“Anderson? You there, bro?” i said, tapping my friend on the shoulder. There he was, not listening again.

“Huh? Oh, right. Yeah, i’m here. Sorry i’m just spacing out,” he replied with droopy eyes and a weary smile. He probably didn’t get any sleep last night due to his parents screaming at the top of their lungs. Not many people knew about Anderson’s family dysfunctions, i was one of the only people who knew. He told me everything. I would never have to worry about any of his secrets being kept from me. I smiled at him and playfully punched him in the shoulder.

“Dude you can’t space out so much. I know it’s hard but we’ve gotta get this project done. It’s due tomorrow,” my smile remained but my words were serious. We were working on a collage of paper for art class. We chose our collage to be the KU symbol with little red, blue, white, and yellow pieces of paper glued in the shape of a jayhawk.

“Okay, I’m sorry. I’ve been thinking too much I guess,” his weary smile wavered and turned into a frown, his brow furrowed.

“What have you been thinking about, mister?” i asked him quizzically, going an octave higher on each word and making a silly face at him.

“Well besides the never ending scream-fest at my house and art, i’ve been thinking a lot about you,” his smile was back and more mischievous than ever. I rolled my eyes and sighed. He always found a way to make things less awkward. Anderson was a pretty popular guy, and very good looking. He was just above average in height, with soft features and almost a kind of babyface, as some might call it. His arms were muscled slightly and he had long, lean legs. He had thin, pink lips and dark brown eyes that almost looked black but also changed colors frequently. His face was pale and he had thick, black hair that fell onto the top of his eyebrows. In the summer he showed a spray of freckles across the bridge of his nose and cheeks, but in the most attractive way possible.

“Oh whatever,” i laughed “You think about me about as much as i think about scary movies,” i was terrified of anything that had to do with gore of any kind, ghosts, demons...you name something scary and i’m probably scared of it. I guess you could call me kind of girly, that or a wimp.

“I really was thinking about you this morning when i woke up. My parents were at it again and they started swinging at Danny when he tried to talk to them. I just wished that you were there, lovingly wiping the tears from my beautiful eyes,” he started out serious but gradually started laughing about it. Lovingly wiping the tears from his beautiful eyes? No. That wasn’t him at all. He wasn’t much for romance or sappy sentiments even though deep down he was too sensitive for himself to admit. Oh and by the way, Danny is his little 14 year old brother. He’s pretty cool, we like joking with him.

I asked how Danny was doing and Anderson said he was doing fine, he’s just got a little bruise under his left eye. Even though Andy was 17, he was afraid to interfere when his parents started swinging at his other siblings. He had his younger brother and his older sister, who was 23 and a newlywed. Bailey was her name, and she was extremely pretty. I always envied his sister for being so beautiful.

We finally got back to work and finished the project within the next hour. About the only thing Anderson was truly passionate about was art, that and cheetos but i don’t think that counts as much. He tried desperately to get his landscape paintings to be in the local art museum and art shows but it seemed that no one wanted them. It upset him something terrible. He talked about art like it was the most important thing in the world and no one could live without it. He was a creative person, and it was fun to see the kinds of things that he could put onto a canvas.

Anderson stayed for supper and even spent the night. It wasn’t weird when he stayed over because we didn’t have romantic feelings for eachother. His parents didn’t care when he came home, just as long as he was there for a little while so the state wouldn’t get mad at the parents for not doing their job right. Child Services was called in once when the neighbors heard screaming from a little boy, Danny, but that was when he was 4 and he accidently stepped on a rusty nail. Back to spending the night, my parents didn’t care because they knew his family situation and they even considered him to be one of the family. He just had to sleep on the floor.

I have quite a few older brothers. First there was Jerace (23), then Mippin (21), then Destery (19), then Haylen (18), then there was Mason, who was 17 years old and my twin. I know, some of them have weird names like Mippin and Jerace. My parents didn’t particularly care for normal names like Sarah or Tommy or Amy. They had to have unique names. You can often find my brothers complaining about it. Jerace’s full name is Jerace SieBecker Didier Kole. We’re French. Anyway, i personally like my name. My name is Juliet Missy Mae Kole. I hear a lot of jokes about Romeo and Juliet but i don’t really mind. I have quite an obsession with that story, actually.

I guess now would be the time to tell you why i’m so afraid of horror movies, scary pictures, and why i daydream so much. If you think Anderson daydreams a lot, you’ve never seen me in school. I have a severe anxiety disorder and i used to periodically have to stay in a mental hospital for it. I take medication now. Anxiety affected my life more than i thought it ever would and i’ve hated it. For starters, i can’t go see horror movies with my other teenage friends on Saturday nights. Also, i’m terrified of thunder and lightning scares the daylights outta me. I also see and hear things that not many people do. Okay, don’t get freaked out, but i’m gonna tell you a really big secret that only my brothers, my parents, and Anderson know about. I was once diagnosed as a schizophrenic but since i have more control over myself then a person with schizophrenia usually does, they announced that it was just a sever case of anxiety. Right, just a sever case of anxiety. I guess I should be thankful that i’m not totally coo-coo in the nogging. I just wish I could be relatively normal. When i complain about it, Anderson tells me all about how “Normal’s not enough,” and I should atleast be glad i’m not dead. I don’t “see” things as much as i used to. My medication is helping a lot.

I hope you atleast know a little bit about Anderson and I now. I’m sorry that i’m moving this story along a such a slow pace, but it’s a lot to take in. This is mainly about our friendship and what we’ve gone through. I promise there’s a lot more to this than just jayhawk collages and brothers with weird names. Moving on.

I think I’m gonna turn in for the night. I’m dead tired from all that nasty schoolwork. Learning, bleh. Well, goodnight. Sleep tight and don’t let the bedbugs bite...or do, whichever one you please.

***********************************************************************************************

Well good morning you lovely person, you. I love waking up to see your beautiful face every morning. Oh, sorry, I forgot that this is my journal and that I’m writing to myself. Ha! Sorry, that was weird. Moving on. I woke up to the smell of bacon. Looking beside me, i saw that Anderson was staring straight at me with wide eyes and a wide grin. Everytime my mom makes bacon, we fight over the first pieces. I don’t know why we fight over them, we just do. We both get up, rushing to be the first person downstairs. As I’m running ahead of him, I accidently slap him in the face and i hear a shocked groan as he falls to the ground.

“Loser!” I yell at him as I’m just to the top of the staircase. I wait a few seconds for him to come running out but he doesn’t. I start to get concerned and I take a few steps backward. I hear him making a whimper noise from my room and i turn around completely, now running in the opposite direction.

“Anderson...are you okay? I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you,” i walk slowly towards him, bending over to be at his side. He’s covering his face with his hands. He snorts. I look at him quizzically and remove his hands to find him laughing. He pushes me on the bed and runs out the door, yelling “Boo Ya!” as he goes. I sigh and get up, rolling my eyes and smiling.

When I get downstairs, I see that Anderson has an evil look on his face and 6 strips of bacon hanging from his mouth. “Jerk,” I mutter and reach for the orange juice. My mom chuckles and sighs.

“You crazy kids,” she says with a smile.

“Crazy? I was crazy once! They locked me up in a ward filled with rats. Ugh, rats. They drive me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once! They locked me up in a ward filled with rats. Ugh, rats. They drive me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once! They locked me up in a ward filled with rats. Ugh, rats. They drive me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once!” I put my hand over his mouth before he continued. He had gotten that from a friend at school, Karli Parks. She was always saying weird stuff. She must be crazy or something, and people say I’m the weird one. Pshh pish posh. I’m about as normal as a homeless man in a speedo...except I’m not a man, and I don’t own a speedo. Oh, and I’m also not homeless. That’s not an insult to homeless people, though. I like to volunteer at the local homeless shelter with my friends. The people there are awfully nice. There’s just this one man named Lubert who has anger issues and absolutely hates all kids. Karli once tried to say hi to him and he threw a cupcake at her face then said “Go away AHAHAHAHDLHALIHSDFPOAYISHD” she’s okay though, don’t worry.

I know about the only friends I’ve talked about so far are Karli and Anderson, but i have way more friends than that. I’ll show you when I get to school.

“You guys better hurry. You’re gonna be late,” my mamacita says, rudely intruding my thinking quarters (interrupting my thoughts). We quickly snarf down cinnamon pancakes, bacon, and orange juice and race upstairs to get ready for school. Anderson goes into the guest room to change while I pick out my outfit for the day. I pick out my favorite shirt and quickly change into it. It’s a black shirt that says “I <3 unicorns” and on the back it says “Shun the Non Believers. Shunnnnnn.” After my beautiful outfit of light blue jeans, my favorite unicorn shirt, my purple vans, and my zip up hoodie is on, I walk out in the hall to find Anderson dressed in his fancy apparel. Well, not really fancy but whatever. He’s wearing black skinny jeans and a plaid button up shirt with his grey vans. I love having a best friend with good fashion sense. It’s just so wonderful. Sorry, I’m being weird again. Once again, moving on.

We walk into the doors of hell to see that everything is exactly the same as it was yesterday. Jayden, the school nasty, walks by Anderson and winks at him. I don't like that girl. She's always acting like she's better than everyone else. That nasty little woman. Andy chuckles at the expression marked on my face. My intense disliking for this girl is not changing anytime soon and he knows it.

We have different first hours, so I hug him at his locker and head to class. Math...oh the joys. My math teacher and i don't get along very well. I mean, somedays we'll get along perfectly fine but on other days, he turns into a monster of sadisticness. Actually, it's probably my fault for talking but he should lighten up a bit more. Surprisingly Math goes along pretty fast. It was boring so I really don't have anything interesting to tell you about. I hurry to my next class, Gym. I'm feeling a lot more excited because I have a lot of friends in this class. After I change into my gym clothes, Anderson comes up and pokes me in the back. I was about to say hi until Karli and Emma started pulling on me.


"You lovebirds can talk later," Karli smirks, "we'll take care of her, don't worry!" We both roll our eyes at them and they pull me away talk about their most recent gossip. So apparently Tom told Jenny that he liked Lilly but Lilly likes Chase who likes Zoey who likes Chris who likes Kathy who likes Jesse who likes Alexis who likes Tom. Ugh. I don't understand high school.