If I'm Good For Anything - K.B.F. (popular e readers .txt) 📗

All characters, and events, appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblence to real persons,living or dead,is purely coincidental.

Introduction
This is a story of misfortune. A story of a woman who began, and ended her life with a series of bad choices. A story filled with lost love, anger, betrayal, and violence. A story of romance, inspiration, and faith. You will be surprised to find, no happy endings, no perfect conclusions, or Cinderella morals, because this is a tale of reality. When you are lost, and alone you can find yourself in me. My story is life.


Chapter one
I have become the woman on the beach with the soiled and tangled hair, staring out into this ever changing sky, and letting others take on the task of questioning my existence. I have become the woman on the crowded street that your children veer away from. I have become the icon of the lonely, the face of the needy, and the spokesperson for the insane. I wasn’t always this way, at least not on the outside. I was never wealthy, wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I was brought up in the bible belt. A place of right and wrong, do’s and don’ts. In my home town happiness was an illusion, something to put on like a play or a shirt. If you weren’t interested in what others thought you were crazy, and if you were crazy you were better off dead.
It was always my dream to travel the world, to someday escape. I found my temporary relief in reading. I read every book I could get my hands on. When I had run out of all the books in the children’s section, I moved on to the adult’s. Sometimes I would sit right down in the floor, become so enthralled my neck would begin to ache, looking up only to find that night had fallen. One evening after I had found that I was out of books I began to stroll the racks at local drug stores. It was there I found books that were deemed “unacceptable” by the few, but powerful, old hags that ran that town. I then learned the meaning of censorship. I didn’t like it.
Disregard of rules and opinions of others became somewhat of a theme in my life. I grew from a rowdy, rebellious pre-teen, to an eerily silent and distant teenager. My best friends medicine cabinet became a treasure box. What began as a weekend pass time became a daily indulgence, a need. Everyone knew about the drugs, no one seemed to mind. Everyone except my parents. My life became a web of lies. Everything from where I was going and who I was spending my time with was a story. Soon enough I was losing track of where one lie started and the truth began. All I cared about was the escape. I felt as if the world had failed me. No one understood my feelings. I could not shake the ever impending numbness that filled my awkward body, until the high kicked in.
At night I would lay in bed for hours praying to the God I claimed to deny. When the first hint of sleep washed over me, and my eyes began to close shut, I prayed to never wake up.
One morning, I opened my eyes to find my mother standing over me. My head was spinning. I was lying in the kitchen and the house was trashed.
“What did you take!” my mother was screaming. The truth was out. As my father pushed me to the toilet I heard her calling 911. I felt sick, and I didn’t care. Nothing mattered and no one understood. My nose was bleeding. I began to chuckle.
By the time the ambulance and police arrived, I was laughing hysterically. I hated my mother for not loving me enough. I hated my father for being gone. Most of all I hated myself, for not being smart enough, pretty enough, for living.
As they cuffed me, I looked across the lawn at all the flashing lights. It was beautiful. The wind blew my hair, and I couldn’t have dreamed up a more perfect moment.
Just look at that idiot sitting there. The woman asked me another question.
“I’m fine.” I repeated for what felt like the hundredth time.
“Do you like school?” she continued.
“Look woman, I don’t know what kind of dumb question that is…..what kid likes school?” I rolled my eyes.
She began to drone on again. If I didn’t want to die before, this wasn’t helping. After a few more unsuccessful attempts to interrogate me, the nurses said I could go.
We sat in the car in silence.
“Sit up!” my mother shouted. “I’ve had enough of this, there is nothing wrong with you.”
For the first time in a long time, I cried. The waitress was at our window with the food. I wiped my tears, and mustard up the most hateful glare I could.
“You will never know.” I replied simply.
The car ride was an awkward one. When we finally made it home she tried again.
“Do you think you need the medicine?” she asked. No response.
“Does it feel good to speak with someone?” Nothing.
I thought I might have seen a tear trickle out from behind her sunglasses as she opened the car door. Doubtful.
Soon enough talk of the incident echoed through the hallways of the small town high school. I had quit trying in most of my classes but continued to go. Life had become somewhat of a routine. I needed something, or someone. A girl like me couldn’t walk around feeling this kind of empty for long.
Two days after my fifteenth birthday I met a boy by the name of Mason. I began to think about him during class, and wondered if he ever did the same. He wasn’t the least bit attractive, but he was older. Three years older to be exact, and a senior. Most importantly of all, he could drive. I knew how their minds worked. I mastered at an early age the art of young men’s desires. A pair of tight jeans, two phone calls later, and he promised me a ride in his new convertible. He told me that he was the richest guy in school, because his dad owned a car lot in the center of town. I was always a sucker for shiny things. When he gave me a necklace at the beginning of the night I hardly noticed the six pack sitting in his backseat. When he told me I was beautiful four hours, and six beers, later I hardly noticed him leading me down the hallway to his bed.
That’s how it happened. The first time I had sex. There was no moonlight, or whispers of sweet nothings. There was sloppy whiskey kisses, and tears. There are some small details I have failed to mention. They are the ones I have ignored, and denied for some time. They include bruised wrist, and a black eye. When I replay it in my memory I will forever hear the laughter of the other boys in the background, and the muffled screams of my best friend down the hall. Although I never asked her, I suppose it was her first time too.
That is how I envisioned love at the age of fifteen; unwanted thrust, and fine-looking jewelry. It wasn’t until I met Clay that I realized the truth. Love, and sex are not the same thing.


Chapter two
The thought of Clay causes my whole body to shiver. Blinking away the memory, I pick up another shell and toss it into the waves. My stomach is rumbling, the wind is cold, but there is nothing I want to do more than sit in the sand and watch the sun rise. It won’t be long before the beach will fill with chairs, runners, and the laughter of children. In the short time before day break, I feel as if I own the beach, and the waves are dancing just for me.
I want to share this bliss with someone, anyone. But just as always, as quickly as my weak heart can skip a beat, my guts wrench and I remember the feeling of heartache. I sigh and turn away from the sea, as if she knows the hollow sadness that reflects in my eyes.
I was the type of girl who spent a lot of time dreaming. Every waking hour to be exact, was dedicated to imagining what life could be. I fantasized about skylines in the North, and sparkling shores to the West. I imagined a life as a writer in a loft, or a CEO in a pent house. Mostly, I dreamed of being different than everyone in the corn crop worm hole of a town where I lived. I didn’t want to be the next homecoming queen, or debutant. I wanted to be free of insignificant social hierarchies, and Middle-Tennessee State fairs. Some believe the constant want for more is defined by the term greedy. I say it depends on what your wishing for.
I will never forget the look on my Dad’s face when clay walked through the door. We hadn’t lived in Georgia long when I decided I was tired of being alone. He was wearing black from head to toe.
“I’ll be fine,” I reassured my father from the kitchen and headed out the door.
When we got to the theatre, he put his arms around me. It was cold. We stepped up to the ticket booth and he seemed a little unsure of himself. There was a lot of people in line, and I was embarrassed. He was frozen.
“Two tickets please,” I asked, and shoved a twenty under the glass.
We hung out several more times before he took me to meet his friends. I always paid.
There was one friend in particular