Joel heard about Gran dying and called to tell me how sorry he was. He really gave me a lot of strength and offered to come over tomorrow after the funeral. I’m so glad he’s coming. I’m going to need him. know I’m alive. Then he pushed me around to the back of the clump of bushes and kissed me. It was totally humiliating and disgusting. He pushed his tongue into my mouth and he just kept rolling it around until I was crying and gagging. Then he said that all I needed was a good fuck and that I’d better not tell anyone or he’d come back and really talk things over with me.
I was so frightened I ran to Mr. ______’s law office and asked him to drive me home. He and Mom thought I was sick and she put me to bed. I am sick. Even now I can’t stop throwing up and I can’t concentrate. What am I going to do? What am I going to do? I can’t tell Mom, after Gran and Gramps this would be the last straw. Oh, what am I going to do!
A car just drove by with its lights flashing and the horn blaring and the whole family ran outside to see what was going on, except me. I don’t care anymore.
This morning at breakfast I told the family that I was really being pushed again by the kids. Dad offered to go and talk to some of the parents, but I begged him not to because it would just make things worse. I even told Dad to lock his car because someone threatened to plant marijuana in it. Of course, I had to warn Tim and Alex again, but nothing helps. I feel like we’re under siege and no one else seems to be taking it very seriously. Dad really thinks the kids are just putting me on and that they wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. I couldn’t tell him what happened yesterday, so I guess I’ll just have to let him go on thinking that everything is really okay.
Sweet Mom drove me to the university this afternoon to see Joel. She said she had to pick some things up at Dad’s office, but I know she was just being thoughtful. She’s really very nice.
After I talked with Joel for a while, I don’t know why I did it, but I asked him to walk with me and with a completely disintegrated heart, I told him the partial truth. I didn’t mean to tell him, but now I guess I’m glad I did. His reaction was just like I always knew it would be. He said that he really cared about me and that he was sure I could handle it because I was basically a good and strong person. Maybe he just said that because he’s going home now that the university renovation is over, but he gave me the gold watch his father had given him and I gave him Gran’s ring. It was awful. And now I feel like the grayness in all the gray days in the world.
Today our area was a nut house with everyone running around preparing for tonight’s annual “School Is Out” bash. None of the grass gang paid the least attention to me and I am glad. Maybe they’ve got another project. It’s strange that a big high school like this can be divided into two completely different worlds which seem to know nothing about each other. Or are there many worlds? Is the school actually like a minor galaxy, with a little world for each minority group and one for the poor kids and one for the privileged dopers and one for the dopers who come from not so wealthy backgrounds? All of us being completely unaware of the other worlds until a person tries to step from one sphere to the other. Is that the sin? Or is the real problem in trying to get back to the original globe? Surely all kids who have experimented with drugs don’t have this problem, or do they? I guess I shall find out in the future, at least I can try. Chris was lucky, her folks just moved to a town where no one knew her.
P.S. I saw three of the square kids and they asked me if I were going to the bash and everything. Maybe the ice is breaking. I hope, I hope.
I didn’t wake up until 11:30 and I feel so wonderful I could burst. The birds are chirping outside my window. It’s summer, dear friend, and I’m alive and well and happy in my own dear bed. Hooray for me!!!! I think I’m going to go to summer school and take some extra courses. Then maybe next summer I can take some summer classes on the university campus. Won’t that be fun!
Imagine the first day of July. I wish Joel were here to see how lovely everything is. He writes very lonely letters already. His mother sounds sweet, but apparently she isn’t very intellectual and he longs to have someone to talk to like my mother and father who are very stimulating. He made me promise to enjoy and appreciate them enough for both of us. I stopped taking piano lessons many months ago and I started again today. My teacher gave me an incredibly difficult concerto, but I guess I’ll eventually catch on. I want Joel to be proud of my musical abilities as well as other things!
P.S. Tim and I took a long walk yesterday and we saw Jan at the drugstore and Marcie in the park and neither one of them paid any attention to me. Yahoo! I guess now that school is over they’ve given up on me. They’ve given up on me and I can finally be really free. Won’t that be the most wonderful of glorious feelings in the entire universe? I’m so happy I could die.
Today is another beautiful, beautiful day except that Dad got the pictures of Gran’s grave and the tombstone which was finally placed there. It’s a beautiful tombstone but I keep wondering how decayed her body is by now, and what about Gramps, his must really be a mess! Someday I’m going to get a book on embalming from the library and see just exactly how these things do happen. I wonder if Mom and Dad and Tim think about these things or is it only me? Do I have a morbid mind because of my past experiences? I guess I don’t because Joel said he wondered the same thing when his dad died and he was only seven years old.
Mrs. Larsen broke her leg in an automobile accident and I’m going over there every day to clean the house and cook for Mr. Larsen and take care of the baby until Mrs. Larsen’s mother can get there. (Good practice for the future!) Little Lu Ann is a sweet little thing and I’m going to love it. I gotta go now to start my new job. (I hope Mr. Larsen doesn’t eat at the hospital all the time because I want to practice cooking.) See ya.
My dear precious friend,
I am so grateful that they would let Mom bring you to me in your battered, padlocked little case. I was terribly embarrassed when the nurse made me use the combination and dump both of you out and my extra pencils and pens. But I guess they were just being careful and checking to see that you weren’t filled with drugs of one sort or another. I don’t even feel real. I must be somebody else. I still can’t believe that this has actually happened to me. The window is filled with heavy wires, I guess that is better than bars but I still know that I am in some kind of hospital jail.
I have tried to piece the whole thing together but I can’t. The nurses and doctors keep telling me I will feel better, but I still can’t get straight. I can’t close my eyes because the worms are still crawling on me. They are eating me. They are crawling through my nose and gnawing in my mouth and oh God… I must get you back in your case because the maggots are crawling off my bleeding writhing hands into your pages. I will lock you in. You will be safe.
I am feeling better today. They took the bandages off my hands and changed them and it is no wonder they hurt so much. The whole ends of my fingers have been torn off and two nails have been pulled out completely and the others are torn down almost in half. It hurts to write, but I shall lose my mind if I do not. I wish I could write to Joel, but what could I ever tell him and besides no one could ever read this scrawling since both hands are bandaged like boxing gloves. I am still crawling with worms, but I am beginning to be able to live with them, or am I actually dead and they are just experimenting with my soul?