It all started with a Nook, one of those fancy electronic readers from Barnes & Noble. As a candid over-achiever and book-lover, I had eagerly joined my school’s Book Club. I was surprised when our school librarian, and the leader of the club, announced that rather than buy the individual books, the school had allotted money for the Nooks so that the Book Club members could borrow them. My whole life I’d never been tech savvy; I don’t have a smartphone, I’ve never owned anything that was made by Apple, and I don’t have my own computer. To me, the idea of being able to hold a piece of technology of that caliber in my hands and read off of it sounded phenomenal.

That is, until I got home.

Already anticipating the books I’d get to read, I told my parents about the Nooks, only to feel my heart drop when they promptly refused to allow me to borrow one. “Why?” I’d demanded, feeling cheated of a good time for no particular reason. “You might break it,” they’d answered. I wanted to tell them I wouldn’t, to yell and scream and throw a fit like my younger sister would, but I knew that it would do no good. The truth is, I could have broken it, it was possible, and if I did, then my parents would be left to pick up the pieces and pay for it. So instead of making a scene, I nodded my head, said it didn’t matter, and went upstairs to my room to cry.

Crying over something so trivial was irrational, but I’m a teenager, rationality isn’t a part of my job description. It wasn’t just the Nook that I was upset over, it was more than that. My parents’ refusal made me feel untrustable, like I was making all the wrong choices. According to them, I didn’t think things through. As much as I wanted them to be wrong, the number one rule of being a teenager is: You’re parents are always right, no matter what.

Plagued by my thoughts, I wondered where that left me, the untrustable one. Were all my decisions doomed to being wrong? Should I just accept it and move on, not bothering to fight it? My parents love me, I’m sure of it (they have put up with me for this long) and I know they only want the best for me, but it still hurts to think that I don’t have their complete trust. Sure, they trust that I know better than to do drugs or rob banks, but when it comes down to the things I do want to do, it’s a different story.

Like so many others, I want to be free. I want to break away and be my own person and as much as I want to believe I am, I’m not ready. So here I am, impatiently awaiting the day I no longer have to listen to my “overprotective” parents. Waiting for the day when I am no longer naïve, when I can finally spread my wings. Until that day, I have to trust that I am untrustable. Yet, despite all else, a desperate voice buried deep inside of my cries out, begging, pleading, “Trust me, please.”