and some teen writing too

i'm writing a book. 

well actually, i'm writing about five or six, but since this one is really the only nonfiction one and the only one that relates to what this blog is about, I thought i'd share and excerpt from the book. 

chaptah one is called "hypocrite. hypocrite. hypocrite! you're such a hypocrite."

one day, on the bus, i was talking to a group of people and we started discussing the age old talk about boys hitting girls and how it was so much worse than girls hitting guys. the boys fought, saying that girls get more pissed when guys hit them and that girls needed to know that guys were safe. one girl argued the polar opposite, saying that girls could hit guys and guys could hit girls as long as they had good reasons. she cracked me up. "gender didn't matter so much as stupidity." 

finally the girl asked me point blank what i thought. i didn't know what to say. if i sided with her, i was going to be made fun of. if i sided with the guys, i was sexist and lying.

"i think that you shouldn't hit anyone." that was safe.

she frowned at me. 

"c'mon, honestly. tell me."

"well, i guess it doesn't really matter to me. if they pissed me off, i might hit them."

all the boys groaned and we laughed.

the bus dropped us off at school and the other girl and i walked to the bathroom. we didn't intend to walk together, but we just did and we laughed a little when we got there. like, huh, have you been next to me this whole time?

when we got to the bathroom, we almost walked straight into two of the most popular ninth graders. (oh yeah, this happened last year) they were doing their makeup, which meant we lowly, unpopular girls must leave. they saw my glasses, my blotchy face, my oily skin. i knew one of the girls, so i smiled at her, but it was not returned. i was about to duck into a stall out of embarrassment when the girl from the bus spoke.

"do you guys think guys shouldn't be allowed to hit girls? like, is it worse for guys to hit girls than for girls to hit guys?"

i was speechless. don't talk to the popular girls and they'll leave you alone. the fourth wall hadn't just been broken for a class project which forced cooperation, it had been shattered for completely un-educational, selfish reason. this bus girl was actually curious what they thought.

GOD. WHY?

"guys can't hit girls or they'll break up with them. they're not stupid," the popular girl said. 

"that's not fair. i think it should be equal." she flipped her hair and she turned and walked out of the bathroom, yelling thanks as she walked out the door. 

the popular girls turned to each other and laughed.

"what the hell was that?" one of them said.

"did you see what she was wearing?" said the other.

they looked at me. i forced a laugh and shrugged my shoulders. i went into a stall and heard their laughs echo, echo, echo.

i felt crappy.

i was crappy.

WHY DID I DO THAT?

welcome to freshman year. 

moral of the story: it will basically be the same for every story i tell you. don't do what i did.

xoxo--

colette