Love Me

me reading that shit at 15:

BACK STORY: When I was 12, my mom got married to a halfway decent guy. He’s not bad, but he’s not great either, but he made my mom happy and that’s all that I cared about. In fact, I cared so much about her happiness that I was willing to endure 6 years of living under the same roof as his self-obsessed, obnoxious, spoiled daughter, Amy. The entire time we lived together, she would project all of her insecurities onto me in the form of insults. Being young and wildly insecure about myself, these daily insults well and truly cut me to the core and just continued the cycle of crippling insecurity.

When I started “talking to” a boy for the first time, Kyle, she all of a sudden developed an intense infatuation with him and told me I was forbidden from communicating with him from then on. I was insecure but I was not a pushover. When I didn’t listen to her demands, she took it a step further and told Kyle I had ongoing relationships with several other boys (untrue), which he unfortunately believed. I was completely crushed. She then swooped in and took every opportunity to rub it in my face that she “won” him (i.e. inviting him to my birthday parties at home, inviting me out with her only to later reveal I would be thirdwheeling on their date, making him compliment me and then gloating about how she had such a nice boyfriend, etc). This sort of thing happened countless times, not with just boys but with friends and even workplaces! They ended up dating for two years and, although they had a nasty breakup, Kyle and I remained on good terms, which drove her up the wall. She would constantly ask me, “So did you guys hook up behind my back yet?” while claiming to have moved on already.

When we finally graduated high school (we were in the same year), I could not be happier to move out and go to college. While I was finally living the life I wanted without her toxicity, she went to 2 different unaccredited schools, both of which she dropped out of after 1 semester at each. Eventually, she moved back in with our parents in our hometown and fell into her old ways again (assuming she had ever grown out of them). On the eve of her 19th birthday, she posted to FB about how her friends had gifted her a fake ID and raved about their plans to club hop for her birthday.

Even though I lived 500mi away, she still had to find some way to rub it in my face that I would be missing out on all the fun. I was invited to her birthday event page on FB, where she detailed all the extravagant and expensive things she planned for her special day. We’re talking limo rental, VIP rooms at 2 of the biggest clubs in town, and even some photographer guy who would follow them like paparazzi. She made a public post on the event page where she tagged me and said, “It’s going to be amazing! Too bad you’ll miss out! HAHA. You’ll have to wait 2 years before you can experience any of this.”

It had been about a year since I had last seen or spoken to her. By this point, I was at a much happier place with myself, emotionally. It took me a while to shake off the effects of her emotional abuse, but by god, I did it and I wasn’t going to let her drag me back to those lows again. But this post got me to reminisce about all the things that she had done to me in the past and I couldn’t help but feel a boiling rage inside.

Now, unbeknownst to her, Kyle had recently reconnected with me on FB. It only friendly conversation between us, catching up on each other’s lives, until he suggested we meet up and have lunch (he went to another college an hour away). Lunch turned into us having an afternoon-long shit-talking-fest about Amy. He confessed that she was emotionally abusive to him during their relationship and the only time they didn’t fight was when I was in their company (which is why he didn’t mind me thirdwheeling on all those dates, apparently). During this, he also confessed he had feelings for me but couldn’t forgive himself for letting Amy dangle him in front of me, because he knew that I had liked him. This guilt was apparently something he had been carrying for years and finally found the courage to apologize for now.

REVENGE: Here’s where we get petty. I convinced Kyle to alert his brother, who happened to be the marketing director for one of the clubs Amy had reserved a VIP room at, of these upcoming birthday plans. After he did that, I went home and called the limousine rental company and pretended to be a concerned parent and insisted no alcohol be available since several of the girls were underage. They let me know that they were very appreciative of the notice. And then, I did a little digging and found out who the “paparazzi” guy would be and called him to cancel his services for the event. With her birthday coming up in just a couple of days, I sat back and waited to let the chips fall where they may… and it was better than I could have hoped for. When I asked about it a few days afterwards, she was sure to screech every beautiful detail to me over the phone.

Since the limo did not provide them with alcohol, they stopped by a friend’s house to “pre-game” and sneak in their own supply. Once the driver noticed the gaggle of very drunk girls in his limo, he stopped and made them throw away all of the liquor they snuck in. When they got to the first club, Kyle’s brother, who knew Amy as Kyle’s ex, confronted them at the door and told them there was no way in hell they were getting in. This was VERY upsetting to these group of drunk girls and they all proceeded to make a huge drunken scene, going so far as showing him Amy’s fake ID to “prove” they were allowed in…except the name on the ID wasn’t hers. Kyle’s brother, or “Assfucker” as Amy called him, had security forcibly remove them from the premises. As the cherry on top, he contacted his friends at the other clubs in town and warned them of Amy and her underage entourage, successfully banning her from every single dance club/bar in a 20mi radius. She didn’t even get a refund on the deposits for the VIP rooms. She’s lucky she wasn’t arrested, but she still plays victim to “horrible bad luck.”

Me:

These are all from a Christian meme group that I joined for some reason but fell in love with

“They’re … um …” Annabeth started to say.

“We’re orphans,” I said.

“Orphans?” the woman said. The word sounded alien in her mouth. “But, my dears! Surely not!”

“We got separated from our caravan,” I said. “Our circus caravan. The ringmaster told us to meet him at the gas station if we got lost, but he may have forgotten, or maybe he meant a different gas station. Anyway, we’re lost. Is that food I smell?”

.

He looked us over. “How did you die, then?”

I nudged Grover.

“Oh,” he said. “Um … drowned … in the bathtub.”

“All three of you?” Charon asked.

We nodded.

.

“I’m not saying hello to a pink poodle,” I said. “For-get it.”

“Percy,” Annabeth said. “I said hello to the poodle. You say hello to the poodle.”

The poodle growled.

I said hello to the poodle.

.

“I don’t know. Just a feeling. Annabeth, come with me-”

“Are you kidding?” She looked at me as if I’d just dropped from the moon. Her cheeks were bright red.

“What’s the problem now?” I demanded.

“Me, go with you to the … the ‘Thrill Ride of Love’? How embarrassing is that? What if somebody saw me?”

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and like…….. you guys are missing out on the fact that Annabeth was horrified that someone would see her with Percy in an abandoned water park where the only people there are in fact, her, percy, and grover.