Week six

At this particular point, I do not have a “paper” due for another class, per se, but I am taking English 325 (Young Adult Literature), and our final assignment is to write the first chapter of our own young adult novel. I have been told to over-analyze my own writing less and free write more, since I'm road-blocking myself, so I suppose I'll kill two birds with one stone and do some free-writing here.

I didn't ask to be the leader of our group. I never laid in bed at night praying to some faceless force in the universe, a great reckoner of high school fortune, to make me suddenly important. I was about as invested in that as I was in extracurricular activities (I wasn't). That said, I sure as hell never complained about it, either. I've always had kind of a thing for power (not that having two other nerds kowtow to me and one girl constantly try to one-up me really constitutes “power,” I suppose, but hey – we're in high school.) And, at any rate, power is only convenient when it's convenient—your friends don't want to see the new kung-fu movie, but you do? Well, they're going now. Unfortunately, stuff like that is the only benefit to this kind of social set-up: stupid petty stuff that doesn't matter are the things on which people are the most likely to defer to you.

I'm not making myself sound exactly likable, am I? I don't care. I tried for likable. I tried for likable for sixteen years. It went nowhere. No, I didn't get dumped, “friend-zoned,” or locked away in some metaphorical ivory tower to pine for my beloved. Nothing like that happened, which I suppose makes this unlike every other story in the universe. No, you know what happened? She died. That's what happened. So you'll have to excuse me if I don't feel like being particularly “likable” at the moment, because there isn't exactly anything to like.