipping like that in hs you'll end up failing eventually Eric: idc i'm dropping out at 16 anyway me: why? He didn't respond after that. I know I was being rude with how I was talking to him, but I thought he might tell me more. I can't believe he's really thinking about dropping out. Those C's were pretty low too. I know he's been out a lot, but I can't shake the feeling that there's something going on with his family. Something happened. Eric didn't used to be like this. I texted him about an hour ago apologizing. This is what I sent: "hey, i'm sorry about being so hard on you earlier. are you ok?" He never responded to that either. 6/19/13 Texted Eric again. He's still not responding to my texts. Maybe he did block me. I called Zack to see if he knew anything. Said Eric hasn't talked to him recently. 6/30/13 Saw Dr. Wei today. Talked about what happened with Eric. I want to talk to him in person. I'm thinking I might go over to his house soon, just to check on things. Please, don't let me fuck this up. 7/3/13 Haven't gone over to Eric's yet. I've been doing those early morning, pre-sunrise walks again. This morning, I stopped in front of Eric's house for a while. His light was on. When we were in elementary school, I didn't actually stay over all that often. Usually, the three of us went to my house or Zack's. Looking back, why didn't he want us to come over to his house? Was something going on back then? It may be too late for me to ever know. No, I'm going to try and talk with him in a few days. It's been a while since I sent those stupid texts. 7/7/13 Something is definitely going on behind closed doors. I knew it would happen. I knew we'd probably fight, but in a way, I'm a little glad we did. Because I finally saw it. When we were arguing, at some point, his dad yelled at us, saying something about how if Eric didn't stop it, he was going to have him institutionalized. What the fuck. I asked Eric what the hell was going on with that, and he just told me to go home. What the fuck. I didn't want to leave him there. Is his dad beating him? I don't know, but now that I've seen that, I have to get more involved. I know he'd probably hate me for it, but if I have to get CPS involved with this, then I will. I didn't technically see anything that would warrant a visit. Georgia doesn't count anything verbal or psychological as "abuse". IIRC only physical stuff counts in the eyes of the law. But I'm pretty sure if I can get any audio or video of him doing something like that again, I can start building up a case if necessary and hand that evidence over to have him further investigated. I know I didn't see much, but something is up. Eric's never liked his friends coming over to his house, his grades all dropped starting in sixth grade and he started skipping school all the time, started getting in fights (well, some of that was my fault...), and now he's planning on dropping out of high school and his dad's yelling about having him put in a mental hospital in front of guests. I don't know what all is going on in that house, but he shouldn't be there, whatever it is. I know he won't admit it either, but everyone in the neighborhood knows his mom's an alcoholic too. I always thought she was more of a reckless but mostly benign drunk. Maybe I was wrong about that. His dad drinks a lot too, from what I've heard. I texted him when I got back. He hasn't responded to me. 7/8/13 Eric finally responded to me, but he won't give me a straight answer about anything. I'm not giving up. 7/9/13 I tried calling him earlier. He didn't answer the first three times. I'm sure he thinks I'm being obnoxious, but I didn't plan on stopping until he either answered me or blocked me. The fourth call, he answered with, "What the fuck do you want?" Not the best start to a conversation, but at least he answered. I tried asking about his dad, and he told me his dad was drunk. That he was talking nonsense. I mean, that could be, but something doesn't sit right with me. There's more to it than that. If he were just drunk, I'd expect more "I'll beat your ass" or some other kind of generic threat. His threat was weirdly specific. I just don't buy that there isn't something else going on. Anyway, I didn't get any more out of him about that. He dodged all my questions about his dad, so I changed the subject to school. I tried to convince him not to drop out. I don't think I got through to him. We didn't argue though. We talked for at least an hour, and we didn't argue. That hasn't happened in a long time. I know I'm getting ahead of myself, but that one hour has given me hope--not just that I can get through to him about school, but...maybe...maybe things could go back to how they used to be, or at least something better than what's it's been. I don't know. That's probably wishful thinking. 7/10/13 Tried calling Eric again. He texted me that his dad didn't want him on the phone. We ended up talking via chat. He was really paranoid about his parents seeing any of his texts. I might be jumping to conclusions, but when I saw that message, I felt sick. Chatting was kind of awkward. This is dumb, but I was embarrassed to give him my account name. He doesn't know that I use that name other places, and I currently have no intentions of telling him that. It's dumb and generic enough, I'm sure if he did search it for whatever reason, he'd get tons of unrelated accounts too. Even when we were friends, we never really did anything online together. It would have been awkward back then. Us not even being friends and me giving it out...I don't know. I felt naked. The accounts I let most people see are mostly empty ones with my real name attached. The embarrassment was worth it, I think. I told him I wanted to start over. He made an interesting confession in the chat. "Sometimes I wanted to fight with you just to fight." It was the same for me. Sometimes, I just wanted a fight. I was so angry about so many things. I needed to let it out, and I didn't know the right way to get it out. When we talked more, I asked him if everything was okay at home. I didn't expect he'd tell me everything, but I wanted to ask anyway. My major victory of the day was convincing him to give it another year at school before giving up. That gives me another year to convince him to not drop out. I see Dr. Wei tomorrow. 7/12/13 Dr. Wei suggested I start seeing him every few months. He says I'm doing so well I really only need to check in with him every once in a while. I asked if he thought there'd be a day I wouldn't need my meds anymore. He said he didn't know, but it was possible. I wanted to tell him about what happened with Eric, but before I knew it, my hour was up. Next time I see him is in three months...I'm not sure how I feel about that. He did say I could schedule an appointment for next month if I thought I needed it. I don't know. Speaking of Eric, I got him to talk to me for a while yesterday. It went okay. No arguing. I apologized again. I don't know if I'm getting through to him or not. 7/15/13 Eric's dodging me again. I'm going to stop contacting him for a while. Given that we're not friends, I'm probably annoying him. I went on an early morning walk today, down to the creek this time. Even in July, it's chilly in the morning. I saw a couple of fish. A long time ago, Zack, Eric, and I tried catching crawdads after Tyler and Nathan caught a bunch. Zack was determined to catch more than Tyler. We ended up with nothing. Eric fell in the water twice. And I got eaten alive by mosquitoes. In retrospect, it's kind of funny. Probably for the best we didn't catch anything. I learned about a year later I hate crawdads. 7/18/13 Went on a hiking trip with Noelle. That was fun. I got a lot of pictures. I've avoided contacting Eric all this time. Tried not to think about him while we were on the trip, but I couldn't stop. He hasn't contacted me either. I think I'll try again in a few days. 7/25/13 Eric's not answering me. I've tried to contact him three different times, but nothing. I don't know what I did wrong. We didn't argue the last time we talked. Why is he avoiding me? I hope he's okay. 8/1/13 I stopped by Eric's house to see if he'd let me in. His parents weren't home and no one answered the door. I don't know if he was home or not. Later, I called Zack. He hasn't heard anything from Eric in weeks. I don't get it. Why is he shutting out Zack too? They've always been on good terms, even when things were at their worst between me and Eric. I decided to go over to Zack's house for a while and talk. We ended up walking out to the creek. I told him about everything and asked him what he thought was going on. "Eric's parents are definitely alcoholics. My mom says Serena comes in to work drunk or hungover most days, and the days she doesn't, she acts like nothing ever happened the other days. My parents heard from someone else in the neighborhood that Eric's dad's a nasty guy when he's wasted." Zack said. "They've probably grounded him for existing or something. They're so fucking weird." "I'm worried about him. Do you think we should do anything?" I asked him. "I don't know. I'll call him later. Maybe he'll answer me if he won't answer you." Zack said. "What about you? How are you managing? You know, about your doomed love." I laughed at that, but it hurt more than I want to admit. "As best I can. I really wish I didn't know about all this stuff going on with Eric. Then it'd be easy. I could just stop talking to him, but I can't do that with what I saw." "Maybe you should try going after someone else? Put yourself out there. You'll lose those feelings eventually." "Around here? Yeah, right. No one's going to date me." I sighed. "I've accepted I'll be lonely until I get to college." "Hey, you could try me." Zack said. "Very funny." "I mean it. We could. See what happens." "Quit teasing me. You're straight." I said. "I never said that." Zack said back. There was a really awkward silence between us for a couple of minutes. "What are you saying?" I asked. "That we're the same." Zack put his hand on my thigh. "In more ways than one. I have someone I need to forget about too. Do you wanna spend the night?" I was so confused by everything that was going on I couldn't really think through what he was asking me. Zack has had girlfriends before. I don't know if he was telling me he's gay or that he likes guys. I don't know. I don't know what was happening and I couldn't give him a real answer. I delayed instead. "Not tonight...maybe tomorrow..." He laughed. "You can reject me. I won't be upset." "I don't know...I need time to think about that." I said. "You're not screwing with me, are you?" "No." Zack stood up. "I'll call Eric after dinner. About tomorrow, so...are you coming over or not?" "I will." I don't know why I agreed. I went home after that. Zack hasn't gotten back to me yet if he got in contact with Eric or not. I don't know what I'm going to do about tomorrow. Um, so...haha, am I not going to be a virgin next time I update? 8/3/13 Just got back from Zack's house. That was probably the most awkward night of my life. I went over around eight. Zack didn't get a hold of Eric. We talked about him some more, and then we made out. It was Zack's idea. I can't really remember how that ended up happening, but it was his idea, I remember that. And well, I expected something was going to happen given what we were talking about yesterday. We got down to our underwear and that's where we stopped. That was my idea. I don't know what I was thinking. I knew why he invited me over and I don't know...I've been so lonely, I thought I wanted that. When he was trying to take my underwear off, I couldn't stand it anymore. I had to tell him to stop. That wasn't what I wanted. I can't have what I want, but I'm not over it yet. I don't want to do that with anyone else out of loneliness. He told me it wasn't a big deal that we stopped, but it wouldn't be a big deal if we continued either. Zack asked me if it was my nerves getting to me because I haven't done it before. I said no, I just changed my mind. "Well, if you change your mind again, let me know." He said. "You don't have to tell me you're nervous. I was too the first time." I really wasn't nervous though. I think I got carried away in the moment at the possibility of it, and that's all that happened. When reality sunk in, I realized what I really wanted. Zack didn't seem upset about it. We played video games after that, then went to bed. I left pretty early in the morning. Eric still hasn't contacted me. 10/15/13 Been having a hard time writing up entries. I see Dr. Wei today. 1/10/14 I've been really depressed the last few months. Tried to keep up with this but I'd open it up, type for an hour, then delete everything I wrote. I had to start seeing Dr. Wei twice a month. I haven't needed to do that in years. Christmas break went by pretty quickly. We did the usual stuff. I hoped Christmas might cheer me up some, but nothing really did. Mostly, I slept a lot. Mom had a talk with me at some point during the break asking if I wanted to see Dr. Wei once a week. I told her no. I like Dr. Wei, but I don't want to be in a waiting room every week. Twice a week is already annoying. I did the best I could to not bring everyone else's mood down. I know Mom's worried. I want to sleep. 2/5/14 I called Eric earlier to wish him a happy birthday. We've been getting along okay enough lately I didn't think it'd be weird. We chatted online for a while. He didn't want his parents overhearing anything. I had to convince him again to not drop out of school. He asked if he could spend the night on Friday to talk about something. He wouldn't tell me what. 2/6/14 This morning, I woke up really early and went on a walk before school. It was really cold this morning. While I was out, my mind was in a really bad place. For the first time in years, I thought about killing myself. I don't know what brought that on. I skipped school today and had my mom schedule an emergency appointment with Dr. Wei. I couldn't tell him much beyond "I don't know why I feel bad". I cried for most of the session. I asked him if I could hug him. He said it was okay. He told my mom she'll need to keep an eye on me for the next week. About three weeks ago, we changed my dosage and I haven't been adjusting well to it. I've been a lot worse, and I don't think I can handle being like this any longer. He's changing it back down to see if that helps. I don't want to do this, but Mom wants me to go weekly to see him now. We've arrange for a special time that's outside his normal hours so it doesn't interrupt me going to school. I hate the idea of it, but I know Mom's right that I need it for now. Eric's coming over tomorrow. I thought about asking him to come over a different day, but he wanted to tell me something important. I'm going to try to keep it together. The thoughts are coming back. I'm going to talk to my mom for a while. Dr. Wei said I should avoid being alone when I get thoughts like that. 2/7/14 Went to school. Cried in the bathroom, then asked to be excused to go to the nurse for most of the day. I called my mom during lunch. She said she'd pick me up if I wanted. I'm home now. I texted Eric that I came home early for something, but he can still come over. He's supposed to be coming here right after school. I've been crying for the last hour and I don't know why. What's wrong with me? I threw up earlier too. My stomach has been killing me all day. 2/8/14 Eric left earlier. He wouldn't tell me everything, but he said he went to a mental hospital over Christmas break for severe depression. He was worried I'd think he was "crazy". That's why he didn't tell me for so long. I told him I didn't think he was crazy. It's just a place for treatment. I've never been to one myself, but my mom did consider having me stay at one when I was younger and my behavior problems were really bad. We didn't end up doing that, because she didn't like any of the places around here for that. Instead, I saw Dr. Wei twice a week for what was nearly a year. I think the night went okay. I was doing a lot better after Eric showed up. After we talked about all that, we played video games for a while. Eric took the futon and I took the bed. I offered him the bed or the guest room, but he said both would be awkward. I felt bad about the futon. It's okay for sitting on, but god that thing is awful to sleep on. I asked Eric if I could come over in the mornings and walk with him out to the bus stop, so we could have more time to talk alone. He was cool with it. No suicidal thoughts today. I hope it stays that way. 2/15/14 The last few days have not been good, but I've been feeling a little better each day. I think changing the dosage down was the right call. My head's in a better place now. Not a great place, but a lot better than before. Talking with Eric in the mornings has been...awkward, but that's going better too. I doubt it'll ever be like it was when we were friends in middle school. I've accepted that. I don't think we'll still be talking after high school either, but for now, this is okay. It's more than I expected would happen after everything that went down in middle school. 2/23/14 Noelle and I got a lot of nice storm photos. She's been looking into putting her photos online somewhere. I've considered the idea, but I don't know. Who would want to see them other than us? Are there even people who look for storm pictures? I guess there's an audience for everything. 3/1/14 Sometimes, when I'm talking with Eric, it hurts. It hurts a lot. I know I still like him. That's what it is. Maybe it's fading? Or maybe it's getting worse? I can't tell. No, I think this regret. That's what it is. I really like him, and I've screwed up everything so badly. I want things to be like they were before, and they can't be. It's my fault. Whenever I'm around him, I can feel the distance between us. Sometimes, it almost seems like it could be like it was one day, but when I look at him, I feel it. He's keeping a wall between us, and I'm never going to cross over it. 3/10/14 Eric and I have been chatting online more lately. He seems willing to be more open when he doesn't have to face me in person. Am I that unbearable? Oh well. It's better than nothing. I'm seeing Dr. Wei twice a month now instead of weekly. That's been a relief. I really want to get back to only have to seeing him once a month. 3/15/14 Mom took me out for lunch earlier, then we went to Arbor Place to get some new clothes for me. Most of my pants don't fit right anymore. Apparently, I grew three inches in the last couple of months. While we were out, we talked for a while. When we were in the car on the way back, Mom said, "I'm sorry. This is all my fault, isn't it? If I didn't put you through all that when you were little, you wouldn't be like this now. I should have stayed in South Korea and married your father." Then, she started crying. And I started crying. I told her, "It's not your fault. I'm not depressed because of you." "I put so much stress on you when you were little...I shouldn't have let you see me like that." I told her to stop worrying about it. That was a long time ago. I don't blame her for any of that anymore. That was a bad time for everyone, and I know she was trying her best to keep it inside. I remember, when it started and Mom and Eddie were getting so frustrated that none of the fertility treatments were working, Mom would sit in her room and cry all the time. Then after all those months of trying, they find out the doctor who did the c-section on her when I was born damaged her organs so badly she'd never be able to have a child, she didn't go back to work and did nothing but cry and sleep for a solid two weeks. I cried a lot then too, because I didn't understand what was going on. Mom wasn't there for me then, but she emotionally couldn't be. Eddie got us all in therapy, and then the next high stress situation began--the court case against the doctor who did that to her and didn't tell her about what he'd done. Mom was so heartbroken that her and Eddie couldn't have a kid together. When I was little, I used to think, why does she care so much about that? Am I not good enough? Does she not love me? But I understand now. I don't have any anger towards her about that now. It's that piece of shit doctor's fault that all that happened. I couldn't tell her about the other things I talk to Dr. Wei about. I don't want her to feel bad about that. It's easier to tell Dr. Wei that stuff anyway. He's dealt with some of the same shit living here too. I apologized for making her worry so much. When we got home, she hugged me and told me I didn't need to apologize for that. 3/18/14 I took an early morning walk today and ended up sitting against the fence in Eric's front yard. I was going over there anyway, so I just sat there for a while. Sitting there, my body had this slimy feeling all over it, inside and out. I got up to walk back home when Eric stopped me. I don't know why he was out so early. We usually wouldn't meet up for another half hour. "What are you doing here so early?" He asked. "I don't know. Couldn't sleep." That was true, but I don't know why I stopped there. "Think I might skip today." "You're skipping? After getting on to me about that?" Eric said to tease me. I didn't answer him right away. I couldn't think of what to say. "Sorry. I think I'm sick." "What's wrong?" He asked. "I don't know." I said. "I'm gonna go home." "Are you okay?" "I don't know. Sorry." I said. "For what?" He was looking at me strangely. "I don't know what I'm talking about. Haha, think I have a fever. I'm not thinking right." I lied to him. I don't really know what was going on in my head then. "Do you want me to walk you to your house? You look...out of it." Eric said. "You don't need to do that. I only live three houses over." I said. "Yeah, I know, but...you look really pale. I'll watch you walk back from here then." He said. I agreed to that. When I got to my house, I waved then ran back inside. As soon as I got in the house, my mom asked me what was wrong. I started crying, but I don't know why. She let me stay home until lunch, then I went to school for the rest of the day. Eric and Zack asked me if I was feeling better when they saw me on the bus. I told them it was just a fever and I was fine now. 3/24/14 Been in bed with the flu. My mom went up to the school to get my assignments for me that I couldn't do online. Eric texted me earlier. I feel like shit. I'm going back to sleep. 4/8/14 Ugh, I made a 71 on my math test. Well, all my other tests and quizzes have been high B's. I don't think it'll drag my grade down that much, but I'm really going to need to study for the final next month. I've been doing better, I think. I still want to sleep a lot. 5/10/14 I've been doing nothing but studying most nights. Mom says I'm worrying too much. I don't think I'll do bad on most of my finals, but I never do great on math finals. Eric's been studying with me. I'm a little jealous. I know before he was making a lot of bad grades, but watching him do math...he's really good at it. Honestly, I think the only reason he was doing badly in math before was because he wasn't taking time to sit down and study. I'm not saying he's lazy or anything. He probably couldn't manage doing that with severe depression symptoms. But he's definitely not "too stupid", as he put it, to do this stuff. His grades were low for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with intelligence or working hard. He seems to be able to focus better now. I wonder what kind of treatment they gave him at that hospital. 6/20/14 We all went out to eat yesterday to celebrate. I got all A's, and Eric got his grades up again. Before the semester ended, I gave him a little challenge. Whoever had the highest math score would get something from the other person. He beat me, so that's why we went out. I don't know if it was too much, but I really wanted him to get the message that he did great. I know his parents aren't going to give him that. I asked Eric if he wanted to spend the night. He stayed over. We played video games most of the night. When it was really late and we were going to sleep, I thought about apologizing to him again. I didn't end up doing it, not while he was awake. He fell asleep before me, and I couldn't get to sleep. "Hey Eric, are you awake?" I asked. "Eric?" I waited for a minute before getting up. I sat down on the floor beside the futon and asked, "Eric?" He didn't wake up. Sitting there, I ended up rambling on. I don't know why. "Hey Eric, I'm sorry...I know I already apologized, but it's not enough. Hey...I really like you." I whispered the last part. "I love...I'm sorry." He didn't hear me, of course. He was asleep. Eric mumbled something back to me. "You're doing great. You can do this. You can do so much more than you think you can." I said, then I went back to bed. I turned over and watched the moon and clouds outside the window until I finally fell asleep. Eric woke up before me. He woke me up. We played video games again for about an hour before he went home. I walked him home and told him that he should be proud of himself, no matter what anyone else says. It's quiet in here now. Think I'm gonna take a nap. 7/7/14 Yesterday, I spent the night at Eric's house. I haven't done that in years. That was...much more awkward than when he stayed over at my house. His parents creep me the hell out. I was on edge the entire time I was there. We spent a lot of the day out on a walk. I know a lot has been going on in Eric's life, and I know there's plenty he's not telling me, but I'm amazed he's single. I don't get it. It must be from him shutting people out. He's too hot for it to be about looks. I try to not let it show on my face, but it's getting harder. When I stand beside him, my heart beats so fast I can barely breathe and it's only getting worse. God, does he notice? I'd die. 7/8/14 Early this morning, I walked to the creek a little before dawn. It was so humid outside, but it was nice. I sat by the edge of the water for a while, resting my head against my knees. At some point, I fell asleep. I don't know when. In my dream, I was laying on the ground at night and the stars were so beautiful. There were so many, way more stars then there really are out here at night. I looked over at the creek and it looked like the stars were moving in the water. Everything was this bright blue color. I saw a wooden boat floating down the creek. It stopped right across from me. A blond man wearing all black stepped out of it and sat down beside me. He said, "So, you want to go today? It's not a bad time, but don't you think another location might be better?" I sat up and asked him, "What do you mean?" "Your mother will find you here." He said. "Why is that bad? Why wouldn't I want her to know where I am?" I asked. He gave me this really intense stare and said, "You know who I am." I don't know how, but when he said that, I got the impression he was "Death", the grim reaper. I asked him, "Am I going to die today?" "You don't have to." He said. "Then why are you here?" I asked. The man in black stood up. He offered me his hand and led me over to the boat. I followed him into it. I don't know why. It was like I was compelled to do it. Dream logic, I guess. A shadowy person rowed the boat down the river while we talked. The man said, "It's alright, you know. You won't be judged for it." "I don't understand what you mean." I said. "Alexis, I know what you were thinking about. I know what you want. Today is a good day. I'll be here. I'll wait and walk with you when you've finished everything." "Why are you telling me all this? Am I supposed to die today?" I asked. "You can die today, or you can wait until my next visit to come with me. No matter what you choice, it's alright. I'll walk with you." "What do you think I should do?" I asked him. "What will happen if I don't choose this date?" "I'll come back another day." When he said that, in my mind, I pictured myself in a bathtub, under the water, looking up at the ceiling. There was blood in the water, but I don't know if it was me that did it in the dream or some kind of accident, like a bad fall. He didn't tell me which it was. While I was asleep, it didn't freak me out to see that. It was almost...peaceful? As the dream went on, the creek got wider and wider, and everything around us got darker. I could barely see anything. I asked the man what was ahead. He said, "It's a peaceful place. I can't take you farther than here until you make your decision." I touched the back of my head. It hurt a lot. When I looked at my hand, it was covered in blood. I wasn't sitting in the boat anymore. Now, I was naked, sitting in the bathtub. The water was red. I looked back and the wall was splattered in red too. It looked like someone was shot with a gun. I found it in between my legs at the bottom of the tub. A handgun, it looked like Eddie's but I wasn't really sure. I couldn't imagine either of my parents murdering me. That's too absurd. I picked up the gun and wondered if I did it to myself or if someone broke into the house. The more I looked at the gun, the lighter it felt in my hand. The red turned to blue and white, like the stars in the night sky reflected in that creek. The water turned cold. I woke up on my back by the creek's edge, one of my legs halfway in the water. I was in a daze when I woke up. Nothing seemed real. I looked around for that man from the dream, but I was alone. I ran back home and made myself some tea. Mom asked me if I was okay. I didn't tell her about the dream. She's so superstitious. I know she would have told me it was some kind of omen or something, and I really didn't want to tell her about any kind of potential suicide or murder related imagery. That would freak her out more than me. To be honest, as much of a skeptic and atheist as I am, I'm still pretty freaked out from that dream. I guess it's impossible to completely stamp out superstition in the human mind. It's completely illogical, but I've been on edge every time I've gone in the bathroom today. I actually have been using the downstairs bathroom all day today since having that dream, because the bathroom in the dream was definitely the upstairs bathroom. So stupid. I've been checking all day that the front and back doors are locked too. I know nothing's going to happen, and it's ridiculous to do all that, but I keep doing it anyway. So much for my strong conviction towards logic and reason. 7/9/14 Continuing from my last entry, I spent most of the day paranoid. Mom noticed I was only using the other bathroom and asked me why. I made up that my toilet wasn't working right, and she went to look at it right away. Of course, there was nothing to find. I avoided the bathroom for as long as I could. Because I psyched myself out, when I did go in there, I expected something would be waiting for me on the other side. Like Bloody Mary was going to shut the lights off and claw me to death or some shit. There was nothing there. Then, I decided I'd had enough of being paranoid and got the bathtub ready, with one of those damn bath bombs my mom has a million of and everything. I lit some tea lights and turned the lights off myself. I sat down in the tub and told myself I wasn't going to be afraid of anything in that room. So, my parents decided to start up a horror movie downstairs in the living room at exactly that same time. I have to admit, I jumped a couple of times at absolutely nothing. Once I realized what was going on downstairs, it was a lot more relaxing. Sitting there in the dark was actually pretty peaceful. For a while, anyway. Then, my mind went somewhere dark again. I don't know why it felt like this, but the situation with Eric...the fact that that was a dead end, never to ever go anywhere, it hurt more than usual. It hurt so much I couldn't stand it. Then, my mind started thinking, what if it's going to be like this every time? What if I mess up everything no matter what I do, no matter who I'm around? What if I'll always revert back to who I was in middle school? What if I'm just inherently a bad person? I'm probably ruining everything for everyone around me. That's how I was thinking then. Sitting there in the dark, that dream I had earlier that morning stopped terrifying me. Instead, it became inviting. I started to think it over more. I knew where Eddie kept his gun. That wouldn't be hard to get, and with my parents in the middle of watching a movie, they probably wouldn't notice me sneaking in and out of their room. I don't believe in an afterlife, and I didn't expect that man from my dream would come take me off somewhere. I fully expected nothing to be waiting for me, and for the first time in a long while, that didn't scare me. I didn't care. Sitting alone in that dark place, I convinced myself it was fine, and I got up to get the gun. When I was getting dressed, I got a text from Eric. He said he really wanted to talk to me about something and asked if I was doing anything tomorrow. I told him I wasn't, and we agreed to get online and chat earlier today. After that, I went downstairs to my parents' room to get Eddie's gun. I held the gun in my hand for a while and thought about doing it right there, but I didn't want my mom to see that. If I did it in the bathroom with the door locked, they might not be able to get in and maybe an emergency person would see me first instead. That was what I reasoned with myself. I looked back at the messages Eric sent me and thought about what Eric told me before, about him staying in that hospital over the break. If I did this, how badly would it hurt him? He may not be talking with me in five or ten years, or even next year, and I doubt he thinks of me as a friend, but there's no way that wouldn't stress him out. After confiding that in me, something he was so embarrassed about, what would that do to him? I couldn't do it. I put the gun back in the drawer. Well, that wasn't the end of that. Mom walked in as I was doing that. She saw the gun in my hand. I've never seen her turn so pale before. She looked at me, her eyes wide open, and asked, "What are you doing?" "I'm sorry." I started crying. "I wasn't going to do it." She hugged me and cried with me. Eddie moved the gun to somewhere else. They won't tell me where it is. Mom offered to take me to a hospital if I wanted to go. I decided to stay home and sit with them. Mom made me a banana split. When I was a little kid and I'd come back from a really rough therapy session, she used to always make me a banana split and we'd sit out on the back porch together. I didn't want to go out tonight. Instead, we put on a comedy movie. Mom wasn't mad at me. She didn't lecture me or question what I was doing. She did her best to try and make me happy instead. Even now, I feel really bad about letting her see that. I don't know what I was thinking. If I'd really gone through with it...What the hell was I thinking? We all slept in the living room last night. Neither of them wanted to leave me alone. I wasn't planning on doing anything then, and I wanted to be alone that night because my mind was still in a strange place, but I understood it. This morning, Mom called out of work to stay with me. I apologized for her having to stay home, and thanked her, because I really didn't want to be alone at that point. I don't know what came over me yesterday. We went out to get Chinese food for lunch and she took me shopping to get new clothes for next school year. I tried to explain to her what happened, as best I could, on the way home. "Mom, I'm really sorry about this. I don't know why I wanted to do that. Sometimes, weird thoughts get stuck in my brain, but I wouldn't normally want to actually act on them like that. Yesterday, my brain was really...fuzzy. I think it's mostly gone now, but I don't know why it happened. I've been taking my medication like always." I said. She asked, "Is there anything that might be stressing you out more than usual? Did anything else happen recently that you want to tell me about?" I told her I'd been worrying about Eric and the stuff with his family, but I didn't tell her about the other thing that's been stressing me out in regards to Eric. I'm really not ready to have that conversation with her yet. Around two, Eric texted me again to see if I could still talk with him. I said sure and turned on my laptop so I could chat with him and sit with my mom in the living room. As if on cue, Eric gave me a whole new reason to hate his parents. Okay, so now to explain that fucking mess. So, since I spent the night at Eric's house and because he doesn't have a girlfriend currently, for some fucking reason, they got it in their head that means Eric and I are secretly having sex. (I wish.) And because they think we're engaging in some secret homosexual relationship together, that needs to be fixed. His atheist parents want to send him to a Christian summer camp that they found that will covertly do gay conversion therapy for teens under the table to stamp out all the supposed gayness. What. The. Fuck. But no, it gets worse. Not only that, but they're really upset that I might be his boyfriend because I'm half-Korean and apparently being Asian is a bigger problem than the gay aspect. I suspected they were abusive, but I had no idea they were also like that. Another horrible detail--they also wanted him on some antidepressants in hopes if he was on a strong enough dose of the right meds it would kill his sex drive so he wouldn't want to engage in any gross gay things. You know, I've heard of some homophobic parents and self-hating gay people wanting to try that "method" before, but they were seriously going to do this. What the hell? That's not what medicine is for! And it wouldn't even necessarily work like that anyway. I can't believe these people. I came up with a plan. Here's the exchange from our messages: skepticaleye: do they usually freak out when you come over to my house? somewhereidunno: not as much, cause i say i'm studying there and they think your parents are really focused on grades skepticaleye: lol as if somewhereidunno: they figured the only reason i'd invite you over to my house would be for other reasons somewhereidunno: though i think my dad thinks we're doing it regardless skepticaleye: haha i had no idea i was having so much sex what a revelation skepticaleye: so you're dad's a total miser right? somewhereidunno: you have no idea skepticaleye: okay, so here's my idea skepticaleye: my aunt is holding some two-week stem summer camp skepticaleye: and since you're my friend, i can get you in for free skepticaleye: that would at least get you away from them for two weeks somewhereidunno: they might go for that somewhereidunno: they really want me to have all a's somewhereidunno: i didn't know you had an aunt i thought your mom was an only child skepticaleye: she is somewhereidunno: wait skepticaleye: my family's about to go on a two-week vacation to panama city somewhereidunno: um are your parents going to be okay with me tagging along? skepticaleye: sure skepticaleye: if i tell them what's up, they'll definitely play along skepticaleye: my mom loves performing anyway haha skepticaleye: she'll get a kick out of it somewhereidunno: are you sure? i don't want to ruin your vacation skepticaleye: what? that would only make it better somewhereidunno: are you sure i won't be a burden on your parents skepticaleye: no way they love you somewhereidunno: really? skepticaleye: yeah they were pretty happy about us being friends again skepticaleye: don't worry about anything, we'll take care of it skepticaleye: i'll have my mom call your parents tomorrow skepticaleye: unless you want to do something else somewhereidunno: i mean, if your parents really won't mind, that sounds great somewhereidunno: my parents aren't that interested in taking me on vacations anywhere somewhereidunno: usually the only places they take me are to see other relatives somewhereidunno: it's been a while since i've seen the ocean skepticaleye: then it's settled skepticaleye: you're going on vacation somewhereidunno: what should I bring with me? my parents will think something's up if i ask to get swim trunks skepticaleye: the summer camp totally has a swimming pool skepticaleye: yeah, definitely has one somewhereidunno: they might say if it's not a required thing to participate in, then they don't need to get me anything for it skepticaleye: well, you can borrow a pair of mine skepticaleye: i have three pairs. we're about the same size. mine should fit you. skepticaleye: my parents probably wouldn't mind buying you a pair when we get there anyway. they're not that expensive. somewhereidunno: i dunno. i wouldn't want them to spend a bunch of money on me. maybe we should do something else. skepticaleye: eric it's fine. we have plenty of money. how much could one extra person really cost? somewhereidunno: where will i sleep? skepticaleye: well, the rental place has 2 rooms, each with a queen. you can either share a bed with me or one of us can take the sofa. skepticaleye: what do you want to do? somewhereidunno: would it be weird if shared with you? skepticaleye: no that's cool with me somewhereidunno: does the place have a washer and dryer or should i bring enough clothes for 2 weeks skepticaleye: i think it does somewhereidunno: when are you going to tell your mom about this? skepticaleye: after we're done chatting somewhereidunno: are you sure i'm not imposing? skepticaleye: not at all. quit worrying somewhereidunno: um...actually do you have a suitcase or a duffel bag I can borrow? i don't own one. skepticaleye: yeah i do. somewhereidunno: what should i tell my mom we did when we get back? skepticaleye: just make up some bullshit about studying techniques and science. we'll come up with something before we leave. somewhereidunno: okay somewhereidunno: i hope this works. i really don't want to go to one of those camps. skepticaleye: if all else fails, i'll sneak you out of your house somewhereidunno: they'll probably have your parents charged with kidnapping skepticaleye: yeah well i have a few things i'd like to charge them back with somewhereidunno: don't do anything drastic. somewhereidunno: but thanks. i didn't know what else to do. I felt a little weird calling Eric and me friends to Eric, because I don't really know how he thinks of me, but surely in the loosest definition of the word, we could at least be seen as casual friends, right? I don't know. I'm overthinking things again. Then came time to tell my mom about all of that. It's a good thing, really, that we already talked about Eric's parents earlier in the day so I didn't have to explain a lot of that. I showed her part of our conversation, as my proof of everything I was telling her about. She agreed to help us out. At some point, she said, "No wonder you've been so stressed." We've been bouncing ideas off each other about our script for this STEM summer camp invitation. Mom and I have been rehearsing lines and laughing. I hope this works too. I can't believe they want to do that to their own son just because they think he might be gay. The last twenty-four hours have been...something else. On the plus side, I'm not suicidal anymore. That...whatever it was...has passed, and I'm still here, alive. This is going to be an interesting story to tell Dr. Wei two weeks from now. This is going to sound crazy, but despite all of yesterday, I actually feel really good right now. Better than I've felt in months. I don't get it. 7/10/14 The plan worked. Mom and I practiced again before she called. I sat with her while she talked to Eric's mom. It was so hard not to laugh. I met Eric halfway between our houses to give him two duffel bags to borrow. Now that this is all set into motion, I'm nervous. Two weeks with Eric, and sharing a bed at that. I didn't really think this through. When either of us have stayed over at each other's houses recently, it's not like anything bad happened. It wasn't that awkward. Maybe things can be okay again. At least, until college. If we don't end up talking to each other after that point, if we at least say our goodbyes on good terms, I can be content with that. I won't be writing in this during the vacation. Mom wants this to be a low tech, nature focused vacation. 7/28/14 Eric left earlier. He stayed over the night we got back from Florida. I wrote myself a list of things I wanted to write down when I got back, but I'm not sure I remember what all of this was related to. 1. sunrise, sunset, stars 2. castle 3. arcade, ice cream 4. ghost, supposedly 5. dream about that guy, pool guy 6. woods behind the hotel 7. seashells, fish 8. crabs 9. these plants look like jim henson puppets ask noelle 10. fireworks, light 11. lights on the pool, eric 12. long night before we left, talk with eric 13. leaving I'm going to do these by number, because that's the most coherent way I can think to do this that doesn't end up really rambley and all over the place. 1. My mom made a point of us watching the sunrise and sunset every day. Eric was amazed by the stars at night. You can see so many more when you're at certain places down by the beach, but it's less than when I was a kid even there. There's so much light pollution now from all the businesses nearby. My mom found a quiet, isolated place for us to stargaze at near the end of the trip. It was down at this little lagoon. I told Eric about a place we went once in Florida, where the water lights up blue when you touch it at a certain time of year. It's a living organism that causes that to happen, but it looks like something out of fantasy movie. That was at a lagoon too, I think. I showed him videos of it when we got back. We went when I was thirteen. That was a really bad year for me, and I was really, really depressed that summer. When we went there, for a couple of hours, I was happy. I hadn't watched the videos my parents took from that night since that year. I looked really happy. No one would guess the me in that video had a breakdown two weeks prior to that. It's been three years since then. Looking back, overall, I was more stable then than when I was in early elementary school and all that shit was going on, but the lows I got to then were...much lower than when I was a kid. Eric and I definitely were not friends at that point. I really don't like thinking about that time, but that memory was happy. 2. We built a sand castle, but I don't know why I wrote this down. Nothing special happened with that other than an hour's worth of work getting washed away by a really big wave. 3. Eric's never been to an arcade before, so we went to one not far from the hotel a few times. There was an ice cream shop next door. I think he had more fun with that than I did. He wanted to pay me back for the quarters. I told him to forget about it. 4. The hotel we stayed at was on the cheaper side, since we were planning on spending most of our time outside anyway. While Eric and I were headed out to the pool one night, one of the staff there warned us that we shouldn't stay out too late on cloudy nights because that's when people see the ghost man. I'm pretty sure the guy just didn't want us out when visibility at night would be really low, but for the laughs, we listened to him tell the story. Supposedly, thirty years ago, not long after the hotel opened up, there was a murder on the bottom floor. One of the guests killed a girl he brought with him. Her screams were heard by staff, who called the cops. The guy got into a shootout with the cops and eventually died from his wounds. The girl haunts the main floor, screaming at night, and the man haunts the pool because...that's where they see him. Yeah, I'm not sure what the connection there was. That's how the guy told the story. I know Mom didn't want me messing around online with my phone, but I looked up the history of that hotel. No murders have ever happened there, but the hotel has been featured in a local supernatural show for being haunted and has a ghost hunting special discount package during October. Isn't that interesting? The lady was named Mary. Of course she was. 5. The third night we were there, I had a dream about the grim reaper again. He looked the same as in the last dream. In my dream, he took me out to the pool at night and the pool water looked like stars. I asked him why he was there, and he said tomorrow would be another day he could visit me and if I wanted to see him, I should come to the pool tomorrow night after ten without my "friend" (I assume this meant Eric). When I looked back at the pool, I saw a body floating face down in the water. I woke up immediately after that. I accidentally smacked Eric in the face when I woke up. He wasn't mad about it, just confused. I told him about my dream. We decided to stay up and see what was happening around the pool that night. I didn't think anything would really happen regardless, but the last dream I had about that "reaper" ended up being a really bad day. I don't think there's anything supernatural about it. I think it stirred up some paranoid thoughts in me and everything went down hill from there. Since I didn't want a repeat of that bad night, I made sure Eric came with me that night. Everything was normal until around ten. This old guy who was staying in the hotel on different floor came out to the pool. It was only the three of us. He kept watching us, or rather, me specifically. Naturally, last night's dream was making me freak out about that. I told myself I don't know how many times I didn't need to worry about that guy. Dreams don't mean anything. But...well, I'm only human. I told Eric I wanted to leave. We left and that guy got out of the pool too. Eric and I walked faster, and that guy did too. We got into the elevator, and he tried to get into the same one we were in. When the doors opened up and we saw him, Eric pulled me out of the elevator, passed him, and said really loudly, "I forgot my phone. Come on." We ran down the hall, but we didn't go back to the pool. Instead, we went to the front desk hoping someone would be there. We struck up a conservation with the lady at the front desk to see if that guy would come around. He did. He sat down in one of the chairs in the lobby and watched us. Eric slipped her a note asking her to call our room and ask Eddie to come down and get us, and that the guy in the chair had been following us around. We talked with her until my stepdad got us. I don't know what that guy was up to. I doubt he intended to kill anyone. Rob, maybe? I don't know. Maybe it was nothing. He might have coincidentally been going all those places at the same time as us for completely benign reasons. We didn't see him after that night. 6. Speaking of creepy, there were some woods behind our hotel. We stayed a bit of a ways away from the shoreline to save money. My mom told us not to wander out there too far in case there were gators and snakes in there, but we did it anyway. Guess what we found out there? Two gators! I don't know what they were doing there, and I didn't intend to find out. We ran the hell out of there. I didn't tell Mom what we saw. She would've been pissed. Don't think the gators noticed us. If they did, they didn't bother coming after us. 7. We collected seashells to bring back. Eric can't let his parents see them, so we're keeping them at my house for now and he's going to take them with him once he moves away from his parents. We ended up collecting so many we had to stop because it was getting ridiculous. My mom helped us clean them off. Eric also accidentally caught a fish that couldn't get back out to sea. He and I split it for dinner later. It was decent. I helped Eric cook it. He doesn't do much cooking at home, from what I've learned. His parents aren't interested in teaching him how to cook, he said. I taught him a couple of simple recipes over the two weeks. 8. I have no clue why I wrote crab down. 9. I have no idea what the fuck this means at all. Maybe Noelle will know what that means. Jim Henson?! 10. We bought some fireworks to set off on the beach. Eric and I lit up a lot of sparklers while my parents set off the fireworks. When we were out of fireworks, we sat on the beach for a while. My parents went on a walk around then and left us there. We talked for a while about a lot of things. Then, we sat there in silence and enjoyed the warm air and stars while we waited on my parents to get back. I don't think he noticed, but I spent a lot of that quiet time looking at him. I don't know how long this can last, but I really wanted to not forget that moment. If I wasn't such a coward, I would've asked to hold his hand. 11. I'm not sure what this meant. I don't remember anything weird happening with the lights at the pool. 12. The last night we were there, Eric and I stayed up really late. We talked by the pool. No sign of that creepy guy. It was only the two of us. He told me more about why he went to that hospital, and more about his shitty parents. I told him if he ever wanted to get away from those assholes, he was welcome to come to my house. Then, we talked about middle school some. I didn't get to the heart of it, but I told him about some of what happened and why I was acting like such a jerk during that time period. I couldn't tell him about...well, the really obvious thing. I'm such a coward. But I...think I might have unintentionally outed myself anyway when I started asking him questions. Really, I only asked because I wanted to know if there was any possibility at all that I might have a chance. I asked him if there were any other reasons his dad thought he might be gay. The answer he gave me wasn't what I expected. I've never thought about it before, but the both of us have been single all this time. I asked him why he hasn't dated anyone, and he admitted he never met a girl he liked and wasn't sure if he liked girls. When he said that, my heart stopped. I know I'm getting my hopes up way too much...I mean, I don't know if we're completely on solid ground again with our friendship...I shouldn't be thinking about that. I shouldn't, but I couldn't help it. He didn't say "I like guys", but he didn't not say it either. The more we talked, the more it was a clear "maybe". He even asked me if he was gay, if I'd still want to be friends with him. I almost blurted out, "well yeah, so am I", but I stopped myself. He gave me a maybe, not a yes. And then he brought up that I've never dated a girl and asked me what I was terrified of him asking. I dodged the questions, but the way I did it...Ugh, he probably assumed that was a yes. Which is true, but...I really messed that up. I actually ended up snapping at him because I was so panicked about him finding out. I apologized, but that was so stupid of me. When we turned in for the night, he asked me about that again. I dodged his questions more. I really wanted to tell him. I wanted to come out and say it, but I couldn't get myself to do it. I'm such a coward. 13. On our way back, Eric fell asleep for most of the ride. I didn't want to leave, and I don't think he did either. When we got back to my house, he was looking for any excuse to stay a few minutes longer. That's why I asked him to stay the night. I don't think he wants to be at his house at all. That night, I asked him if he was avoiding going back and why. He said he wasn't. 7/31/14 I've spent the better half of the last two hours writing and rewriting a confessional email to Eric. I deleted it in the end. For some reason, I thought if I sent him an email instead of telling him in person, it would be easier. I can't do it. 8/2/14 I'm really worried. I called Eric earlier, trying to confess like an idiot and failing to get anything out. That wasn't really a big deal. Eric said he wanted to tell me something over chat. He wants to drop out of school. He sounded really depressed. I got him to agree to talk with me in person tomorrow. I hope he's okay. He sounded so off. 8/3/14 I managed to convince him to stay in school. We came up with a plan together to keep him on track with everything. I told him I'd give him any help I could. I wish I could get him out of that house. I don't know what to do. 8/30/14 I saw Dr. Wei earlier today. We discussed lower the dosage on my medicine. I told him I wanted to try managing without it. He was worried about it, but he agreed to try and get me there. Lower my dosage is step one. He's going to monitor how I react, and if it goes alright, he'll gradually ween me off of it. He asked me why I wanted to. I told him I wanted to see if I could. I've got nothing against taking medicine, but it would be nice if I could get by without it. We're going to start on that next month. I'm back to only seeing him monthly as well. Ever since that really bad day, I've been...I don't know, even when I'm stressed or sad, it's nothing like before. I actually feel really good. Haha, almost a little too good. I've been depressed for so long that not feeling depressed is a little ominous. Like something really bad is going to happen. I know that's just in my head, but I can't quite be at ease yet. I haven't had enough "good" days for good to be normal for me yet. 9/15/14 It's been so long since I last had a bad day. I can't believe. What changed? I don't understand. I've been seeing Dr. Wei on and off since I was a little kid and taking meds since I was thirteen. Why now? Mom says I shouldn't worry too much about why. 10/1/14 First day of my new dose. Fingers crossed. I haven't updated as much. Most of my time has been spent studying with Eric. Things have been going really smoothly between him and me. I really think that things will be okay. I don't see things ever going back to how they were in middle school. There's a part of himself he keeps distant from me. I don't know why. To be fair, I'm the same. He's been spending the night on the weekends a lot. Ever since the summer vacation we took together, we've been sharing a bed when he comes over. I'm not complaining, but it has made something a little awkward. I always make sure to wake up before him. I've been having a lot of dreams about him lately, dreams that require me to change my underwear. My dreams have been very vivid and a little crazy. Last night, I had a dream about him blowing me on the bus. What the hell? I would never do something like that on the bus! On the nights he's not here, I can't stop thinking about him...about how his body would feel against mine without his clothes on. Sometimes, when we're in bed together, I think about holding him, but I don't. I don't have the courage to ask. I want it so bad. Any touch, even if it's only him holding my hand. 10/22/14 I've been doing well. I see Dr. Wei next week to discuss how everything went. I don't know what's going on with my body right now, but damn I can't stop being horny. It's like I'm twelve again. Maybe it's because of that talk we had. I keep thinking about that "maybe" and how we've been sleeping in bed together, and my mind keeps jumping to these "what if" scenarios I know will never happen. Shouldn't I be over him by now? How is it my feelings for him are stronger than when we were in sixth grade? 10/26/14 This morning, I woke up holding Eric's hand. I don't know how that happened. He wasn't awake yet. This was around sunrise. The house was dead quiet. I thought I was dreaming. When I realized I wasn't, I pulled my hand away. While I was laying there, I thought about the future. At some point, we'll probably not be in each other's live anymore. Best case scenario, maybe we end up as staying friends, keeping in contact from afar. I doubt we'll be living in the same area once I go to college. More importantly, I doubt Eric has any romantic feelings for me. That's not going to go anywhere. But maybe, when I am at college and not stuck in Paulding county, I might find someone who would be interested in me, someone I could hold hands with in the early morning hours. Thinking about that, it didn't hurt as much. I still wish it could be him instead. 11/4/14 Eric was really out of it today. I think he's sick. He's been really off the last few days. He told me he took some really strong medicine for a cold. I don't know if I believe that. I hope he's okay. I saw Dr. Wei today. We discussed stopping my medication. He prescribed me another month's supply of the really low dose I'm currently on if I needed it, but I'm going to try going without it. Today's the first day. I told Mom I'm stopping today, so she can keep an eye on me. I feel fine right now, but it's only been a day. 11/10/14 It's been about a week since I stopped taking my medication. Everything's been going okay so far. 11/16/14 Eric stayed over yesterday. He left about an hour ago. He looked like he really didn't want to go home, even moreso than usual. I think something happened. He won't tell me anything. 11/18/14 Eric asked if he could stay over yesterday. It's a school night, but my parents said it'd be okay if we didn't stay up too late and went to school the next day. He still won't tell me what's upsetting him, but at least he seemed happier being here than when we were at school. We stayed up a little later than I promised my mom we would, but we got up in time for school. I doubt she'd care that much about an extra hour. Eric fell asleep first. I wasn't trying to be creepy or anything, but I did watch him sleep for a while. I couldn't get to sleep myself. My mind was running through different possibilities about what he might be hiding from me, what his parents might be doing. I whispered to him, "Hey, you know you can tell me. I want to help you." I know he couldn't hear me, but it was easier to say it then. Outside, a crescent moon hung high in the sky. I watched that when I turned away from him. I lowered my voice more and said, "I love you." I'm such a coward. 11/22/14 Eric spent the night again. He just went home. I thought about inviting him to come on vacation with us, but I don't know if his parents will let him. I'm worried about not seeing him again over the break. 11/30/14 Home. Thanksgiving was okay. Not a favorite holiday of mine. Eric texted me a lot over the break. It was kind of crazy how much. I asked him if he was okay. He told me he was bored. I think he wanted to avoid talking to his family. I'll be honest. I didn't mind all the texts at all. I don't hate my relatives, but I don't really have anything in common with them. I'd much rather talk to Eric. I thought about calling him. He clearly wanted to text instead, so I left it at that. I thought about confessing to him again, but...I figured I'd get radio silence after that. 12/7/14 Eric stayed over the entire weekend. He was having trouble sleeping. I asked him if he was okay, but he wouldn't tell me anything. At some point, he thanked me. For helping him with school and all that. I wanted to cry. I kept that hidden. I don't think he noticed my eyes watering. I almost did it then, but I couldn't get the words out. I can't believe he said that to me. 12/15/14 I'm worried about Eric being left alone with his parents over the break. I've been talking with my mom about it. I'm not sure what to do. 12/22/14 I invited Eric to come help volunteer with my parents and me on Christmas. I told him to tell his parents it would help him to get into college if he did some volunteering. That's just an excuse, of course. The main goal is to get him away from them on the most stressful days of the break. That means I get Eric to myself on Christmas. Haha, what am I saying. 12/25/14 Eric left half an hour ago. I wish he didn't have to go home. He stayed over two nights, starting on the night before Christmas eve. We were leaving for the homeless shelter really early both days. It was more convenient that way. These last three days have left me...more hopeful than I should probably be. I think. I don't know. Eric picks the futon every now and then, but lately, every time he stays over, he sleeps in bed with me. Because of that...I don't know. We've sort of gotten used to not really keeping much distance between each other when we sleep. We fell asleep on the couch together and my mom got a photo of it. Because of course she did. It was really cold in the house and well...when my mom woke me up, I was holding him from behind and Eric was holding onto my arm that was around his waist. I don't know how we ended up like that. Then there was a time my parents caught us standing under the mistletoe. They expected us to kiss, because tradition. I thought I was having a heart attack my heart was beating so fast. Eric kissed me. It wasn't really a passionate kiss or anything, but he didn't seem bothered by it. He was smiling. I walked him home. We went through the woods to get to his house instead of the road. He thanked me again. I managed to tell him I love him...sort of. I added on that Zack loves him too, plenty of people love him and care about him. It was a cowardly move, but it's a step forward. I actually said the words and hugged him when I did it. He started crying. I forced myself not to. Then, he told me he loved me back. I'm sure he meant that in a friendly way, I think? Then, he kissed me. Not like how he did when my parents were watching. This was a real kiss. I kissed back. He pulled away first and said we were standing under mistletoe. There was some mistletoe growing in the trees above us, but...I don't think that's why he kissed me. I asked him if he didn't want to go home, and he said he didn't. He wouldn't tell me why, but he asked if we could talk again tomorrow. I'm worried again. I don't want him to go home either. I can't believe he kissed me. 12/26/14 Eric and I had a really long conversation earlier online. I don't really know what to say other than I fucking hate his parents. I just...I don't even want to write down the things he told me. It pisses me off so much. I told him to stay over at my house until the end of Christmas break. If I can keep him away from them any amount of time, I'm considering that a success. He doesn't need to be around people like them. They're the reason he's had so many problems. Fuck them. I showed my mom some of what Eric told me. She's more disgusted than angry. She told me Eric could stay over as long as he wanted. I'm not going to let them break him. 12/28/14 Eric's really depressed. I can tell he is. I've been trying to cheer him up and make him more comfortable. I'm not sure how well I'm succeeding. Last night, he cried again. I held him while he cried. I don't think the rest of the break is enough time. Really, I don't want him ever going back there. 1/15/14 Eric's still here. I convinced him to stay until the end of the month at least. I'm worried about him going back. We had a long talk earlier about a lot of things. Mostly, the future. Eric's been on the verge of giving up so many times, I knew he likely wasn't planning for the future. I told him I wanted him to give it some serious thought and for him to come up with an idea of what he wanted to do after high school, so we could work together and help him reach that. This is half-selfish, but I told him if he really couldn't think of anything, I'd financially support him if need be. I expected he wouldn't take this news well either, but I finally told him I got an internship over the summer. As I expected, he wasn't happy about me being away for hours in the summer. To deal with that, I suggested he stay here though the summer but get a summer job with similar hours to my internship to keep himself busy (and also away from his parents). 1/29/15 Went out to eat for my birthday. Eric's going home in two days. I'm going to make the most of the next two days to keep him happy. 2/5/15 I took Eric out for his birthday. His parents weren't planning on doing anything with him anyway. Eric thanked me again. I told him, "You know I love you. You're my best friend." Almost. I almost did it this time. He said I love you back again. 2/14/15 Eric's staying over for the weekend and the break. We've been studying and playing video games. And I've been having way more dirty dreams than usual. Sigh. 2/20/15 SAW SOMETHING VERY INTERESTING TODAY. VERY INTERESTING. So, uh, since we've been sharing so much space...I suggested we could try taking a shower together. I may have had...ulterior motives, but you know, I assumed he was going to turn me down. He agreed to. While we were getting undressed, I looked over at him to see if he was ready to get in (and other reasons). You know, I figured if one of us was going to accidentally get hard, it was going to be me, not him. He's so embarrassed he's taking the futon tonight. 2/22/15 More developments. Heh. So, this morning, I woke up before Eric, like I usually do. He was breathing really heavily. I thought he might be having a nightmare, but then I noticed he was doing something under the sheets. I thought maybe he didn't know I was awake, but it turned out he was the one who wasn't awake. Now that I think about it, Eric moves around a lot in his sleep. Sometimes, he talks in his sleep too. Anyway, so I uh...may have see something I wasn't supposed to. I was going to let him know I was awake when I thought he was also awake, but he um...finished before I could and woke up. I teased him about it. I guess he's having dreams like that too. I asked him what his dream was about. He told me he was fucking me in his dream. Yeah, right. I know he was joking, but the thought of Eric having a dream like that about me...I wish. I can't believe I saw that. I thought maybe it was because he's been staying over here so much and he didn't have any alone time to himself to take care of that. Well, he admitted he's masturbated at my house, in the shower, before. That was something to hear. The thought of that makes me want to do the same. Eric's gone home already. I wish he'd stay longer, but since he's not here right now, I might as well...take care of some things myself. 2/28/15 I had another dream about Eric. I'm so glad I woke up before him. There was so much this time. 3/10/15 Here's a good laugh. Eric asked if I was dating Noelle. Gross. Haha. Even if I liked girls, I'd never date Noelle. That's like...almost incest. 3/18/15 I skipped school today to get my license. We got there before the DMV opened and there was already a line wrapped around the parking lot. Ugh. Well, that's done. Mom and Eddie took me out for dinner to celebrate. On the ride home, Eddie said, "You know, now that you have your license, we should start looking at cars. You're going to need one for your summer job." "Can we afford that?" I asked. Mom looked at me and grinned. "We've been stashing away money for that for a long time. Don't worry about that. Do you know what kind of car you want?" "I don't know." I said. I hadn't really given it any thought. I don't really like cars, or driving. I've been thinking about it since then, about what would be most practical for me. A bigger vehicle would make it easier for camping out or vacationing and bringing lots of stuff and people with me. I've been looking at SUV's. Eddie says that's a soccer mom car, but I don't really care and I damn sure don't want a fucking truck. I have an appointment with Dr. Wei tomorrow. I haven't seen him in two months now. 3/19/15 The appointment with Dr. Wei went alright. He asked me if I wanted to only see him every two months, go back to one month, or see him in three months. I said I wanted to try three months. I've never gone that long without seeing him before. Two months wasn't that bad. I haven't needed to go back on my medicine since I went off it either. Maybe I won't need to see him at all one day. I've been seeing him since I was a little kid. I've always wanted to not have to see a doctor constantly, but the thought of not having to see him again is a little depressing. He's been in my life almost as far back as my memory goes. 3/20/15 Eric's spending the night. Noelle ended up spending the night yesterday. Her mom's acting weird again and her parents are fighting. She couldn't get a hold of Tamara, so she came over here. Why do so many shitty people have kids? 4/4/15 Eric's staying over through the weekend. This morning, I couldn't stay asleep. I took a walk around the neighborhood in the dark. I haven't done that in a while, not really since Eric started coming over all the time. While I was out, I got bombarded with texts from Eric. "where are you?" "alex i can't find you" "youre not in the bathroom" "hello?" "alex pls answer me" "im scared" He sent me so many messages so close together I couldn't respond to one before he'd sent another. I sent him a message back that I was on a walk and I was on my way back. I didn't expect he'd wake up at three in the morning too. Eric called me and told me he was going to meet me halfway. He asked me to stay on the phone while we walked towards each other. I don't know what he was so freaked out about. Maybe he had a nightmare and seeing me not there in the middle of the night made him paranoid? I directed him towards me over the phone. It was a full moon out, so it was easy for us to see each other. Eric asked me, "How can you walk out here like this? Isn't it creepy?" "Not really. I think it's peaceful." I said. "Scared of the dark?" "Yeah. Aren't most people?" Eric said. "You could have told me you were going out. Do you know how creeped out I was to wake up and see you weren't there?" "What did you think happened?" I asked him. "I don't know. How can you see out here? It's so dark." He said. "It's actually pretty bright out tonight." I said. I offered him my hand, mostly to tease him. "Will this make you feel better?" He rolled his eyes at me, but he held my hand anyway. "Don't say a word." "What's got you so spooked tonight?" I asked. "I don't know." Eric wanted to keep the TV on for the rest of the night. He stayed really close to me under the blankets. This morning, we took a shower together. He was still freaked out about last night. He won't tell me anything about why he's really freaked out. 4/15/15 Eric and I went on an evening walk on the trail. He asked to stay over for the weekend again, then he asked if I was annoying him. I told him it was fine. If I can give him a few days away from his shitty parents, then I want him to be here. Zack called me a while after Eric went home. He asked me how things were going with Eric. We talked for about an hour. "Are you going to make a move on him?" He asked. "Not yet. I don't know. Do you think that's a good idea?" "You're not getting anywhere doing nothing." He said. Well, yeah, but what's the point if I ruin everything by trying? 4/25/15 Eric's here right now. He's working on homework. And I'm trying to think about anything but Eric. I know one of the possible side effects of my medicine was decreased sex drive, but I had no idea I was experiencing that side effect. Think I'm going to have to take my phone with me to the bathroom. Eric's sitting there in his boxers and a tank top. Since we're showering together now, we've been changing in front of each other more and I try not to stare. It's driving me crazy. I want to touch him. 4/26/15 Eric left early this morning. After that, my parents went with me to get the SUV I picked out. I have a car. I don't really like cars, but it's still exciting. It's so big and the seats are really comfy. I drove it around for a while to get used to it. 4/27/15 The last twenty-four hours have been very rough. I don't think I can write it all out yet. My thoughts are all over the place. Right now, I'm at home with Eric. We're skipping school today. There's no way he's in any condition to go anywhere today, and I can't leave him alone like this. I've put every hospital's number and address in this area that I could find into my phone. I don't know what to do. I may need to take him to a hospital. 4/30/15 Eric and I went back to school today. He's staying at my house for now. If I can get him to agree to it, I really don't want him going back to his parents' house at all. Sunday night, Eric tried to kill himself. I got to his house before he could do anything. I don't know what happened at his house that night. He won't tell me. I called the lady he's seeing that night so they could talk. He said a lot of weird things to me that night, but he was so out of it I don't know what parts he really meant. He told me he wanted to stay with me after high school. He didn't care what college he went to so long as I was there. While I want him to be with me too, I'm worried. I don't think he's at all stable right now and I'm not sure if what he wants is the healthiest of ideas. What if something happens and we end up not being friends? Would he be able to manage on his own? I want to be there for him and keep him safe, but what if I can't? He's been so needy lately. I don't mean that in a bad way. I know he's scared and he wants someone to comfort him. He's been asking for hugs and cuddling with me at night. I've always wanted him to do that sort of thing with me, but not because of something like this. I've been giving him all the affection he wants. I don't want him to try and hurt himself again. 5/10/15 Over the last three days, I've driven Eric to three different job interviews. He seems to be doing better, but I don't think he's recovered from whatever happened that one night. Every chance I get, I've been encouraging him and complimenting him. We had another talk about the future. Eric told me again he wants to go wherever I'm going. I agreed to it. I told him I plan on going to school somewhere in Atlanta, and that I was going to rent an apartment. "If I can't get into your school, could I still live with you? I'll work and pay rent." He said. "Of course you can. I told you, I'd support you even if you couldn't get a job right away. I'm not going to abandon you. I love you." I told him. I didn't clarify how I meant that last part. I assumed at this point he'd think I meant that in a friendship kind of way. And well, really, I mean it both ways. "I'm sorry, Alex. I know you wanted me to figure out a plan for what I wanted to do after high school, but I don't care. I don't have any dreams. I don't care what school I go to or what job I have to take to get by. I want to be where you are. When I'm around you, I'm mostly normal. I'm happy when I'm with you, more than anyone else." Eric started crying when he told me that. "I want you to be happy too, but...what if something happens and I'm not in your life anymore? Will you be alright on your own?" I asked him. He nodded and said, "I'll learn to manage. I know I can, because I've seen what I can be like when I'm around you. I'll find a way, but...I really...I really want to stay with you. I...I know I'm asking a lot of you. I'm sorry." I don't know if this is the best thing to do, but I don't know what else to do either. 5/16/15 One of the places Eric did an interview at called him back. We both have summer jobs. Eric seemed happy about that. The school year is winding down. I got a call from the place I'm going to be working at. The director asked me when I could come down to do a tour of the hospital to familiarize myself with the place before I started. I'm going to visit the 23rd. 5/23/15 I'm back from visiting the hospital. Can't say I like the look of the place, but well, it's a hospital for mentally ill people. I didn't really expect it'd be nice looking. Hospitals and doctors' offices always have this dreary look to them. Even Dr. Wei's building is really creepy to be in. This place is the most "sterile" looking place I've ever been in though. I don't like it. But Moone & Wolfe Corp own most of the privately owned hospitals, research labs, and community centers in this area. Getting connects with them will definitely benefit me in the long run. The director, Dr. Summerfield, is a little off. He doesn't get personal space and his cheeriness seems fake. When I got home, Eric wanted to go on a bike ride with me. We ran into Juan along the trail. He said he was communicating with the ghost of some railroad workers. I asked him what he'd gotten so far. He played back some weird noises on a tape recorder and told me it sounded like "it burns" but all I heard was a dog barking and some airplane noises. I asked him to send me all of what he got later. I don't believe in ghosts, but it's fun listening to that stuff. Eric heard "I'll kill you". That's the thing about those recordings. You can hear just about anything in them, especially if someone else primes you for it. 5/24/15 I've been having fun with the recordings and photos Juan sent me. I've made some edits to up their spookiness and I'm going to submit them to one of the paranormal contests I sometimes submit things to online. The point of the contest is to make something fake look convincing. I got second place in one of those kinds of contests once with something else Juan sent me. Juan says I'm cheating because his stuff is "real". Most of what he sends me is just weird sounds and camera malfunctions. I send him my edits too. He tells me I'm going to get cursed one day from doing that. I asked him once why he keeps sending them to me if he thinks I'm going to get cursed from editing them. He told me because if I do, he can charge me to have the curse removed. Hah. I'd like to see that. He sent me a link to some student horror films. Those were fun to watch. Eric didn't like them. They creeped him out too much. 5/31/15 I start the internship tomorrow. Eric's first day is tomorrow too. There's no way I'm getting any sleep tonight. 6/1/15 First day at the job. I helped with paperwork and followed Dr. Summerfield around all day. We ate lunch together and talked about hospitals. I don't really like this guy. He creeps me out. It might be a generational thing, but the way he talks about hard to treat patients grosses me out. 6/3/15 This guy really pisses me off. I swear he was one step short of calling for extermination of certain parts of the population. I bet he would say something like that if I didn't look so disgusted by his previous remarks. Ugh, how is it a guy like this is in charge of so many hospitals and research facilities? I've thought about quitting, but Moone & Wolfe is a huge company and getting on their bad side could screw me over in the future. It's only two months. I keep telling himself that. I only have to get through two months of dealing with this guy and that'll be the end of it. Eric says he's doing okay at his job. He bought some cotton candy for me after he finished his shift. I kind of ranted about work for a while to him on the way back from his job. I feel bad about it. He's probably already got plenty on his mind. Tomorrow, I think I'll take him out to dinner. He deserves it. He's been through a lot this year. 6/4/15 I'm going to not rant about Dr. Summerfield, for my own mental health. Fuck that guy. I took Eric out for Mexican. That was nice. I know it was a friendly gesture on my part, but it was almost like we were on a date together. I wish I wasn't such a coward. I wanted to tell him. I really did. But I chickened out again. 6/12/15 Today, I was allowed to shadow Dr. Summerfield during a human experiment. Prior to that, he went over the current regulations on human testing. I already know them pretty well, but it's reassuring he went through them with me. I've been questioning his ethics and methods for a while now. It's strange, but I can't clearly remember everything we talked about anymore. Must've been out of it. Between all the driving and the long hours at work, I come home pretty exhausted. Last night, Eric wanted to cuddle with me. We didn't really talk about anything. I held him and watched him breathe. We took a shower together again. He let me wash his hair. Stuff like this makes dealing with all the bullshit earlier in the day worth it. I know we're not together, but...it's almost like we are. I don't mind the ambiguity too much. Because of the way things are between us, I can do things with Eric I can't do with any other male friends. But...I still want more. I don't really care that we're not having sex, though I wish we were. And I'm not ungrateful for all the physical affection he's given me. But...the actions alone aren't enough. I want him to be my boyfriend. On the surface, that wouldn't really change all that much between us, but I really want that. I want to be his friend and the person he comes home to. I want to be the person he looks forward to coming home too. What am I saying? I'm seventeen. I shouldn't really be thinking so seriously about this stuff. Who knows. In two or three years, we both might have completely different personalities and interests. I've never dated anyone before. I shouldn't be thinking about anything long term. Still, a year or two isn't that short of a time period either. I could be happy with that much time. 6/19/15 My head's been killing me all week. I can barely remember anything that happened. Earlier in the week, one of the patients tried to escape. She had to be sedated. I don't know what happened with her. I had to reschedule my appointment with Dr. Wei until the beginning of August. I'm so busy I don't have time for that right now. He offered to see me at an unusual time if I wanted. I told him I could wait it out. 7/7/15 Ugh, I've had a migraine every day. I can't think straight for more than a few minutes. 7/17/15 I helped Dr. Summerfield transfer a lot of old paperwork over to their new, digital system. I can't believe it's 2015 and a company this big that's been in business so long was still primarily using paper records. They've only now started to transfer things over. Jeez. It baffles me how much so many people in older generations are so anti-technology with things that clearly would make their lives easier. I don't get it. While we were doing that, I ended up with Eric's files by coincidence. I don't think he saw me do this, but I stole them after everything was transfered. I was supposed to shred it. I know that's illegal, but I had a legitimate reasons for stealing them. Eric's parents are pieces of shit. Those were Eric's records. He deserved to have them. If I took them and gave them to Eric, that could be one less interaction he has to go through them for between now and when he turns eighteen. I didn't over them too much, but I don't think Eric believed me when I told him that. It was tempting. I almost read over them. I thought if I did, maybe I could help him better. But it didn't sit right with me. Those are his medical records, and I'm not his doctor. No matter how much I want to help him, it's not my place to invade his privacy like that. I only looked for what had his name on it to take back home. Eric didn't seem too happy to see the papers. I think that was mostly because he was worried I read through them. Working with Dr. Summerfield is so draining. All we did today was transfer information into a program, but I'm mentally threw for today. I can't stand that guy. Sometimes, when we're at work, he stands way too close to me. It creeps me out. I don't know if he has no sense of personal space or if he's creeping on me or what. I hate it. There was something else I wanted to talk about, but I can't remember what it was. Something happened around lunch time. Oh well. If it's important, I'm sure it'll come back to me. 7/31/15 It's my last day here, finally. Eric's still got another week at his job. I'm so happy to finally be done with this bullshit. I never want to set foot in this place ever again. I hate the way the building looks, I hate the people who work here, and I hate the drive here. Fuck Paulding, fuck Moone & Wolfe, and fuck Tom Summerfield. Never again. I swear nearly every day I went into work, I had a migraine by lunch time. I rarely ever get migraines, but it was practically every single day this summer. I'm starting to think I was having a reaction to something inside that building. That place did always smell like some kind of strong disinfectant. Honestly, it could have just been being around Dr. Summerfield. To the very last hour, he never learned to not hover right behind me. I keep looking over my shoulder thinking he's going to be right there, breathing down my neck. I hate when people do shit like that. He did that with some of the patients too. Really inappropriate. I didn't get much of a chance to interact personally with many of the patients to get a good feel of how the place was being run from that end. Research-wise, I was very unimpressed. It could be that because of my age and lack of experience, Dr. Summerfield didn't let me see anything really interesting. Most days I was stuck on the same damn hallway, staring at empty, white walls and waiting for five. It can't be like this everywhere, right? I can still hear his stupid, slimy voice saying, "You're a very smart young man, Alex. You have so much natural talent. Why don't you come work for us some day?" That question got dodged every time. The last week was the worst week. For four out of five days, someone was always screaming in the room next to the one we were working in. The voice sounded like it belonged to a young woman, and it was definitely the same woman every time. She wasn't saying anything, at least, not anything I could understand. I asked Dr. Summerfield about that. He told me she had schizophrenia and was probably seeing things again. I didn't say anything at the time, but I didn't believe that. The room next to ours was labeled as a storage closet and the next closet room over was a room that was supposed to not be in use. There shouldn't have been any patients wandering around on that hall either, at any time of the day. Most of the rooms on that hall are either labs, storage rooms, or offices for internal stuff. I wanted to ask him what was really going on, but since he started with a lie, I figured he wouldn't tell me. More than the screaming, what really bothers me is why did it stop today. There was more that bothered me, but I want to forget about it. I'm turning in early tonight. 8/1/15 Eric and I had another talk about school. I asked him if he wanted to ride with me to school in the morning. He said he would. I know this isn't going to lead to anything, but that's more time I get to be alone with Eric every day. This is our final year of high school. I can't believe it. I'm almost done with high school. I'll be going to college in a year. It's too much to think about right now. I don't know what's going to happen between me and Eric then. He said he wanted to stay with me after we graduate, but will he really? I don't know. I want to keep my hopes up, but I'm still worried that might not be the healthiest thing for him. I don't know what to do. I'm going to ask Dr. Wei about that when I see him tomorrow. 8/2/15 I talked about a lot of things with Dr. Wei earlier today. He agreed with me that Eric's attachment to me seems a little unhealthy, but he said Eric would probably be better off staying with me for the time being over staying with his family or being alone. It may be unhealthy, but we can work on getting him to a healthy place without their influence. Hearing him say that made me feel better about the situation. Dr. Wei and I discussed how far off our next appointment together should be. I said I wanted to try three months and see how it goes. We talked about what I was going to do once I started college. I told him I was thinking the rest of my appointments for this school year will probably be my last ones with him, at least for a while. This is so embarrassing. I cried. He hugged me and told me I can always come see him again if I want, and I can call him. I thanked him for everything. I'm really excited about next fall, but...well, I guess the end of my public education will be bittersweet. I've never thought much about this before, because I didn't think it would bother me. Mom's always been there for me too. Once I moved out, I won't be seeing her every day anymore. I know I can still call her and ask her for help, but it won't be the same. I'm going to be eighteen soon. This is just part of being an adult. It's not a big deal, right? I don't know why I'm scared. 8/8/15 I went out to eat with my family and Eric today. Later, while Eric was in the shower, I talked on the phone with Zack. I tried to be really quiet, in case anyone came by. Eric's going to go back home once the school semester starts. I hate it, but it's his decision. I really don't want him being there. Zack asked me if Eric considered getting emancipated, but Eric actually doesn't want to. He says that's too much for him to deal with. He'd rather wait it out until he turns eighteen since that's not that far off from now anyway. Zack brought up something else I didn't really want to talk about. "Have you asked him out yet?" He asked. "No, I haven't." "Have you at least come out to him?" "I keep chickening out." I said. Zack said, "It's not a big deal. We're talking about Eric here. He's not going to care that you're gay." "Yeah, well, have you come out to him yet? You know, you've never dated any guys. You keep everything a secret. Why are you getting on my case?" I raised my voice a little unintentionally. I was really irritated in general, because of Eric wanting to go home, but I didn't want to talk about that either. "Me not dating a guy is a coincidence. I'm bi. I've dated plenty of girls. I just haven't met a guy I wanted to date. It's not a big secret." "Then why haven't you told Eric?" I asked. "Haven't gotten around to it. We don't normally talk about stuff like that. I'm not hiding it. There just hasn't been any reason for me to bring it up yet. If I get a boyfriend, I'll tell him then." I don't know if I believe that. I know Zack has slept with guys before, but he hasn't dated any of them. He's dated girls before, pretty long term. He could be right that it's a coincidence, but he doesn't really go after girls for one-night stands either. He can say what he wants, but I think he does want to hide it. Not that I blame him. What I don't get is why he's pretending he's not, and why he's so concerned with me being in the closet. We live in fucking Georgia. Like I want to deal with that getting around. I already have Asian stamped on my forehead. I don't need gay on there too. Not while I'm living in this piece of shit area. Maybe when I live in Atlanta, it'll be better. Eric noticed I was pissed off when he got out of the shower. We played games for a while, but I dunno. I've been pissed all day. Eric's asleep now. I don't want him to leave. I hate this. 8/17/15 Talking alone with Eric in the mornings and after school has made this all somewhat bearable. The school year's barely started and I can already see Eric's unhappy about everything. Zack's been getting on my nerves lately. I don't know what his deal is. He's really pissing me off. 8/26/15 Zack and I got into an argument earlier. I don't really know what to think about that. I see no reason I should apologize, and I'm not sure if I want one. 8/28/15 Zack's acting like nothing happened whenever Eric's around. When Eric's not, he gives me the silent treatment. So, I've been giving it right back to him. I don't know if I want to be friends with him anymore. 9/2/15 Earlier, Zack apologized for the shit he said the other day. I accepted the apology, but I'm not sure how I really feel about that. Some of the things he said to me were really, really assholish and I don't understand why he did that. It seemed to come out of nowhere. He didn't give me a good explanation for it either. I'm just...so confused. All this because I won't come out when he thinks I should. If and when I do, that is not his call. Even when he apologized, he still said, "But you know, you should really hurry up and come out already. Eric's not going to be around you forever, you know". I'll deal with my relationship issues on my own, thanks. 9/7/15 I've been focusing a lot on Eric, but I think I want to come out to my parents before I move out. I don't know when yet, and I...think they already know? At least, I think my mom knows. But I want to do it at some point. Ugh, it's going to be awkward. I know there won't be any drama over it. My mom and I celebrated gay marriage being legalized. But I know she'll do something embarrassing. I don't want to do it right now, because of Zack. I'm not coming out to anyone right now. Last night, I had a dream about Eric. A really hot dream. I don't have any experience to know how realistic it was, but it felt amazing in the dream. We were on the bus. I don't know why the hell we were on the bus, but we were and because we were in the back seat somehow that made us "protected" from anyone seeing us. Dream logic. Anyway, in the dream, he was flirting with me and one thing led to another and he gave me a blowjob. I like Eric staying over here, but when I woke up this morning, I was a little glad he wasn't here. There was so much. Now that I think about, I haven't masturbated in a while. That might be why. 9/13/15 Eric left an hour ago. We cuddled for a while last night. Eric started it. We were both laying in bed. I was on my laptop and he was on his phone beside me, and it sort of happened. At some point, I kissed him on the cheek. He did it back. We didn't talk much. I fell asleep like that. My laptop was still open in the morning. I had a really nice dream last night. In my dream, we were still in bed together. It was morning in the dream, early morning when the sun would be up in the sky but well before noon. I could hear the birds and crickets outside, and the room smelled like sunshine and freshly cut grass. Everything in the room was an off white color, almost yellow color. It reminded me of the bedroom I had in the house we lived in when I was really little. Eric was dressed in the same colors as everything else in the room. He was sitting up on the bed, looking at me. He held my hand and said, "I love you. I've loved you for a long time." "I love you too." I said. "I wanted to tell you sooner. I'm sorry." "It's okay. That doesn't matter now." He put his forehead against mine and looked directly into my eyes. For a second, I saw stars and bright blue. Eric whispered, "Stay." "Where would I be going?" I asked him. The entire room turned blue and the walls were covered in stars. Eric held his hands together, then opened them. There was a small, blue flower between his palms. "I'm afraid." He said. "Of what?" The flower wilted in his hand, and everything around us was covered in stars. Eric's eyes were the only thing not covered. Instead, the light emptied away. He asked me, "Will you disappear?" "No, why would I?" I asked. He kissed me. "I have to say it again. I love you. Please, don't disappear." "I won't." I said. The stars faded away and everything was that light, warm color again. Eric pulled me down onto the bed. He said, "I've always dreamed of being here with you like this." "So have I." I said, and then I woke up. I know that dream was a lot of wish fulfillment nonsense, but in those hazy minutes before I was fully conscious, I really happy. When I realized I'd been dreaming, all of that was immediately crushed and I was so disappointed that wasn't real. Now that some time has passed, I'm caught between both those feelings. 10/10/15 I've been so busy with studying and college related stuff lately. I can't wait for all of that to be over with. I know being an adult means lots of paperwork, but it all seems so excessive. Like some moron who can pay someone else to do all their paperwork for them came up with this shit out of boredom. Something amusing happened this morning. Eric spent the night. This morning, I woke up before him, as usual, and he was in the middle of some kind of dirty dream. I got to see that expression again. Eric was so embarrassed about it. He changed and wiped himself off in front of me. I doubt he was trying to show off to me or anything. I'm sure it's just that he feels really comfortable around me now. I'm not going to stop him from doing that. I wanted to lick everything off so badly. After he changed, I went to the bathroom to "brush my teeth". There was a lot of "brushing". There was a storm today. We went out so I could get some photos of it. I haven't taken any storm photos in a while. They always come out so beautiful to me. I don't know if that bores Eric when we go out to do stuff like that or not. We talked a lot while we were out. I invited him on a camping trip. He sounded interested. I may have ulterior motives with that. When we're away, I plan on confessing to him. I don't know if that's actually going to happen, but that is the plan. 10/29/15 Zack invited everyone over for a party on Halloween. I don't really want to go, but Eric's going, so I'm going. We haven't argued or anything since that one day, and he's come over several times since then, but I don't know. Things haven't been the same since then. I don't like talking with him alone anymore. 11/1/15 Zack pulled me aside during the party to talk about Eric. I told him I was going to go home if that's all he wanted to talk about. He asked me what my problem was, and I asked him the same thing back. He said, "If you're not going to do it, you should get over him and stop hogging him. There's no way he's going to be with anyone with you hanging all over him. At least push him away a little." "I'll back off if he wants me to, but that's not what he wants. You wouldn't know anything about that. You don't know anything about what we've been through. I'm going home." I told Eric I was leaving. We left together. He asked me what happened when we got back. I told him it was nothing. I think he believed me. 11/3/15 I saw Dr. Wei today. I told him about my plan with Eric. He wished me luck. The session itself was fine. Scheduling my next appointment was the problem. I told him I didn't want to schedule an appointment. I wanted to see how I did on my own, and I'd schedule one when I felt I needed to and update him. He said he'd always be there for me, if I needed him. I told him I'd call him sometime. I thanked him again for everything. When I got home, I cried. A million thoughts came into my head about what I should have said to him before I left. I left too many things unsaid. Since then, I've wanted to call him, but I can't get myself to do it. 11/10/15 I've been really depressed since my last appointment. I thought about calling Dr. Wei and scheduling an appointment, but I can't call him. What's wrong with me? 11/19/15 I have everything packed for the camping trip. We're leaving Monday. I can do this. I wanted to call Dr. Wei and ask him for moral support, but I couldn't get myself to call him. Other than Zack and Noelle, he's the only person who knows I'm gay. I can't call Zack. Everything's weird with him. Noelle's going through a lot right now with her mom. I never got to telling my mom either. He's the only person left, and I can't call him. It's not like I need to stop seeing him. He's close enough I could keep seeing him while I lived in Atlanta. Am I making a mistake? Or am I being too dependent on him? I don't know. I want to talk to him. There's still so many things I need to say to him, and not as a patient to a doctor. I've tried writing an email to him, but I can't get myself to send it. 11/23/15 We're leaving in an hour. I finally called Dr. Wei. I didn't tell him everything I wanted to say. It was a little awkward talking to him like that and so early in the morning. I hope he's not mad at me for that. It's not like I'm his kid. I asked him if he could wish me luck with everything. He did. I didn't want to hang up. He asked me if I wanted to schedule another appointment. I told him no, and said it was good talking to him. That I was fine and everything was great. I wanted him to tell me I was lying, but he only said, "that's wonderful". I cried in the shower for a while. Why can't I ever tell anyone what I want to say? 11/29/15 I just got back. A lot happened. Where do I start? Motels. I'll start there. So, we stayed at two motels, one on the way there and one on the way back, different places. We rented the cheapest rooms we could, which meant sharing a bed. We may have ended up cuddling at the motels. The beds were pretty small, so that helped. The first hotel stay was rough. I was so horny. I knew nothing was going to happen, but we were completely alone, you know? I really, really wanted to ask him, but I couldn't think of a way to ask. And I definitely couldn't on the way back, because of something I'll get into later. When we got to the campground, everything was okay. Wanted to ask Eric when we were in the tent, but Eric was really on edge about sleeping outside and I'm a coward. So, that didn't go anywhere. Then, we had some trouble with some bears and lost all our stuff that wasn't in the SUV. Which sucks, because that was a nice tent, but at least we weren't there when it happened. The last two days we stayed out in the woods, we slept in the SUV at night. The second night, I still couldn't do it, but Eric brought up me talking about suggesting we could try experimenting together and I chickened out on taking that anywhere. I should have. I don't know. I really got the feeling if I hadn't of chickened out, I wouldn't be a virgin anymore. Maybe that's wishful thinking. At least I got to spoon him a lot over the trip. I don't know. Maybe I'm misinterpreting things, but he lets me get really...intimate with him in ways guys don't with other guys. Anyway, I was so embarrassed about that one night I couldn't bring it up again at all. I ended up having to deal with that urge solo in the motel bathroom. I really want to sleep with him. At least once, can't I have that? I wanted to call Dr. Wei to update him about everything, but I stopped myself. He's a professional. I'm sure he doesn't think of me the way I think of him. 12/2/15 I just heard from Noelle that Tamara's friend Allison was found dead. I didn't know the girl very well, but it was really shocking. From what I heard from Noelle, Tamara's really messed up over this. I'm going to the funeral as emotional support for Tamara. 12/7/15 The funeral was very small and quiet. I might be imagining things, but I got the impression that Allison's family wasn't that choked up over her death. They were so distant. I shouldn't judge. People grieve differently. I haven't been to too many funerals in my life. The last one I went to was when I was in elementary school. Seeing Allison laying there was surreal. She looked like she was sleeping, like she could wake up any minute and it was all some strange mistake. Tamara couldn't bare to look at her. She broke down at seeing the casket. Noelle stayed by her side the entire time. During all that, I kept thinking about my father. Mom hasn't heard anything from him in years. I know he lives in another country, but he's never once sent me anything and his letters stopped coming so abruptly. Mom always told me he must have gotten busy with other things and it was too hard to keep up with us. I used to imagine him having his own family when I was younger, and him not really caring about me at all. Now, I wonder. His letters stopped abruptly. Is he alive? I'll likely never know. I don't know anything about him. Eddie's a great guy, and I do think of him as one of my parents, but he's my stepdad. He's not the person I think of as my father. Neither of my parents look like me. I know I look like that man I've never met. When I was young, I used to fantasize about living with him and the kinds of conversations we might have together. The more times I pictured those scenarios, the more they depressed me when I remembered they'd never happen. I'll never get to ask him about what South Korea is like, or what my paternal grandparents are like, and he may not want to have those conversation with me. He may not think about me at all. I've thought about trying to get in contact with him, but I can't bring myself to begin to search, much less reach out to him. Will I spend my whole life like this, covering my own mouth and standing still? 12/16/15 Dr. Summerfield called me earlier asking if I was interested in working for them after I graduated high school. I declined the offer. There's no way in hell I'd ever work with that guy again. 12/25/15 Eric kissed me under the mistletoe. And not only did he kiss me, he french kissed me. I can't believe that happened. Then my mom had to ruin it by taking a photo of it. God, it felt good though. I told Eric not to do that where my parents can see us, and when he apologized for kissing me, I told him it wasn't the kissing that was the problem, it was my parents. Then I realized I told him I was okay with him kissing me, and because I'm a coward, I pretended it was about the mistletoe. I wish he'd done it again. When we went to sleep, I didn't shy away from cuddling with him. Eric's spending the entire break over here. I'm going to try and convince him to stay longer if I can. 12/27/15 Eric and I kissed under the mistletoe again. There was a lot of tongue. I don't want my mom to put up the Christmas decorations. I managed to convince him to not go back home after the break. 1/5/16 I wrote out a list of things I wanted to tell Dr. Wei the next time I called him. I haven't decided on a date for that yet. I don't know if I will. Zack talked to me over the phone about his parents. They're thinking about getting a divorce. I asked him what he thought about that. He said, "I don't really care. They've been sleeping in separate rooms for a year now. I just want it to end already." "Do you think they're really going to go through with it?" I asked. "I don't know. They only got married to begin with because my mom got pregnant in high school and her parents begged him to marry her. I don't think there was ever anything there. They've been keeping up appearances, but now that I'm about to leave for college, I don't see it lasting much longer. They still act like nothing's wrong in public. I hate it." Zack said. "I'm sorry. Hey, um, is that why you've been really on edge lately?" I asked. He hasn't been acting normal lately. I thought it might be stress from that. I was wrong. "What? No, I don't care. Do you really not know?" He asked. "What do you mean?" "Is it not obvious?" He sighed. "Alex, I like Eric." "What?!" I couldn't believe what I heard. "What does...what? What?! Since when?!" "About as long as you. Sorry. He's always all over you. I get jealous when I see you two together. It doesn't matter. I'll be in another state by fall, and you'll have him all to yourself." He said. "If you like him too, why have you been pushing for me to ask him out?" I asked. "Because he likes you. I can tell." "What makes you think that?" "Because it's obvious." Zack said. "I know I can't have him. It drives me crazy when I see him all over you and you don't make a single move. The least you can do is go after him for me. He's going to slip away if you never take that chance. You actually have a chance, you know." "We don't know if he likes guys." I said. "Alex, come on." He said. "If I can't have him, then it has to be you." All this time...I never knew. Zack and Eric...does Eric know? 1/15/16 I sent a short email to Dr. Wei. It wasn't the one I wanted to send. It was too distant and empty. I can't say it all yet, and I don't want to say it in an office. 1/22/16 Eric's parents are being weird again. They're demanding he come over there for the next break. I don't know what they're up to, but I don't want him going over there. 1/29/16 Went out to eat earlier. I am officially an adult today. Well, legally anyway. I don't feel like an adult. I rewrote the email I was planning on sending Dr. Wei about a thousand times today, and I didn't send him anything. 2/5/16 Eric and I went on a long walk earlier. I congratulated him on turning eighteen. Now we're both legally old enough to....be more harshly punished for crimes and buy cancer causing cigarettes? Turning eighteen is really underwhelming. My mom made him a cake. 2/13/16 Eric's going with his family over the break. I've been texting him, but he wouldn't respond to me. I sent an email too and got nothing. I'm sure he's busy and I'm worrying for nothing. 2/16/16 Eric hasn't responded to any texts or emails I've sent him. I don't know what the hell is going on. 2/21/16 Eric hasn't responded to me at all this week. Tomorrow, the break ends and we go back to school. If I don't see him tomorrow, I'm going over there to see what's going on. If I have to involve the police, I will. Something isn't right. I've been so freaked out I may have sent a terror-filled confession. That was stupid of me. I don't know. Maybe that's why he isn't responding now. 2/23/16 Eric's over here right now. Something very strange happened over the break. He has amnesia over that entire time period. Eric told me they did some kind of treatment at a hospital over the break and that's why his memory is off, but I don't buy it. Something's really off here. When I talked to Eric on the phone, he was terrified and now he's telling me this is all the side-effects of some medical procedure. Why would he need a medical procedure that effected his brain like that? I think they gave him a concussion is far more likely. All his accounts have been cleared out too. I bet they got into his shit and flipped out. Eric denies that could be what happened. 2/28/16 Eric went back home today. I wanted him to stay, but he said he needed to go home. I'm so worried. 3/7/16 I sent Dr. Wei an email asking if he had any free time coming up and if he wouldn't mind having lunch with me. He hasn't responded back yet. Eric keeps going back home. I know they're his parents and all, but I don't want him there. I can't wait for summer so I can get him away from this hellhole. 3/12/16 I went to lunch with Dr. Wei. We met up at a quiet little place. I updated him a little on everything that happened since we last talked, but that wasn't why I asked him to come out and meet me. "You have something else on your mind, don't you, Alex?" He said. "Yeah." I said. "There's a lot on my mind. A lot I need to tell you." It took everything in me, but I finally said it all. I told him how I always thought of him as being like a father to me, and how I started to look forward to my sessions when I was in later elementary school because I wanted to see him. He's one of the few Asian people I know. Yeah, he's Chinese and I'm Korean, but there isn't much out here for either of us. I don't have much of anyone else to look to that looks anything like me. I told him so many embarrassing things, like how I used to sometimes fantasize that he was secretly my father and that other man was someone else. He's the real reason I'm planning on going into psychiatric research. I wanted to be connected to him somehow, and help people like he does. I told him I'd been trying to say all that for months now. He laughed and said, "Oh, I can tell. You always hold everything in until it overflows. It's okay. Let it flow out, all of it." I told him I didn't want to be his patient anymore. I wanted to be friends, if he was alright with that. "If you're not going to be my patient anymore, we can be friends. You're eighteen now, right?" "As of last month." I said. "I'd love to be friends, but if we are going to have a non-professional relationship, I won't be able to see you anymore professionally, for ethical reasons." He said. "I know." I held back my tears. "I want this more." He told me he was proud of me. "I've watched you grow up. Now, here you are, a man about to start his life. All the time slipped away so quickly. I'm proud of you. I don't have any children of my own. Seeing the person you've become, and knowing that I had a hand in that...makes me happier than you can understand right now. You'll know that feeling when you're older." "I wouldn't be here right now without you." I said. "There were so many times my mind took me to the darkest places it could, and I didn't think I'd get out of that place. Somehow, while I was kicking and screaming all the way, you lifted me out of there. I could tell you how grateful I am a thousand times and it would never be enough." "You're no different. I'm sure your friend, Eric, feels the same way about you." He said. I forced myself not to cry in public. We weren't talking behind closed doors like we always used to. "Thank for that too." I said. I don't know. Have I really done anything for Eric? I'm worried. 3/28/16 I've been accepted into college. That's one less thing for me to worry over. Eric hasn't gotten any letters back yet from the schools he applied to. Those should be coming soon. 3/31/16 Eric and I got accepted to the same school! 4/10/16 The school year is over in less than two months. Less than two months and I'll be done with high school, with public school. I can't believe it's really almost over. Zack's planning on having a graduation party. Eric and I are supposed to be helping with that at some point. So far we've done...nothing. 4/16/16 Juan invited us over for a sleepover. That should be something. 5/23/16 I thought I had written several entries last and this month. Huh. Looks like something got deleted. I've had problems with this program eating parts of or entire entries every now and then. I'd switch to something else, but I really like this journal. Should've backed up everything somewhere else. I'll try and rewrite what I remember at some point, but honestly, I can't really remember anything all that important happening recently, other than Dr. Summerfield bothering me about that job offer again. Oh well. It was probably several entries of me complaining about not getting in Eric's pants or something. Speaking of which, I've made some progress. I finally got up the courage to ask Eric if he wanted to experiment with me. We made out last night. He seems very receptive to the idea of "experimenting" with me, but maybe I am getting my hopes up. Nothing might come of this. 5/24/16 We progressed a lot further today with the "experimenting". This morning, Eric wanted to kiss as soon as he got up. He was more passionate about it this time. We made out again after lunch. He felt me up over the front of my pants. I did it back. We kissed in the shower too. The water got cold before anything really went further than that. After the shower, we cuddled for a while. I said. "We've been kissing a lot today." He was laying on my chest then. Eric said, "Should we stop?" "Do you want to stop?" I asked. "Do you?" "No...I think...I think I like it." I said. I didn't want to give him a clear answer. Eric got in between my legs and hovered over me. "I do too." We ended up making out again. When I went to the bathroom earlier, I noticed I have a hickey. That's going to be awkward to explain. I hope this means he's at least into it, if he's not into me specifically. If he likes guys, I might stand a chance at some point. Talked to Zack today. He won't say it, but he's clearly depressed about everyone going off to different schools. Something I've been wondering/worrying about...does he still like Eric? He seemed like he gave up on Eric already, but I wonder if I won't be the only person to confess after the party. I'll have other chances if I can't do it after the party. This will probably be his last in person chance to do it for a long time. Haha, this is selfish but I really don't want him to. What if Eric likes Zack? What am I saying? If he likes Zack, then he likes Zack. There's nothing I can do about that. I'll have to accept that. But I really don't want him to. I know that's selfish. 5/27/16 We've been making out a lot over the last few days. Last night, we made out naked. I wanted to go further, but I was too chicken to ask him. Yesterday, Mom noticed the hickey. I told her Eric did that. She asked if we were dating. I told her not yet. 6/1/16 Last night, I had a dream about that reaper again. He walked with me through the woods and told me another time I could cross with him was coming. I told him in the dream I definitely didn't want to die. He told me to be strong and keep my mind focused. I don't know how that's supposed to help, or what he was warning me about. Probably nothing. It's just a dream. 6/2/16 We went further today. While we were making out, Eric started to give me a blowjob, but we got interrupted. I don't think he'd been doing anything for more than maybe thirty seconds? Ugh. Zack wanted to video chat with us about the party. We ended up talking for about two hours. The whole time, I was agitated and flustered. I don't know if he noticed. After the chat, my mom told me it was time for dinner. That killed my mood entirely. When dinner was over, I was too nervous to do anything like that with Eric. I don't know how much more playing pretend I can take. I'm going to confess to him after the party. That's when I'm going to do it. No more changing the dates, no chickening out. I'm doing this. 6/3/16 The party's Sunday, but I don't want to wait anymore. I'm confessing tomorrow night. I'm so nervous. We messed around again earlier. I can't stand it. I don't want this anymore. I don't want to pretend I'm "curious". I want him, and I want to know if he wants this too. I had a dream about that guy again. He told me to look for red. I don't know what that's supposed to mean. I can't believe I'm really being so superstitious, but I've been avoiding red all day. Nothing's happened. Juan must never know of this. 6/4/16 I can't believe I'm going this. I'm really going to do this. I'm so nervous. 6/5/16 It's official. We're dating, and last night...We might be moving fast, but I don't care. I don't regret anything I did last night. My only regret is that I didn't do this sooner. I should have confessed a long time ago. It's so ridiculous. The way we've been acting with each other, it feels like we've been going through this over and over, starting back at square one without ever really getting anywhere. No more. I'm not going back to that, and I'm never hiding these feelings ever again. /////////////////////////////////////////// ///if my parents find this i may be dead. i love you both. i'm sorry i didn't call you. i couldn't get through. i love you so much. eric if you make it through this and see this i love you too. i love you more than you'll ever know.]]]