Sometimes I feel like I grew up too fast. But I had no choice but to.

I was expected to walk myself to and from school when all my friends still had their parents send and pick them up from school. I was expected to cook, clean and take care of myself because my parents couldn’t.

After my parents got divorced, I moved out with my mom. She managed to bring my grandparents to America and they started to live with us. I also lived in an apartment with my then pregnant aunt and my mom’s brother, my uncle. 

By the time I was in middle school, my mom was never home and my grandparents were busy with my newborn baby cousin. I’m not exactly sure when, but on one of my birthdays in my old apartment, I ran home excitedly after a long day of school imagining what surprises I might go home to. Only when I came home, the house was empty. Not a trace of my mom was present. That day was the first day I truly felt alone and unloved.

Around 8PM that night I was sitting on the dining room table sulking when my uncle came home holding a cake in his hands. My face instantly lit up thinking that the cake was something my mom had bought for me until I heard the news my uncle had for me.

“Your mom isn’t coming home today so she asked me to get you this cake.” 

“Why not?” I asked.

“She’s busy with work.” He replied.

I peered down at the red colored layer of jelly at the top of the cake and looked back up at my uncle.

“What flavor of cake is this?” I asked.

“It’s a raspberry cheesecake.” He replied.

I didn’t even like raspberries. As a matter of fact, I hated raspberries. Even more so then.

My uncle placed my cake onto the kitchen table and went back into his room. I sat in the kitchen eating what tasted like the worst cake I’ve ever had in my life with tears stinging my eyes and streaming down my face.

After that day, I lost hope in my mom, I put my everything into my friendships hoping to feel familial warmth from them instead of my family. But even that was hard. No matter how much effort and time I put into my friendships, my investments were never returned. From my 6th grade up until the beginning of 8th grade, I never truly had friends that I could call family. Everyone already had their own person, and it didn’t help that I was a chubby, loud and aggressive girl. I would probably be one of the kids that would never be picked for a team in gym class in 2000s high school movies.

But things changed after 8th grade, I lost weight, talked less and listened more. And what do you know, it helped. I gained friends and even a boy I liked (even though it was very much unrequited). Nonetheless, I felt happier–less lonely. That’s what I told myself. I surrounded myself with so many people so I wouldn’t feel alone, but all that did was isolate me even more.

Around this time, I became friends with one of my best friends, his name was Ohi. We started off as acquaintances, meeting through mutual friends. He had no idea I went to the same school as him and I had no idea he was my upperclassmen. But that was the exact realization that turned us into friends. 

Our friendship grew, I told him about my family and my personal struggles and goals. He told me about his friends, his crushes and any drama that he knew about/ was involved in. He was the familial bond that I looked for in my friends.