This isn't how I thought my life would be. Growing up, I was promised I could be anything I wanted to be. I believed Prince Charming would eventually come and sweep me off my feet. I believed in the power of love and thought divorce was something that happened solely in books snd television. I even thought I was going to have my older sister beside me throughout my life, but along with Prince Charming and Santa Clause, she was also taken away from me. 767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0V9Nb4Y6d9
All of these childish beliefs were nonsense. Why would you tell your kid all these nice things when really you're setting them up for failure? Maybe it was just me. Other people seemed to have this 'life' thing down. These kids would laugh and smile everyday, while I felt robbed. 767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ9UcofyyiM
Or maybe, I grew up too fast. 767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡg19vZf0KCC
Perhaps, I should have been born decades earlier. Where there was hardly any violence, divorce was treated like a curse word, and the world didn't seem like it could end any moment now. Or, in a long shot, born in a fairy-tale, where there invariably is a happy ending. 767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXeQRXwlTyT
I'm the only one I know who thinks this way. I wish I didn't because everyone else thinks I'm a headcase. However I do have one friend who accepts me for being mentally strange. And she's not my therapist, either. 767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOTTVJ9OirY
In class, on our first day in college, I was joking with Jess, my only friend, but I think it came out way too loud—767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlGkA6Rk9ad
"I'd like to thank Google, Wikipedia, Red Bull, Vodka, and whoever invented copy and paste, for if it weren't for them, I'd never have passed high school and wouldn't be where I am now," I exclaimed to the four people left in class. 767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwO7k05a4Ru
They all looked at me like I was a nut-job. I think one person laughed. Oh yes, of course it was Jessica. We were the only students who came to the Creative Writing 101 class. Apparently, we didn't get the memo that all the freshmen were meeting somewhere off campus at 1:00pm. Already starting off as a loser this year, but that was merely the cherry on my cake today. 767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0Sg3UBqqfh
"I don't get it. Everyone says college is the best time of your life. So far it's been the most stressful thing ever. And it's only the first day!" I said in a mild yell to not disrupt the other students who looked like they had this whole college thing down. Looking at their futures with a big smile. I wanted to slap them. 767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVEWT39HaDp
"Oh don't be so dramatic Alexis. If you just do what I do you'll be fine," Jessica said in her narcissistic way. Then came the inevitable, "Are you going to that thing tonight?"767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ1D5JvqKt7
I knew what she was talking about and there was no way in hell I was going. I can't stand any kind of social situation. My anxiety always gets the best of me and I start to lose my shit. 767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQwZ3Ys4eoM
"That lame excuse for a party for freshmen? I don't think so," I replied. She was referring to the freshman meet & greet party the school held so some freshmen don't feel alone. 767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJHI05AIctB
I was content with being alone. 767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6UxwHb1Fqg
I've felt alone most of my life.767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4tw7xtmJDT
Ever since... 767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZQ8FUm85TC
"—Oh come on Alexis, you realize nobody is going to talk to you this year, let alone, know who you are if you don't participate in these things."767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDBoKhGLZqK
She was right. She was always right—according to her. Plus I had told myself I was going to try to do things differently this year. I wasn't going to be the huge nerd I was back in high school. No way was I going back to that. So if that meant going to nerdy meet 'n' greets, so be it. I gave Jess a "maybe," so she left my desk with a snarl that unknowingly had shown her snaggletooth she was insecure about. I sunk in my chair and laughed in silence behind the frustrated frown I'd had all day. She then gave me the 'you better go' look once class was over. 767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJNf5Mkq4OE
I mimicked her voice like a child without a well-developed enough brain to come up with a witty comeback. That was fine with me. I planned on making friends one way or another way this year—with or without a lame school-run party. How? I wasn't quite sure yet. Get back to me on that. 767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7904AnTMpu
Jessica had been my best friend since our freshman year of high school, even though we were sort of in a rough patch right now. We had both gotten full-rides to the school of our dreams. Back in high school, we were both new to the school of Lake Travis, which on the outside looked more like a 4-Star hotel. We had both joined the swim team and became friends after a tiny mishap between us. 767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRmcZCrbKJu
The high school was swarming with rich kids with nothing better to do than drive their brand-new Range Rovers or Cadillac SUV's. All of them complete with massive, shiny rims and unnecessarily loud sound systems—courtesy of their loving parents. 767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6vc474T86W
I'm not saying my family and I weren't rich or dirt poor. Far from it. I mean, we did have a nice house and lived in a gorgeous neighborhood. Plus I was enrolled at a mansion they had called a high school. I guess you could say, I had fit right in with these kids, except I didn't get a nice, expensive car on my sweet sixteen. 767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡetBNXeJS2i
On my eighteenth birthday I had received a used pick-up truck. It was a tad-bit beaten up but I believed it had given it personality. Still, it had a maroon paint job and everything had worked fine. After the eight weeks it had taken me to learn to drive a stick, I loved it. 767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCgsrfcpb4m
I know eight weeks is a long time to learn how to drive a stick. I just wasn't able to figure it out. I mean, I could drive it once it was in gear, but getting it there from idle was like battling a dragon solely with a stick. However, the day had come when I had done it: It shifted into first and I got so excited I forgot to keep shifting, so I had to pull the truck over for the thousandth time. It was dumb, I know, but my dad and I were super excited I had done it finally after so many tries. I'm a great driver now. 767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhqcwL5juoh
Now that I had a truck I drove it everywhere, including a few miles to downtown Austin, TX from my hometown of Lakeway. Austin is home to the University of Texas, my dream school, where I had received a scholarship for a two-year ride from swimming. I am an excellent swimmer. I always have been ever since I was four and first stepped foot in a pool. 767Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6qrrGO4p1x
Well, my uncle, Todd, had accidentally knocked me in when my sister and I stayed at him and my auntie's house. That was also the year everything had changed...
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