kagablog

When I was a kid, like ten or eleven or something, I won a contest in a pizzeria for a drawing I did of the Simpsons. It was this cheesy Italian restaurant in a mall, that had melting red wax candles at every table, and baskets of bread sticks on red and white checked table clothes. They were trying to pull in families with kids, so every month they had a new one. I had to draw my favorite tv show. I won a lifesize version of Maggie Simpson, and my family kept telling me how lucky I was.

I never got in trouble once, even when I did things that I shouldn’t have.

I cheated on a lot of tests, starting in the third grade. I didn’t always do my homework, and I did lots of things I shouldn’t have done, on purpose. It’s not that I wanted to be bad, per se, it’s just that I knew I wouldn’t get in trouble. I guess I wanted to test the limits.

In a way, that’s what I always do, all the time. I always want to

When I was in high school I always got the latest date for presentations, when the teachers picked our names randomly. Names could be pulled out of a hat, chosen randomly from a list, with a rolled dice, or a flipped coin, and I always went last, year after year. People hated me. My teacher in grade nine used to tell people to go up to me and touch my hands, then ask their parents to buy them lottery tickets.

I bought a couple of scratch and win cards last year, when I was sixteen, and one time I won $5000. I spent it so fast it’s not even funny. The women at the store couldn’t believe how much I was buying. They were falling all over themselves to help me, and it was a great feeling. I felt powerful, like a rich Hollywood star, like I should’ve been on the cover of Teen People, or Teen Vogue, showing off my closets while they took glamorous pictures of me. That’s all I wanted I guess, to feel special and unique, and I guess admired like that. Apparently that’s normal. Apparently lots of girls do.

I grew up thinking I was lucky, that I could get away with anything. In a way, I blame my parents. I grew up thinking I could have or do or get away with anything.

I grew up thinking that everything I did was right, or ok, no matter what.

I was fifteen when I met him. Actually, technically, I was sixteen when we met, but fifteen when we first started talking. We met online. I said on my page that I was single, and I guess he liked the photo of me. My hair was in a pony tail, and I was wearing my brother’s baseball hat backwards. I thought it looked cool, but I was being kind of ironic.

I was making a face, sticking my tongue out, and my eyes looked kind of small because

I was laughing, even though I was trying to look cool. He told me he liked it right away.

There was another one, of me blowing a huge bubble of Bubblicious grape, and it exploding all over my face. He told me the second time we talked that it was his favorite.

I looked like I was having a good time, he said, going wild and looking scared and kind of vulnerable at the same time. That’s when I decided I kind of liked him too. He seemed smart, like a good observer. Plus he was hot, and the guys at my school were really boring. I didn’t want to date any of them. I turned two down, and the rest stopped asking. Which was ok, because I wasn’t interested anyway. Whatever, internet dating was the thing, everyone knew, and my town had three other high schools anyway.

He told me his real name right away. I mean everyone called him Spence, or Spenny, but that made him cringe and I could understand why. He wanted me to call him Spencer, which I did. We got to talking, first over myspace, then messenger. He called me a week later, and we talked for like four hours, non stop. It was awesome. We figured out that we both love South Park and the Simpsons, and the same music and everything. He went to the high school, really near to where I lived. I wanted to go there too, but my parents said it was shitty there. The thing is, it was in our neighborhood, which is really safe, so it didn’t make sense. He came over, and we played Game Cube, and hung out in the backyard and he pushed me on the swing, which was super romantic and cute.

My family was having a barbeque that night, and they invited him to stay. He’d only kissed me once, before anyone else had gotten home, but after my dad invited him he groped me on the staircase when no one else was watching. It was awesome, he put his one hand on the railing, and his other like he was going to reach over me, but then he put his hand down my shirt instead. You have to understand, my parents were Christians.

I wasn’t allowed to date, or fool around with guys and I promised my parents more than once that I would wait til I was married to fuck someone. It would be all about the wedding night, blah blah blah. Procreation, god’s gift, etc. My older brother wasn’t even allowed to jack off. Apparently, wasting sperm is a sin. What a goddamn stupid idea, if you ask me. It’s all so freaking unnatural. But I also suck at self control. I’m really glad I’m naturally thin, cause I could never diet. I could never bring myself to go to the gym, or not cheat on tests. I’m lucky I always get away with stuff. I’m lucky, I have to keep telling myself I’m so goddamn lucky.

Spencer was the first person to ever agree with me that my parents were fucking nuts.

They made me go to church ever single Sunday of my life, wear stupid white dresses, sit with my legs crossed, all that crap. I went to bible camp, know all the hymns by heart, always had to say grace before meals, the whole motherfucking nine yards.

At first my parents liked Spencer. He was polite, and he knew how to work adults, like me. He was two years older, so he had more experience. He was eighteen, and almost done high school. He knew how to bs them about what he planned to do with his life, how he planned to become rich and successful and wonderful and charitable, and all that.

At first, everything was great. He even came with us to church once, and lied about how the minister’s sermon had moved him, while I tried to sleep through it with my eyes wide open. I still lied to my parents though, cause they couldn’t know I was going to his house at night, or sleeping over. His mom was a single mom and didn’t give a shit. I think she liked me, actually. She seemed like she did. We smoked cigarettes together and she made me my first Irish coffee one morning. She was awesome, now that I think about it.

Everything turned to shit the first time my parents caught me lying. They called my friend Yvette, wanting to know where I was, and she was too scared to lie for me and nearly shat her pants or something, apparently, and told them. Just like that she sold me out. Some friend, I’ve known her since like kindergarten. Apparently she told my parents that Spencer was a bad influence on me, and didn’t they know that he went to Grove Heights, which was full of gangs and juvenile thugs? It turns out they didn’t.

From then on my parents forbade me to see him. I wasn’t allowed to spend any time with him, which was fine, cause I kept lying to them anyway. Then they overheard me talking to him on my cellphone in the bathroom one night. I thought I was hiding it so well.

My mom slapped me across the face. My dad left highlighted articles about teenage crime waves and gangs on the desk where I did my homework. They started questioning me before I did anything. I had to tell them before I went anywhere, including to the bathroom during dinner. My life started feeling like a prison. It was around that time that Spencer first told me that he loved me. I used to ditch third and fourth period, and see him until after lunch. Sometimes I ditched the whole day, but I was so good at forging notes that no one ever caught me. Why are your parents so stupid, he asked me when day, after they’d spent two hours yelling at me about my grades on a history final. When the fuck would you ever need this shit, he said about the dumb American history I’d failed to memorize. He was so supportive and so nice. Let’s run away together, he said, and at first I laughed, but then he told me he was serious. That summer we were going to Canada. We were going to cross the border in British Columbia and live out in the forest, in nature. We had it all planned. It was going to be perfect. I wouldn’t need to finish high school. We’d have each other. We’d make love and be in love. Then he showed me the gun. It was small, metal and grey, shiny, with a brown handle. It was surprisingly heavy.

I’d never handled one before. I was surprised at how cool I felt, how amazingly in control. I guess I was angrier than I realized.

That night when parents asked me where I was going, and I told them to Spencer’s all hell broke loose. You’d think I just told them I joined a cult. They went fucking nuts.

My dad threw the book he was reading at me, and it hit me in the head. I got a bump almost instantly. That’s the thing. People thought my dad was this great, soft, gentle respectable guy, but he was an asshole. No one had any idea.

When I got to Spencer’s I was so angry and upset. He gave some beer, and we did a little acid, but that was all. When I told him the story, he got so mad. We drove over to my parents so he could confront them.

He yelled at my dad, and then he shot him in the head. He got him right in the bullseye, in the temple I think. He dropped right away. My mom stood there, shaking and frozen and then she screamed. Her eyes rolled back in her head like ping pong balls. It was scary, like she looking at nothing. He shot her in the chest.

Gun shots sound like fireworks, a little. There’s this little surge of adrenaline, like the shot before a race starts. You feel like you can run and run, you want to jump up and down, but just as you do, something stops you from looking like an ass. I just stood there and stared for a long time. I couldn’t believe they were dead.

I guess I was free. It was some kind of relief, euphoric and then fear. Hard, cold fucking fear. Getting caught. What the hell would our story be?

I felt vomit at the back of my throat. I think Spencer caught me right before I fainted.

His fingerprints were all over the place. He voluntarily confessed, while I cried and held onto him, and begged them to take them me with him.

At first no one blamed me, and because I was under eighteen, I was protected by the Young Offender’s Act. The general public doesn’t know my name, and I won’t have a criminal record. Just lucky, I guess. I’m still going to have to leave this town, cause it’s small, and I still sometimes think that I love Spencer, sometimes I think I love him more than ever. The thing is, he’s in jail now, awaiting trial. He stirred up all these feelings in me, all this confusion, and sometimes I really don’t know what I feel.

Would I have shot one of them if he hadn’t? Sometimes I really don’t know. But sometimes if I try hard enough, and I think about his reasons, none of it seems that crazy to me. Sometimes life is unfair, and people get angry.

I only get away with things because I’m lucky.