How to eat out a girl tutorial

I am a 58-year-old male - culturally Greek, raised in Australia, migrated to the U.S. and have lived in NYC for over 20 years now. My parents raised my two older sisters – 9.5 years older with 3 children and 4 years older with two daughters, and myself, the only son and youngest of three, Down Under. I left my family in Australia upon moving to NYC in 2004 with my partner. It was tough leaving them behind because as dysfunctional as we were, we all loved each other.
Unfortunately, in the 8 year lead up to the pandemic – first, I lost my father to colon cancer; 2 years later my beautiful mother to vascular dementia; 2 years after that my 14 year marriage dissolved after my partner admitted he had been having an affair with a work colleague for several months; 1.5 years after that my middle sister and dear friend died from a brain aneurysm; followed by my eldest sister who died of lung cancer the following year.
I fell so ill from stress that I developed severe IBS and had to have emergency surgery. I thought I was going to die. If that wasn’t enough, I hadn’t even healed when I caught COVID; lost my job a few weeks later; and, then I managed to survived a home invasion during which I was assaulted and threatened with a knife but, somehow, I managed to get the two criminals out of my space in 7.5 minutes, without a single item stolen. I’ve been through a lot but I’ve always battled through.
My middle sister had two daughters, M1 aged 40, and M2 aged 38. Until my sister passed away in early 2018, I had a great relationship with M1. I was always there to support as she tended toward “unlucky in love” and was also diagnosed with lupus over a decade ago. Her mother and I were always solid support for her, and she would speak to me about any personal problem.
Her younger sister M2 is a very different character and was I was unable to build as strong a relationship – it was not purposeful nor deliberate. I made attempts and managed to get closer to her after she was married but she always tended to be more distant. As hard as I tried, M1 & I sensed that she somewhat resented my relationship with her older sister.
After my sister passed away suddenly aged only 56, we were all devastated. I flew in from NYC and was in Australia for 9 days for the funeral. I spent 7 of the 9 days with my brother-in-law (BIL) - a good man – and my two nieces M1 & M2. It was an emotionally draining stay, with a relentless stream of visitors to pay their respects.
I spent the other 2 days house-sitting for a dear friend which I gladly accepted to secure some peace and solitude. I slept at least 16-18 hours on each day. Upon returning to my BIL’s home for my final two days, M1 approached me and asked to speak to me outside in their back yard. She proceeded to tell me how very disappointed she was in me; that she felt I was an “absent mourner" and not supporting her in her grief in the way she expected; I was also not grieving "appropriately," and that her mother /my sister would be disappointed.
I had travelled 24 hours, in a blur, halfway across the globe to bury my sister and was now receiving bereavement advice from my niece. I told her to quit with the nonsense and that she should mourn her mother any way she likes, but she is not to tell me how I should conduct myself when I’m grieving.
Her voice quickly escalated, and she proceeded to then scream at the top of her voice about how disgusting I was that I wasn’t “there” to respect her mother; and be there for her. I reminded M1 that her mother, was also my sister and I knew her for a whole lot longer than she did. I also reminded her that staying for 7 of 9 days with her, does not constitute “being absent” in anybody’s language.
It was midnight, she continued to scream, yell, abuse me with neighbors being woken up on all sides. I stood up and decided to leave and not put up with her bullshit any longer. I walked inside and caught her sister, M2, ears to the door, listening to everything … and it made me realize they were bothin on this effort to publicly “dress me down”.
M2 proceeded to "stand with her sister" and yell at me, too. I was seriously flabbergasted by their accusations. My BIL certainly did not feel the same way and he told the girls to explain to him what their problem was!?! If there was a real problem – he should be the first to be complaining about me. Their anger and resentment was shocking, inexplicable and totally unfounded. I flew home to NYC two days later devastated not just at losing my beautiful sister - but at my nieces’ disgraceful performance.
In November 2020, I flew back to Australia to visit family for the holiday season as COVID enveloped the globe. I struggled to feel fully comfortable with my nieces, and one thing is for sure: they never apologized to me for their outburst at me less than two years prior. This time it was the festive season and I decided to stay some of the time at BIL's house. Upon arriving, I was shocked - the house was spotlessly clean, as my sister liked to keep it, and everything in the house was unchanged - everything was in the exact same spot, as the day my sister died. I was concerned, M1 was clearly struggling, not dealing with her mother’s death. Even her father, my BIL had started casually dating another woman, and I threw support behind him which he appreciated. M1, on the other hand, was vehemently against this, and refused to give her father’s new relationship her blessing.
Eventually, the inevitable happened – M1 starts to relay a story that I recognized as my own, and after a few erroneous details, I reminded her of the facts that she was actually deviating from. She literally exploded for not allowing her to relay my story… incorrectly.
Yet again, her screams and anger were so loud, that I actually saw neighbors peering over their fencing. She screamed at me to leave "her house" and that I was the devil. (I need to add here that both nieces became born again Evangelical Christians.) I reminded her that the house belonged to my sister & BIL, and she had no authority over whether I stay or not.
Her screams & verbal attack, (the second one now), was so loud, aggressive, and her enraged face so red, that she looked unhinged. I went to grab a mug to make a coffee and get as far away from her as I could. As my hand reached into the cupboard for a mug, she used the cupboard door to p.a. me I saw stars.I stared at her in shock and said: "You just p.a. your mother's brother," at which she just screamed even louder
My BIL arrived shortly after and I told him that I needed to leave. I gave him the facts and then told him: "She doesn't support your new relationship - not because its "too soon" - but because she's miserable and unhappy… and she begrudges anyone their happiness - it eats away at her." She screamed at him to throw me out until he yelled "Shut up!" at her. She then called us both devils and stormed into her room.
Now, a brief focus on M2. It was summer 2017, and M2 was due in November with her second child. Her husband is American and M2 moved here from Australia and were living in the Midwest. I attempted to build a closeness with her since she was living in the US. During a call to her in July 2017, she invited me for Thanksgiving that year to be with her family, as well as see her mothemy sister and BIL who were spending several weeks there to welcome their new grandchild.
I was so excited. I even told M2 that I would stay at a nearby hotel, so as not to burden them with a newborn at home. A few weeks prior to Thanksgiving, I called to confirm my dates, etc., and without missing a beat, she proceeds to tell me that it is now all too much for her and she retracted her invitation …I was dis-invited. I sat there in silence, in shock.
I had discretely asked my sister several weeks prior, whether she would consider visiting NYC with my BIL, even for a weekend, as they were going to be with M2 for over 6 weeks and were so close!
She said to me, "Do you think we haven't thought of that? We'd love to come to come to NYC and see you. But we'll never hear the end of it from ‘you-know-who’."
So, I spent Thanksgiving on my own, with no family in NYC, less than 1.5 hours flying time away from a warm, festive house that contained M2, her family, my BIL and my dear sister.
Less than 3 months later … my sister was dead. And I never got a chance to see her one last time.
That opportunity was taken from me without so much as an "I'm sorry that I did that to you." In fact, I never received an apology from either M1 nor M2 for all the things they did to me.
When I got back to NYC from the disastrous Aussie trip, M2 refused to communicate with me any further, so I knew M1 had been in her ear about our fallout and likely never even mentioned the p.a. I contacted her and mentioned that minimally, I expected her to at least hear me out.
Her response???
"In my experience, I would describe you the same way my sister would, so I tend to believe her, and my role now is to protect my family."
I replied, "What, so your family is in danger now? From me?!"
She curtly wrote: "I wish to focus on my family, my sister, and the Lord." ...or something to that effect.
I can genuinely, authentically state that I still have no idea why they turned so viciously nasty, so vindictive, and without sounding too dramatic – so evil towards me. I have my other nieces, family, friends to back me up wholeheartedly. It was ironic to me that the two evangelicals ended up being so mean-spirited, and emotionally abusive.
I knew I had to make a big decision, so I sought the counsel of some wonderful loved ones in my inner circle, and their guidance was unanimous: walk away from the toxicity. I knew I had no other choice. I have not spoken to my two nieces for four years now.
I posted this to see if others had similar experiences, and to gather feedback as to whether I *am* the a-hole for cutting my two nieces out of my life. AITA?

I’m an 18 year old autistic girl who became suicidal at the age of 9 until December of 2023. 9 years of my life, I had little appreciation for life. At 16 years old I developed an eating disorder which became extremely bad at 17 years old as I developed bulimia and became underweight. Since year 12 I’ve relied on dating and my eating disorder to give me dopamine and distraction from real life. I don’t have the best life ever, I was raised in a broken family, I’m homeless and have been in a temporary home for almost a year, I’m really lonely but I have friends, I feel quite a disconnect from people even family members excluding a select “exceptions”. I have a body count of 1 and have made out with around 35+ people (I lost count), nobody perceives me as a whore but I’m always dating someone new. But I’m never the problem, I always want to give people my everything but guys disguise themselves as these great people and then somewhere along the line they treat me awfully. So in February after I dumped a guy who wasn’t treating me how I wanted, I focused on myself and going to gym. When I finish with the gym I end up sleeping for the entire day because I’ve never been an energetic person which led to me quitting during exam season to focus on studying. In general I was happy focusing on myself. Then one day my guy best friend who would constantly objectify me started kissing me and touching me without warning when I was drunk and it’s my biggest regret. I struggle to say no so it’s my fault, I should’ve made the boundary clear. But I had a hatred for him building up overtime so my friend and I dropped him. I was happy alone but I missed having a guy to distract me and give me dopamine so I started talking to a guy who I was extremely attracted to and treated me perfectly, I genuinely believed we were soulmates. Long story short, everything seemed perfect until he revealed that he had been lying to me about his age and was actually (almost) two years younger than me. So I dumped him because he’s literally a kid, I don’t hate him though and I miss talking to my bestfriend but I can never look past that or not feel disgusted with what he’s done even though he feels like I’m his first love. I don’t believe I was in love, knowing he’s 16 going onto 17 changed everything and I’m just glad only dated briefly. I’m currently doing my a levels, I revise everyday, I hope to do well and people expect so much out of me. Everyone has these high expectations of me, I have them for myself too. Achieving an A*AA is a must, anything else and I’ve failed myself and everyone. But since I’ve quit gym and exam season started I’ve been feeling extremely numb, angry, depressed, idk… like I kind of don’t wanna be alive anymore but I don’t actively want to die. I have no excitement. I thought about dating another guy (even though they always disappoint me) but I’d rather focus on my exams for now. I’ll probably start dating again after, but the only thing good about me is my appearance and how well I can fake being put together. My authentic self is so broken. And nobody cares about what’s under the surface, I don’t feel worthy of love but I’m trying to love myself again. Idk this was a huge tangent, part of me is just worried I might off myself since those fantasies have emerged again. Will this all end when exams are finished?

I hate school being autistic. I always am made fun of for wearing the same clothes every day, stimming, being "weird", and stuff like that. I have 3 "Friends" lets call them F, B, and L. F always makes fun of how I look, and act. I never realized this until I talked to my therapist about F and found out that she's making fun of me. L always crosses my boundaries; I tell her I'm not comfortable with her hugging me and just physical contact in general and she still hugs me and grabs my shoulders. B I feel like is my only true friend. She never comes to school though. I have never been the kind of person to just be able to make friends easily. I became friends with F when we were paired together for an project. I never spoke but slowly she was able to make me talk a bit, then I met L and B through F.
I am just overall burnt out. I wake up go to school for 8 hours, then I go to practice for 2 hours, then I study for 2 hours, eat dinner 1-hour, free time 1-hour, and go to bed. School is so exhausting; I don't understand anything. I go nonverbal the second I have to talk to someone its terrible. I need help just to write notes. It's so embarrassing. I have meltdowns and people make fun of me for it.
I never care to even get a gf or bf because I'm ugly and nobody likes me. The girl I have a crush on, lets call her A is also autistic, but shes more of the smart autistic. I just want to be normal. I'm not smart anymore. I used to be in gifted classes and now I'm not. The only thing I am good at is reading/writing and I'm not even that good at it either. My grades are terrible, and my parents scold me for it.
Is anybody else feeling like this?

So backstory: Prom was never on the list of things I wanted to do. Never even gave it a second thought. I started talking to this girl a few months before prom. It was going very well and I felt a connection. She clearly stated she did not want a relationship at the moment and I respected all boundaries. Literally a week or two before the actual prom my family had gotten basically kicked out of the home we were renting. So there was a lot going on, one day we kinda had this argument right. I told her that I was very proud of myself and how far I’ve come and that I’m very thankful for everything. She kinda got pissy and said I was being egoistical for saying this, I didn’t know how to react and I told her that I apologize for being proud of myself. That ticked her completely off (important for later)
So fast forward a bit and it’s the day of prom. I was genuinely excited for it more than I thought I would be. Before heading to prom we took pictures and got something to eat. It was us two and then her sister and MY DATES EX?? Going with her sister?? I was kinda confused by this but I just let it fly. Before we got to the place where we were taking pictures, she brought up what happened the other day. Instantly ruined my mood, the whole vibe everything was just off. I apologized again and asked her if there’s anything I can do about it. She said no it’s in the past, and I’m like okay why bring it up to be a mood killer? I did not say this of course but I wanted to. So then everything was off the rest of the time we took pictures. We went out to eat and she just looked upset the whole time. I asked her if she’s alright and she said she was (a lie) and I didn’t know what to do.
So we got to the school and prom was goin on and we was having a good time. Basically to sum up why she was mad was becuz I left the dance floor twice. Once because I had to use the bathroom, and the second time was to say hi to a friend. I communicated everything to her and her sister on where I was going and how long I’d be gone. She was livid. I danced with her the whole night. She called me an asshole and I had enough I just left permanently after that because I’m not gonna be around someone who’s mad at me all day while I’m trying to enjoy something. She left a few times but it didn’t bother me I was fine with dancing by myself for a few 😂 I think I dodged a bullet, why go somewhere special with someone just for them to be mad at you the whole time. She said I put in no effort at all even tho I didn’t even have a home at the time and I still made it to prom for her.
I just wanted to know some thoughts and some things I could’ve done better. Next time I’ll hold my piss all night and completely ignore my friends🫡

Midoriya, Todoroki, Bakugou and All Might get nice little endings and all (we've set to see the epilogue, but now that the antagonists are defeated, and Midoriya no longer has One For All, just like when the story began, it's pretty clear that the story is over other than epilogue stuff), but what about the rest of the cast?
lets look at the other classmates, AKA, the supporting characters of class 1-A. what resolution have they gotten..? well, none. "the story of how we all became the greatest heroes" yeah sure, whatever. I like the idea of it, but that didn't happen, not really. but well, they're all skilled, so now that the All For One and One For All are basically both dead Quirks, the future of the Quirk world does look bright for the ONE YEAR STUDENTS that will be inheriting this world from the Pros... or does it? does the world really look bright, or will those same institutions lead to the very same downfall?
lets look at the villains.
Spinner was, in the end, given the fate of some kind of extremely inappropriate, far-right interpretation of the BLM movement, and i the end, had the brain of a wild beast with little intelligence and a monstrous appearance, which comes off as the 'true nature of Heteromorphs', even though that's not true at all. nice representation of POC, Horikoshi. you portrayed black people as horrifying idiotic monsters. like what?? he had multiple Quirks put in him, so he's most certainly dead, if the brain damage didn't make that obvious enough. that sucks. and having Rock Lock, a BLACK MAN be the one watch his fate is just so insulting.
Toya is burned to pieces. I wanna say they'll find a way to heal him, but at the very least, his nerves are probably all burned. He'll be lucky if anything jaw and below can move anymore if he DOES live. and then what? instead of rehabilitating him, they'll throw him in Tartarus like every other problem child, refusing to give him any help. At most, Endeavour will be able to use his Number 1 Hero status to force the government to let him and his family visit him once a month at most. oh joy.
Himiko Toga, the little girl who functions as a neurodivergent + queer allegory in the story who, after some amazing development with Uravity.. has been set up so that she'll have to (likely already has) killed herself in order to save Uraraka with her blood.. great, just great. rest in peace the most well written female character in the entire story.
Shigaraki is dead. he never got to conquer his groomer. by the time he realized what he wanted, it was too late. he faded away into nothing. the institution that failed him is still there. the government is going to be praised for all that's happened by the Heroes' hands and the Heroes themselves couldn't even save one sad, scared little boy who was used for the wills of an older man till the very end. rest in peace the best written male character in the story.
so, none of these characters who deserve justice ever got justice. at most, they were redeemed right before they died. what the hell is Horikoshi trying to say about abuse victims? "they'll turn out evil in the end, and before they get the chance to turn over a new leaf, they'll kill hundreds then die, making their lives worthless in the first place. hopefully things will improve in the future for the oppressed, oh well." OH, THANKS HORIKOSHI. truly the uplifting message that superheroes teach us: you can't save anyone, even when in the end, they're screaming, begging to be saved. so beautiful. I'm glad to know that all the best characters in your story couldn't be saved, couldn't be redeemed, couldn't be helped and then released into society again.. in the end, the black and white notion of 'heroes and villains' wins over, and the government and military who violate hundreds of conventions every day (this is explicitly stated in universe, too) are our friends! just great! :D
I fell in love with this series as a kid back in 2016 when the anime season 1 came out. this ending sucks. all I can hope is that the epilogue finds a way to bullshit the plot into Toya and/or Toga surviving and getting to live a happy, stable life in society again. but that probably isn't going to happen. (I'll be very happy if I get to eat my words).
​

-and obviously it was stupid to think that any of my old friends would still be there. Could I even call them that? I haven’t been back here in maybe ten years and my ‘friends’ were the staff at a bar I worked at for two months, transient work by its very nature. Especially in Rome. There’s a street preacher and I think he’s saying “KINGS, BOOK ONE! CHAPTER 19!” and maybe he is because he has 1 Kings 19 (11-13) written on a sign next to him.
I remember Malfi… Marfi? Was a student anyway. Studying history at masters level. I can clearly see the seal of her university in my head clearly but I can't remember the university. I think about maybe pulling out my phone and googling it but it’ll take too long and I don’t want to waste the battery or not be looking at my surroundings for too long.
Hey- hey friend how are you? What are you doing here?
Oh god. If I keep my head down maybe he won’t bother me but suddenly there’s a wall of flesh draped in a cheap blue t-shirt semi-blocking my path.
I’m busy, sorry. I push past him and he yells out.
HEY! You got a problem with black people?
Loud enough for others to turn around.
What the hell is his problem? The insolence of it! The actual insolence! I smiled as I said I’m busy for fucks’ sake. I have a disgust response from the way he speaks as it plays back in my head. You ghat a problehm with blaq people? Flat vowels from the Global South. I could smell whatever ersatz cologne he’d doused himself in. Big, dumb bicycle chain wrapped around his neck. I could barely make out this heckler’s face, he was so overweight he was drowned in fat, and he threw his arms up in the air so his bony elbows came out at weird, jutting angles.
My mood is completely ruined so I turned right, catching the sun, cutting off a man walking a Chow dog who I presume follows after me.
My sunglasses are in my pocket and for whatever reason I lose the will to actually pull them out so I’m walking blind into glare. Was everyone still looking at me? The sun is beating down and on top of that the wind is blowing directly into my face. I can’t see anything and I feel prickly heat around my flanks. Maybe a tweed jacket was the wrong choice, but I’m not going to take it off and drape it over my shoulder right now. I do not want to be perceived.
I start thinking about the street venders from ten years ago, how friendly they all were. That’s not a thing anymore, I guess. I force all that from my mind and as I’m walking I involuntarily start thinking back to when I was little.
I was six, maybe seven, and my mother was in the hospital so I was being looked after by my father. It took him maybe three days to stop bothering to make sure I had a bath or brushed my teeth. Maybe a week before he stopped doing laundry. About three weeks in he was forced to start taking me to school again; somebody had mentioned something to my grandmother who came round to shout at him. He reckoned I could learn everything I needed from watching television.
The other kids were not a fan of my new look, and the bullying was horrible. Already a lonely child, I was further isolated from my peers by my appearance and odour. I had an initial grace period, I’m sure Miss. Euston had prepped everyone that my mother was sick and everyone was to be very nice to me.
The great mass of my appearance, greasy and smelly, eventually pulled through the gravity of Miss. Euston’s authority, and finally I slipped through her graces and into the bottomless pit of cruelty only children are capable of.
One night when the rest of the class was dismissed she kept me back to talk to me.
“How are you, John?”
Fine.
“I hear your mummy will be back soon? Isn’t that great?”
Yes.
“Maybe you should tell your dad to give you a bath before she gets home, yes?”
Yes.
“Is your dad coming to pick you up today?”
I don’t know.
She smiled at me put her hand to my face. It was warm and soft and I could feel the sea-salt sweat from her palms. It was comforting. Maybe that’s why I’m a cuddler now. She gave me a chocolate bar from her treat tin and let me go. My dad did actually pick me up that day. He asked me where I got the chocolate bar from and I said Miss. Euston gave it to me. I never ate it, at some point it must have been thrown away.
I realized Miss. Euston was, probably, barely a few years older than I was now. I wonder what she was up to. At some point the buildings covered the sun and I checked my watch. Two more hours to go.
I see a free table on a raised mount and decide to sit there. I look up at the statues looking down at me and a waiter comes over and says I have to order if I want to stay there. This annoys me so I bark at him that I need a menu if I want to order anything. He leaves and the clouds open again, probably by the wind, and it beats down on me again. Feeling more grounded I take off my jacket and drape it over my chair and take the cigarettes from the inside pocket. I looked at my phone and re-read the invitation email.
To – me, please be here at whenever o’clock to talk to our international undergrads on international project management.
Regards, some professor I didn’t like as an undergrad.
It was certainly an honor to be asked, but no doubt was being used to drum up engagement for some useless course they were peddling. How exactly does International Relations parse into International Project Management? You learn everything you need to know doing the damn job. I had emailed myself my famous slide deck, the one that was thrown around in secret by senior bureaucrats who were sick of being bureaucrats and wanted to actually do something. The one that Managers said could never be released, but had obviously plagiarized in snippets when they thought appearing to be daring would be beneficial to their careers.
A brunette waitress comes over with the menu, she looks young. Maybe 18. Over a decade younger than me.
If you don’t mind getting up, she said in a startling American, there’s a buffet as well.
I say thank you and look at her. Was she American? American-Italian? She looked British. Maybe Danish. I didn’t want to ask. She was pale, apart from her lips and cheeks which were the color of a rose.
Thank you, I say. Do I order drinks from you?
Of course, she said and took out a notepad and pen. The other wait staff used an iPad. I wondered where hers was and asked for a double espresso and a glass of orange juice.
Is that all?
Wait, how tall is the orange?
What?
I smile and her and mime a glass growing from very small to very tall. How tall is the glass? Is it a lot of orange juice?
She smiles and laughs and it’s very cute, I think she lost her composure because the laugh doesn’t match her voice.
I run my hand through my hair because I need something for my hands to do, and she says yeah. It’s tall. Pretty big. Are you going far after this?
I dunno. There’s some people trying to kill me. I smile again, obviously a joke.
She smiles back. You should have the buffet and I’ll bring you your drinks. I’ll leave the jar of orange juice but don’t tell anyone, OK?
OK, I say. Grazie.
Prego, she says and walks off.
I check how far the walk is and it’s maybe 40 minutes, too far in this weather. Will it rain? Will I literally burn to a crisp? I wish I had brought my laptop so I could have the slide deck up. I could ask the waitress what she thought.
She comes back with my coffee and a cold glass of orange juice, and a jug of water.
Sorry, she says, my manager told me to only pour the juice.
That’s fine, I think I’m only 40 minutes away. Like three miles.
You won’t be able to walk three miles in forty minutes, she says. You should eat quickly, then get up and go.
I dunno, I say, drawing out my response. I’m quite tall.
She laughs again and says she’ll bring my cheque now.
I get up and make a plate of pastry, the meat looks like it had been left out so I avoided it. I grabbed some things I don’t know the name of, and a slice of bread that was being warmed on a terracotta platter over some coals.
She walks away and when she comes back I want to ask for her number, but there’s a huge delivery truck slowly rolling through. My cup is shaking in its’ saucer and if it wasn’t already mostly drunk it’d run over. I try to make conversation but I don’t want to shout at her so just give her 30 euro and say keep the tip. She shouts back thanks. I get up and start walking.
The sun won out against the rain and it started to pound me again. The air was dry. I was walking fast and making good time, but I did not want to end up sweaty when I got there so I took off my jacket and carried it under my arm. I checked my phone again and I had a missed call and a voice mail. I couldn’t see the name in the glare.
I couldn’t stop to put earphones in, so I put my phone away.
I managed to make it to the campus with five minutes to spare. I hullo’d with the professors and asked for a glass of water. I drank it in one then went to the bathroom to piss, and check my hair. I was sweating but my jacket would cover it. My hair looked great. I clenched my jaw and looked at my face. Intense. Satisfied, I blew my nose and in my head went over the topics I’d cover. If I got lost I’d ask the students questions.
For some reason I thought back to Miss. Euston, looking after the poor scapegrace that was me. I remember once she told me God was in the wind.
I was waiting in the wings, hidden on a pre-stage before the main stage. Before I put my phone on silent, I thought I’d listen to the voice mail quickly. I briefly thought it "pre-stage" was even a word. I didn’t recognize the number. I pressed play and raised it to my ear.
There was a pause and then, cutting through the roar of the wind once present but no longer, came a voice.
“Hi, John, I hope you’re well and I’m just calli-“
The voicemail stopped. Someday, I hope, Apple will figure out how to actually let me hear my voicemail without constantly having to un-pause it. I hit play and put my phone back to my ear but I knew who it is before she said her name. “I’m just calling to say hey. It’s me, Joanne.”
It was a whisper being carried over time and continents. A whisper from a girl that might as well be dead. Why me, Joanne. Why me.
I covered my face with my hands. I realized I was doing it in shame and suddenly Miss. Euston’s voice came back to me again. “God is in the wind.”
I pulled the skin on my face down, pressed hard, and walked out onto the next stage, tucking my phone away in my-

Our girl is 1.5yrs old. I am a SAHM so as you can imagine I'm home at least 85% of the time. The problem is the other 15% no matter how short of spurts she will destroy her crate. She destroyed the plastic bottom tray, any blankets we leave her. Is our only choice no blanket and she sleeps on the wires(don't love this idea doesn't seem comfy but I don't know) or medicine? We've done big walks before anything longer then an hour before hand, we've tried rolled up rolled with treats (she just shreds the towels to pieces) silicone lick mats and kongs are a no she shreds them to pieces and eats them. She is fine all night in her crate from 930 or 10pm to 6am.
For example today, kids are off with grandparents so we took her for a 30 min walk, stopped st a dog friendly patio for lunch and she laid there amazingly just watching people and sniffing around. Another 30 min walk back. Then about an hour after we put her in her crate for us to go out for 1 hour and her blanket was destroyed. We were not gone long. Tomorrow we have to be gone for 4 hours total to go pick up our kids and I don't wanna just leave her on the wired crate for 4 hours but cannot trust her with a blanket it seems.
Please give me tips or should I call the vet and discuss meds. I hate feeling like I can't leave my house and it also makes me feel like we will never be able to trust her to leave her outside the crate.

There's a lot of backstory to this. I got a diagnosis for autism, and my mom got me into programs to help me with parts of life I struggle with. One service I get through these programs is Community Hab. Basically I just hire someone to show me how to function with other people. Since I just sort of tend to let life happen to me, because I don't know what's going on or what I even want most of the time, I picked the first person I talked to. Things didn't work out with her, and I never even started with her. The second one, let's call her RP (rude person), showed up. I have intense ADHD brain, and had only seen her once or twice at least a few days before she started. So I had no idea who she was when she showed up at my house, and this was basically my first impression of her. She was very loud and chatty, which is more of a matter of preference than an actual complaint. I'm trans-nonbinary and AMAB, and something else I noticed quickly was that RP constantly used words like "girl" "girl friend" and "sister" talking to me. I don't know if it's just the way she talks or if she was trying way too hard, but it was making me really uncomfortable. Now on to the actual complaints. She watched Instagram reels or tiktoks or something like that without a headset. She would watch these videos at restaurants, on walks (around the block and on nature trails), and pretty much everywhere she went. When she did shopping, she would pick up something she wanted, then put it down elsewhere when she didn't want it anymore. Which, I do understand, sometimes I can't find where I got something and put it down at the closest approximation of where I think it was. But RP doesn't even try to find where it was, she just puts it on whatever random shelf is closest to her. Once, when we were walking somewhere, she asked me what kind of music I like. Thinking she was just trying to drum up a conversation like she usually does, I said I didn't listen to any genre in particular. She then proceeded to play a christian rock song. No hate to christians, I know there are some great people who are christian out there. But I wasn't a great person when I was part of the religion, and there are a lot of people who use it as a crutch for their hate or bigotry. RP was playing this song out loud on a quiet path where people were trying to have a peaceful little stroll. Not only that, but it was a religious song, so she could've triggered someone's religious trauma. That should've been the end of it, but I wasn't about to tell my mom that I wanted to fire RP because she played a song and I didn't like it. So fast forward to the day of the incident. I decided we were going to a store, because there was something I wanted to get there and there was an eat-in place there where we could get food. We ate, then I grabbed a cart. I grabbed the thing I was there to get, and a few other things I thought of to make this trip more than just a side quest to replenish my pesto. This included a refrigerated item since I thought we were going home and I hadn't consented to going to two other stores. I'll come back to that. I got in line to check out, and RP suggested we go to self-checkout. We did that, but we got to the payment and realized they don't take cash, which was all I had to pay with. We called over customer support, and they printed a receipt to buy the things with cash at the customer service counter. I hadn't picked up that the employee had taken the receipt to the counter and thought RP had it. When she urged me toward the counter to pay by myself, I said "don't we need the receipt?" She filled me in on what I missed. I made an honest mistake, and she realized that and had respectfully corrected it. Or so I thought. I might be paraphrasing the next part a bit, I don't remember the exact dialogue. We went to the car, and she said, "I know what I'm doing in stores, okay?" "What?" I said, unsure what she meant. "You were arguing with me back in the checkout." "I wasn't arguing with you, I..." then I summarized exactly what happened. "You just seemed like you were arguing with me", RP said. Then we drove off, I assumed to home. But actually we went to Hobby Lobby. Usually, she asks about personal errands, then asks when we get there if I want to go in or stay in the car. But this time, we just arrived there and she just said, "Come on" or "let's go" or "come on, let's go" when she got out of the car and I wasn't moving. We went in, and this is where the big thing happens. We were in the bird food aisle and she picked up a package of bird food. She walked probably ten steps down the aisle to look at the bird feeders, decided she didn't want the food anymore, and put it on the feeder shelf. While she left the aisle, I decided to correct it since it was right there. When I got back to RP, she said, "did that bother you?" I said yes. She said, "that's their (the employees) job. It gives them more work." I said, "no, their job is to stock shelves or help people find things. You're just making their jobs harder." Then she said, in these exact words, "What do you expect for minimum wage workers? They should've gone to college!" This was the exact moment when I decided she wasn't going to work with me anymore. I didn't say anything afterwards, I just said, "okay", and tried to talk to her as little as possible for the rest of the day. After Hobby Lobby, we went to some other store I've never heard of, to get some pillows for her couch because something had happened to the old pillows. I said, "can we hurry up? I have a refrigerated item in the car and I need to get it home." RP said "It'll be fine, it's not a hot day." First of all, it was warm in her car. Secondly, that's not how it works, warm day or not it needs to be refrigerated. She stopped and went around a corner. I stayed with the cart. I waited a while, then heard her calling for me. I found her, and apparently she was going to check out. I mentioned the cart, and she said it wasn't hers, and that she had pushed it out of her way. I was confused, because I had thought she was pushing it through the entire store, and it was blocking half the aisle. I'm still not sure to this day if she was gaslighting me so she wouldn't have to take care of it or wait for me to take care of it, or if she actually just didn't have it the entire time. Either way, I left it there and we went home. RP took out a puzzle and I had had my headphones on for the car ride and most of the time home. I dried the dishes. When it was time for RP to leave, she said "bye, I'll see you Monday." Later that day I told my mom what happened, she told RP's supervisor, and I never saw RP again. I hope she becomes a better person, and if not, I hope she has to work for minimum wage and struggles to pay for housing.

There’s a girl in my friend group, I’ll call her B. We’ve been in the same friend group for 4 years and we were friends for those first 2 years. She loves to stir up drama and cuss (she doesn’t even use the words right sometimes). For a while I was the only one out of my friend group of 8 who called her out. If I have to speak up for something, you know it has to be bad. (I’m really quiet and introverted but this whole situation helped me to finally find my voice). She talks about her “friends” behind their backs to get attention from others. She told another girl that my friend (A)s prom dress was ugly. At prom pics A’s mom ignored B, causing her to ask another friend (E) why. E told her that A knew B called her prom dress ugly and B asked if anyone else was mad at her. E told her that we were all tired of her cussing all the time and talking bad about us. She (thankfully) didn’t show up to the sleepover after prom. Instead of apologizing, B blatantly ignored everyone for a few weeks and then came back to the friend group on the last day of school (without an apology) as if nothing happened. And those friends, who I had stuck up for when B talked about them, let her come back instead of sticking up for you like I did for them. I hate crying in front of others but at lunch I cried in front of 2 of my friends, telling them I couldn’t take it and was going to eat with a teacher. They said “it’s ok, let’s just get a lunch table picture before you go” and I went to the bathroom and cried. I have told my group how B has hurt me and made my life a living hell for the past 2 years and I thought we were all on the same page about her. The few weeks she was ignoring us I felt like I could actually talk at my lunch table and I was happier. I don’t understand why they picking the girl who talked about them behind their backs over the girl who stood up for them when she did.
Other things she’s done: -Blatantly flirted to the guy I was dating in front of my behind my back -wrote a list of how our friend group “would split” (bcs of drama she created) -said a dress wouldn’t look good on a girl cause “she was too boxy” -constantly “mishears” what ppl say and says she thought they said _________ (and it’s always something really vulgar) -ignored me for half a year and wouldn’t even look at me (I thought it was kind of funny) -tried to pry info abt the guy I was dating out of me by being fake nice
That was theraputic to get off my chest 🤣

There’s a girl in my friend group, I’ll call her B. We’ve been in the same friend group for 4 years and we were friends for those first 2 years. She loves to stir up drama and cuss (she doesn’t even use the words right sometimes). For a while I was the only one out of my friend group of 8 who called her out. If I have to speak up for something, you know it has to be bad. (I’m really quiet and introverted but this whole situation helped me to finally find my voice). She talks about her “friends” behind their backs to get attention from others. She told another girl that my friend (A)s prom dress was ugly. At prom pics A’s mom ignored B, causing her to ask another friend (E) why. E told her that A knew B called her prom dress ugly and B asked if anyone else was mad at her. E told her that we were all tired of her cussing all the time and talking bad about us. She (thankfully) didn’t show up to the sleepover after prom. Instead of apologizing, B blatantly ignored everyone for a few weeks and then came back to the friend group on the last day of school (without an apology) as if nothing happened. And those friends, who I had stuck up for when B talked about them, let her come back instead of sticking up for you like I did for them. I hate crying in front of others but at lunch I cried in front of 2 of my friends, telling them I couldn’t take it and was going to eat with a teacher. They said “it’s ok, let’s just get a lunch table picture before you go” and I went to the bathroom and cried. I have told my group how B has hurt me and made my life a living hell for the past 2 years and I thought we were all on the same page about her. The few weeks she was ignoring us I felt like I could actually talk at my lunch table and I was happier. I don’t understand why they picking the girl who talked about them behind their backs over the girl who stood up for them when she did.
Other things she’s done: -Blatantly flirted to the guy I was dating in front of my behind my back -wrote a list of how our friend group “would split” (bcs of drama she created) -said a dress wouldn’t look good on a girl cause “she was too boxy” -constantly “mishears” what ppl say and says she thought they said _________ (and it’s always something really vulgar) -ignored me for half a year and wouldn’t even look at me (I thought it was kind of funny) -tried to pry info abt the guy I was dating out of me by being fake nice
That was theraputic to get off my chest 🤣

WHOOOOO, A WEEK. I feel nice, liberated and amazing. I have more energy and more motivation do to BETTER. This better thing is from a youtube short that i watched where i guy tossed pizza very skillfully and kept saying better better. Pretty funny.
I read some posts where people are like damn i can't quit and shit. JUST QUIT. Or get a girl. if ur like, but how to get a girl, that's simple. Girls hang around in groups and very difficult to approach as they are with friends. So go in safe, comfortable places. Gym is a good place but you have to find a good moment, not in between sets. When she is taking a break and drinking water, just say excuse me can i get a water, then she moves and u get water. this will slowly turn into excuse me can you please spot me, then start going to the gym in her time exchange number, call her to ask if she is coming to the gym, then slowly slowly build up courage and ask her out for a coffee/tea/anything to eat in a crowded place. If you can't do that here are other options:
1) school/college
2) Workplace
3) tindebumble/grindr
4) be a playboy. just ask out any random girl. if you ask 100 girls, the probability of 1 saying ya sure, is very very less, but if ur a bit handsome(which we know u arnt otherwise why wud be be reading, it's ok don't feel bad, im not handsome either) u can do it

Hi💗 I am in my first real relationship and he and I have been dating for a little over a year now. Our relationship has been amazing and everything I ever dreamed of. I never had any of these ROCD thoughts until about a month ago. I have struggled with OCD since I was about 10. I am 19 now and my OCD has really only been centered around germs and contamination, so it has been extremely difficult and stressful dealing with a new subtype of OCD that I have never experienced before. For the past month I have been a wreck thinking things like “what if I cheated on my boyfriend but I forgot?” And I have been so terrified that any minute now I will remember being unfaithful and our relationship will be over. Or I keep reminiscing on the past and thinking of thoughts I had or things I did that could be considered cheating. And I know it is bad to do this, but every time I think of something bad I did or might have done, I have confessed it to him. I kept confessing and confessing every single thing I could think of for weeks on end. And now the thoughts are starting to morph a little bit. Now I am thinking things like “what if I thought someone else was more attractive than him?” So I kept trying to think of instances where I might have thought something like that, which then reminded me of a person who I saw that I thought was attractive and I started feeling extremely guilty for finding someone else good looking. And I kept dwelling on the thought “what if I thought that guy I saw was more attractive than my boyfriend?” And because I kept dwelling on it I was like “ok fine, maybe that guy was more attractive than my boyfriend back when my boyfriend had short hair” (for context I have always preferred my boyfriend with longer hair because I think it looks better on him, which I also feel guilty about). So then I started freaking out because I have always thought my boyfriend is the most handsome boy in the world, and I have told him that countless times, so now I feel like a liar for saying that to him considering I just had that thought about that random guy. I am so terrified that I actually meant what I thought. I kept trying to figure out if it was an intrusive thought or if I actually meant it. But what if I am only trying to label it as an intrusive thought to make myself feel better and give myself a pass? All of these ROCD thoughts I have been having lately are just becoming too much and I have been feeling so guilty. It has gotten to the point where I have been thinking about ending my life, and I feel physically sick 24/7, I cannot eat because I feel too nauseous from the guilt and sadness. I do not know how much longer I can stand to be in this relationship. I truly love my boyfriend more than anything and I want to be with him. If I did not have him in my life then I would have nothing and I would never find happiness again. What we have is real, and he loves me unconditionally, which makes this all worse. He always tells me that he finds no other girls attractive and that I am the prettiest girl in the world, so now I feel even more terrible for thinking what I have been thinking. We had a whole future planned together but I do not know if I can go through with it because this ROCD is ruining my relationship. I am going to be trying EMDR therapy with a therapist who works with a lot of people with OCD, and am hoping that it will help. But in the meantime, I do not know what to do and I am scared that even this treatment will not work. I also am taking currently taking Fluvoxamine to help with my OCD but it has not been helping. I am afraid I am a horrible person who no longer deserves my boyfriend and no longer deserves to be loved😞💔

I've been struggling with something that feels silly, but I just can't get it out of my head. My cat passed away three months ago, and I'm still very upset over it. I loved her so much, and we had an incredible bond. Knowing she was sick and our time together was limited, I asked her not to force me to make the hardest decision of my life. While I understand she was just a cat and couldn't really choose, I always believed that, given our bond, she'd let me know when she was ready and would pass peacefully in my arms.
My experience was quite the opposite. I spent her last night with her on the couch, and she woke up repeatedly, trying to eat, drink, and use the bathroom. She was so weak and frail that she needed my help, but her day just continued on like it was any other day to her. I cuddled with her all day until the vet came to our home in the afternoon. She was disinterested and just wanted to sleep. Maybe I'm being selfish, and the more I type this, the more I realize that might be true. But I always thought she'd let me know she was ready, that we'd share one last hug like we always did. Instead, she slept until I picked her up and held her in my lap so she could pass peacefully and no longer suffer from her kidney problems.
Maybe that was her way of telling me she was tired and ready to go, maybe she wanted to but didn't have the energy to let me know. Maybe I'm way over thinking this. I'm just struggling with how, seemingly overnight, I lost the spunky girl I used to dance with, and I want so badly to have her back again.
It's been three months now, and the apartment has been deafeningly quiet.

I’ve been out of the church for over a year now. Luckily I have other siblings out with me. Although I’m very happy and living a life I love, the hardest part for me is having to watch my younger sisters still be raised in the church. It’s like getting to see all my religious trauma play out a second time, seeing their gut-wrenching reactions, and knowing my parents genuinely think they’re helping them.
I live in different state than my family and am visiting home for the weekend. They all went to church this morning and my mom said they were fasting today. Oddly enough, as I’m getting breakfast after they leave- I have this flashback of my older brother getting yelled at by our dad over fasting. It was over 16 years ago, but I’ll never forget my dad standing over him saying “You’re 11 years old. It’s ridiculous to see you break a fast at this age.” At 11 !!!! The older I get the more I realize how bizarre that truly is.
Well my family gets home from church a couple hours later. My little sister (12) decides to make a sandwich. As she’s sitting down to eat, my dad walks in and starts to make her feel bad. He gave her this lecture on “how they’re fasting for someone super sick” and he just makes her feel like she must not care about this sick person if she’s breaking her fast. My sister of course starts sobbing and it was gut wrenching for me to over-hear.
I was sitting with my mom when this went down, so I just said “You guys are too hard on her. Poor girl.” My mom asked what I meant, so I reminded my mom that my sister is 12, going through puberty, AND hardly ate yesterday (due to her being on ADHD meds and not having an appetite). My mom just responded with “it isn’t a WE that is too hard on her,” kind of pointing fingers at my dad. So then my mom gets up and goes to the kitchen to hug my sister and talked to my dad. My dad just kept defending himself saying “I wasn’t trying to make her feel bad.”
So today feels like a HUGE win for me. Seeing my mom comfort my sister and not only see the issue with their expectation of fasting, but talk to my dad about it is an EXMO win for sure !! Doesn’t take away from the guilt-trip and heartbreak my sister just finished crying over. Still hurts my heart and I wish I could just save her from this religious trauma. It’s truly so dumb that we expect children to go without meals and make them feel like shit if they need to eat.
Anyone else have fasting trauma? 😂 And how do y’all cope with watching your little siblings go through religious trauma? It’s gut-wrenching.

my sister (19F) and I (17F) have NEVER gotten along for long. we've argued our whole lives and we are the complete opposite of each other. if it helps, shes an INFJ and im an INFP.
so we'd argued all day, literally since I woke up we've been arguing. so things were already tense.
we had to go to my grandparents for a birthday thing for lunch and I don't eat at the table (I never do, this isn't new and no one cares). but ofc my sister takes it upon herself to tell me it's disrespectful. maybe if I was at some formal dinner but these r my grandparents, I stay at their place for weeks at a time (mostly to get away from my sister). I tell her that no one cares and I just wanna watch TV while I eat.
so I put a movie on (I also asked her earlier if she wanted to watch any in there from my collection of blu rays but she said I only have boy movies, bc thats another thing, she criticises my favourite things but whatever). as I'm setting up the movie she comes in and says shes gonna eat in here. I told her I like to eat alone (especially since she's been pissing me off all day) and she's stubborn as hell so I decided to leave and just eat somewhere else.
which is ridiculous, she doesnt even want to watch a movie she just hates our grandpa and our dad so she doesnt want to sit with them (I have great relationships with them too, she hates the ENTIRE family except mum and nana).
but when I left, she gets pissy bc she handles emotions as well as a 6 year old so she narcs to mum (which she does ALL THE TIME). so I don't wanna start anything so I come back and just deal with it but then she just says despicable me. I'm like what? she says I wanna watch despicable me. yeah no matter I'd just spent 5 minutes skipping the ads on this movie and my food is getting cold) but WHATEVER. I go to get it and im changing going thru the motions again, all the ads.
also the movie I'd put on before was hotel Transylvania but she didn't wanna watch it bc its "sad". she calls every family movie sad. I csnt even say the word WALL-E or god forbid fhe lion king. I'm an insanely emotional person, but the difference between us is I like to express sadness and I cry a lot when she expresses all her emotions in anger. she says im depressed all the time and makes fun and asks if I "forgot my anti-depressants". I don't even take them, and if I did she'd mock me and say that that im a bad person for taking mental heath drugs.
so movies on, I can finally eat and for a while we actuslly get along and since it's a background movie rly she's not forcing me to rewind every 3 minutes. that's y I stopped watching movies with her, she made me rewind and it's take a afternoon to watch ONE movie. she also didn't want to watch anything with me when our parents were home as if she's embarrassed to watch stuff with me. which feels GREAT. I think it's bc she doesn't want dad to see her watch a "kids" movie like beethoven.
so we laughing, it's okay. well except the part when she says i need to eat like a "lady" and that i need to be "ladylike". do u know how much that makes me want to burp in her face?im considered relatively "unladylike" i guess. i swear a lot and i make a lot of dirty jokes. its part of my charm lol. she hates it tho. and my sarcasm, REALLY hates it.
i finish eating snd after a while I get a little bored so I start playing temple run 2 on my phone. she HATES me reading, or looking st my phone if she's with me, she gets rly angry but I'd figured since its just a background movie it's fine. she says to me, very blunt, get off her ur phone. and I have this thing where I hate being told what to do, if it's unreasonable or how they say it. so I don't get off my phone. she then opens her phone and starts watching yt shorts very loudly. I think she expects this to annoy me but news flash, I don't give a shit what she does bc I don't obsess over what other ppl do like she does.
still tho, I don't wanna listen to her preachy, anti-feminism, homophobic bullshit on full blast. thats another thing, I'm a huge supporter of the feminist movement and equality and lgbt rights when shes dead against it. she thinks mothers csnt have careers and being lgbt is wrong. she uses her religion as an excuse for it too. I'm a nihilist as well so every time I say jesus or oh my god she freaks out at me. idc what her religion is, I don't tell her what to do but she tells me I'm being disrespectful. oh I csn get real disrespectful real fast but I don't bc thats her opinion and this is mine.
some thing thats ironic is that im super for lgbt and women rights even more bc of her. I hate seeing how hateful she is towards these groups and minorities so it's made me support them even more. also fhe fact that she's called me a lesbian and intersex and a boy snd countless other things bc of my interests. I'm straight and an lgbt ally who loves marvel and star wars and video games and shee sees those as reasons to call me a lesbian? she also says I dress like one but she dresses like strawberry fucking shortcake if she had no style whatsoever. I wear movie referenced t shirts and hoodies and I like to think I have some sense of style but she says I dress like a boy bc of ONE Simpson skeleton on my shirt. she also says fhe complete opposite if I wear my hair in pigtails, that I dress like a little girl. which is it, sister dearest? am I a boy or a little girl?
anyway, as I was saying she starts watching stuff at full blast, I don't say anything I just put my headphones on. then she starts getting mad. oh she HATES my headphones, she thinks its the most disrespectful thing. I have a lot of anxiety when I leave the house so I have my headphones on all the time, music calms me and I listen to music every day and it's just something i do but she hates it. I dont see y it's different for me to wear my headphones if I'm not gonna talk to anyone anyway. she feels the same when I read around her. I love books, I read a lot and its yet AHOTHER thing she hates about me.
so she starts getting angrier and telling me to take my headphones off but by this point I'm done with the movie anyway and I wanna be alone so I get up to leave. I say I'm not dealing with this shit. she then puts her feet up on the pouffe (which I let her use bc theres only one and she was complaining) to block me. I tell her to move and she says to stay and watch the movie with her. now it's her words that I understand what she rly means. she wants me to sit and watch the movie with her for some reason. but no, I'm not dealing with her bullshit. she keeps blocking me and then she gets up and im just trying to get past without hurting her but shes not ceasing.
bc forcing someone to sit with u and bossing them around is the best way to bond with ur little sister ofc.
eventually I start shouting at her bc ik she'll start to panic if our grandpa will hear. (She's so fake in front of him too, all smiley and happy when inside she hates him. shes like that with every human in the planet besides me mum, dad and nana. she just openly hates me and dad. it's interesting to me how she hates everyone and makes fun of ppl online but yet she still worries about hurting their feelings more than anyone ik. she can be empathetic in that sense at least. it's hard for someone who sees the world in black and white tho, as she does. I just see fifty Shades of grey (hah).
but my shouting isn't working so I'm done and I shove her out the way and ofc that rly ticks her off. I don't understand what she expects me to do, but she gets rly angry when it happens. she shouts for mum ofc. I grab all my stuff so she csnt do anything to it (she breaks my lego regularly and changes the bookmarked pages in my books a lot and searches thru my phone and texts if I leave anything around her). im just heading to the backyard so I'm away from her, I thought about leaving the house entirely but we were gonna leave soon anyway (or i was told).
I walk past mum on my way out and she asks what's wrong snd I'm just too pissed off to rly explain anything so I just say my sister js crazy or something like that. I sit outside listening to music and avoid my sister rhe rest of the afternoon. I knew she'd be talking to my mum about what I did and spinning it so I was the hateful sister who doesnt want to watch a movie with her which yeah is technically true but how is it fair that she treats me like that still? am I supposed to just let her walk all over me?
my mum thinks that. she tells me to give in and just agree to anything and just do whatever my sister says. my mum is my sisters slave too. she'll do anything to keep the peace and just agrees to whatever my sister wants. the countless times she gets whatever take away she wants and im left with the leftovers in the fridge bc im the "easy child". Or at least I used to be, fron my mums perspective. just bc im chill and not insanely entitled and demanding like my sister.
so later in the night when we all at home I go to the kitchen and my mums in tjere and my dads rhere too, just eating. little did the man know what he'd be in the middle of in a few minutes.
my mum hasn't spoken to me about what went down at my grandparents, hasn't gotten my perspective but whatever. she asks me what was so wrong with watching a movie with my sister. I didn't even stop watching the movie bc of my sister, I just had it on while I ate my dinner and I told her as much. they always do this, say "with ur sister" when it's just something we just happened to both be doing. they make it sound like I'm deliberately being a dick to her bc im hateful. then my mum starts going off and saying shit like "u watch movies with ur friends and ur father, y csnt u watch them with her?" I didn't wanna say that I csnt watch movies with her bc it gets on my nerves bc my sister csn hear everyrthing in the house, we all constantly aware of that as if she's always listening, its creepy as hell but she's too nosy.
I say that I was done with the movie and she started bossing me around so I left. That's the truth bur my mum was like NO DONT GIVE ME THAT SHIT, U DONT WANT TO WATCH MOVIES WITH HER BUT U DO WITH UR FRIENDS AND UR FATHER. U NEVER DO ANYTHING WITH HER, HOW DO U THINK THAT MAKES HER FEEL? UR NOT UNDERSTANDING HER SIDE
ya know what's even dumber, they use my OWN FUCKING ARGUMENTS against me. I always say to consider the others persons side and to understand everyone's perspective. and she has fhe GALL to say I don't get her side? OFC I DO BUT SHES TOO FUCKING UNBEARABLE
and I never do anything with her or watch movies with her bc she hates mt favourite movies and shows and vice versa. my favourite movies deadpool and j spend mt days watching marvel, star wars, Disney, musicals, sci fi, action, romance, dramas when she watches REALITY TV AND HORRORS.
PROBABLY THE ONLY 2 GENRES I DONT WATCH. I watch SO MANY DIFFERENT THINGS and she happens to watch the ones I HATE. how r we supposed to watch stuff together with all that, and her bloody rewinding and her criticisms? ITS IMPOSSIBLE.
we agree on very few movies and when we do she wants to watch them so much that she thrashes them. now I'm a person who's seen deadpool a million times and I rewatch everything, I've seen the office thousands of times but she still somehow manages to ruin things for me. she nearly ruined fawlty towers.
now on one hand, my sister has no friends and every one she's ever had has always betrayed or bullied her. thats true, mostly. ppl have been horrible to her forever, I understand she is damaged but she takes it out on me. and how can she ever make friends again if they ever make mistakes she never forgives them? I have a friend who ratted me out to the teacher on the first week I met her for swearing bur she's one if mt closest friends going on 5 years now. every friend I have has fucked up before obviously we human we mess up and learn. my sister won't accept any mistake outside of me or mum. my dad has suffered from that as has my aunt and my cousins. they messed up one too many times and instead of communicating with them, she ignored it so it continued and now she'll never forgive them. obviously that doesn't excuse their behavior but she has to forgive or else she'll be alone. this is the only reason y I still give her chances, bc I used to think maybe she'll learn and get better. but she still treats me worse than anyone I've ever known. but I dont want to give up on her like she's done.
when I move out (as fast as fucking possible) I'll still see her but just a lot less. She and I rly don't work well and she hates everyrthing and everyone important to me.
Still tho, perhaps I am the asshole here. Idk rly. I don't treat her perfectly either, I try tho. And I apologise and I mean it. When she apologises she just means she's sorry she's hurt me, not for what she djd. Bc she does it again and again and again.

11/20/2017
Log book of Det. Ryan Snow
Case #2798: The Appalachian Murders
The past couple of days are events I pray no one else ever has to go through what Kate and I had. I had her and Mr. Raines cleared of all charges, having found the proof we all needed to end this case and find the true killer. Kate no longer has to go into witness protection and I had given the police a good enough lie to keep myself from looking insane in the eyes of my co-workers. I know no one will ever know the true story or believe it, but I’m writing it out here. It at least needs to be known written somewhere. Even if my and Kate’s eyes are the only ones that will ever read it written out and forever imprinted in our memories.
The morning Kate had run off to the mountains on her own, I had made my way to the Blackwell home where I was immediately met with Mr. Blackwell charging at me and wrapping his large hands around my neck. He was shaking me and blaming me for getting his daughter killed and not doing more to keep her safe. The police who had been called to examine the scene and read Kate’s letter had to sedate Mr. Blackwell to get him off of me, lying him down on the couch, his head resting on Mrs. Blackwell’s legs. Though the woman was distraught and begging the police to bring her daughter back, she still took the time to shoot that cold, death glare my way. The ice in my chest growing. I couldn’t tell these people that this thing had come after me to get to Kate. I knew it wouldn’t change anything. If anything they’d hate me even more for keeping it to myself.
The sheriff was there and he pulled me away from eye sight of the Blackwells, trying to tell me that this wasn’t my fault. But I couldn’t help but blame myself. I should have done everything I could to keep Kate as far from those mountains as possible.
There were no signs of a struggle in Kate’s room and the letter was definitely written in her hand writing. Her father’s rifle missing from the study, a backpack and some food and supplies gone as well. She had only grabbed one set of clothes from her drawers, showing she did indeed have plans on returning after only one night in the mountains to confront whoever or whatever the killer was.
I told the sheriff to keep any police from going up to the mountains without first allowing me to go up there first to find Kate. He of course argued, telling me that he couldn’t break protocol based on any hunches I may have had. However, I told him that I could get Kate back without her putting up much of a fight, whereas she may struggle with a group of cops who didn’t understand the situation she was in. I was close enough to this case to have built a trust with her after all. I was mentioned in her letter about ending this case for me.
It took a good hour to get the sheriff to eye the Blackwells, Mr. Blackwell beginning to stir from his sleep, and allow me to go to the mountains to find Kate. He didn’t bother to call off the search to the police that had already begun making their way to the mountains, but did radio to tell them to not try getting Kate home without first allowing me to speak to her. He then gave me twenty-four hours to find her to which I told him I’d only need at most ten.
Without telling him about the disturbing scratches on my car, I sped to the mountains, taking the same path Kate had that day she took her friends on their trip. The route, as the sun began to rise was scenic. A drive that may have been a sign of a bright future ahead with a beautiful week in the mountains of nothing but nature, was now a reddening sky of horror. I couldn’t understand how Kate felt, going down the same roads that led to her only friends’ fates to avenge them, but the feeling of guilt did weigh heavy on my chest as I saw the signs of the Appalachian Mountain trails grow bigger on the horizon. Guilt for not doing more to prove Kate was innocent, for allowing Mrs. Mayfield for getting killed right before my very eyes, and for Liam for not being lucky enough to save him.
When I finally arrived to the cabin, there didn’t seem to be any change since the first day I was called to the crime scene, the only thing out of place being Mr. Blackwell’s truck parked precariously near the cabin. The police tape was still up, the cars of Kate and Mr. Woolfe still left where they were, the tires still slashed, the door wide open from when Kate, Ms. Greymoore, and Mr. Woolfe ran out of the cabin upon Mr. Billings was killed by an unknown force. All the bodies had been found and were now being prepared by their families to be buried or cremated. Only one body of the five still roaming around to avenge each and every one of their deaths.
I called out for Kate as I made my way into the cabin. The Ouija board was still on the coffee table, the white line of where Mr. Billings had been found lying face first on the floor with his head bashed open remained on the spot. The planchette was still missing. I kept calling out for Kate as I made my way up to the attic, the door left unlocked, using my flashlight to shine down on the white outline where Mr. Steele had been found completely torn apart. To think Kate had done such a thing, I now realize made me look like a complete dumb ass for believing it.
When I couldn’t find Kate in the cabin, I made my way out the cabin, still calling for her. I called out to her, promising that she just needed to come back home with me and we could solve the murders together. I knew it was a lie and that the sheriff would immediately have her take away to some secluded place where the killer couldn’t find her, but it was all I could think of to try luring her out to meet me. Still, she never appeared.
The sun was soon beginning to set as I tried retracing the very steps Kate and Ms. Greymoore had taken to outrun the killer. I had passed the small shrine of flowers and the pictures of Mr. Woolfe where the boy had been found, his face permanently remaining nineteen forever in the photos of him with Kate and their friends. I kept going, trying my best to follow the same path to the cliff where Ms. Greymoore was found, calling for Kate along the way.
It wasn’t until I found the place Kate had buried her best friend that I found Kate. She was on her knees before the rock where she left her bloody handprint, sniffing as her head was lowered, her dad’s rifle in her hands.
“Ms. Blackwell-“ I began as I took a step toward her. I was immediately cut off as Kate jumped to her feet, raising her father’s rifle at my head. I jolted back, raising my hands up to show her I meant no harm to her. “Ms. Blackwell, it’s me, Det. Snow!”
“Detective…?” She gasped, slightly lowering the rifle, but keeping it on me. “P-Prove it!”
“I’m sorry?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I… I thought I saw Sonja…” Kate breathed between tears, the rifle shaking in her hands, “it… It was wearing her face… It had her voice… How… H-How do I know you’re really Det. Snow?”
“You… Saw Sonja?” I asked as gently as I could with a terrified woman pointing a gun my way. “She spoke to you?”
“Prove you’re Det. Snow!” Kate demanded as she stilled her arms, readying the rifle as she pointed straight between my eyes.
“Alright! Alright!” I kept my hands up, backing up slightly as I tried thinking of how I could prove to her I was really me. “I… I, ah… I have… Had a brother… We went to get ice cream together once and… I dropped a dime and went to grab it… I was five… I followed it out to the road and despite how trafficked it was, I didn’t get hit. I grabbed the dime just as a truck was speeding my way and it swerved just before hitting me… Seeing how close I was to death, I dropped the dime and it rolled into the sewer. My brother called me Lucky Dime since then… Saying the dime was lost to me because it did its job in protecting me… I haven’t seen my brother since I was seven and I haven’t spoken to my parents in…” I looked at my watch. “Five years… No one else calls me Lucky Dime… Not even the people at the station know that was my nickname.”
With this, Kate lowered the rifle, her eyes softening from her furious fear to a more melancholy terror. She looked to Ms. Greymoore’s grave marker, her hand print just barely visible In the approaching darkness.
“It… It looked just… Like her…” She sniffed, “it had her voice… Why did it have her voice… Why did it look like her…?”
“Ms. Blackwell,” I soothed, relaxing now that there was no weapon in my face, “we need to head back, your parents are worried about you and the police are looking for-“
“I can’t go back yet!” She snapped at me as she spun to look at me, tears in her eyes. “That thing is still out there and will kill again unless I end it!” She held up her dad’s rifle as if to show me how she meant to “end it.” “I’m not leaving until I end that… Thing that had the balls to wear Sonja’s face and have her voice!”
“Ms. Blackwell, we will catch the killer, I promise, but right now, we need to get you home before your dad ends up killing a police officer for keeping him from looking for you.”
“I told him in my letter I’d be back tomorrow! I’m twenty-years-old, he can’t force me back home if I don’t want to! I just want to stop this thing before it-“
A howling in the distance cut Kate off. Coyote from what I could hear. If I couldn’t get Kate home, I’d have to get her somewhere safe. I turned to begin talking her down and taking her to one of the other two cabins for shelter. However, when I looked back at her, her face had turned to a bone chilling terror I’d never seen on a person before. She looked like hunted prey that had been found by its predator. She gripped her dad’s rifle to her chest tightly, her hand reaching for the trigger.
“Ms. Blackwell, it’s just a pack of coyote,” I tried telling her calmly, “let’s get to one of the other cabins and-“
“No, no, no,” She stopped me as she stepped back, looking around for where the howling was coming from, “I… Heard that same howling just before I saw Sonja! I thought it was far away, but she… She was right in front of me… She… Something was off, but it looked just like her!”
“Ms. Blackwell, you didn’t see Sonja,” I assured her, “I don’t know what you think you saw, but it wasn’t-“
“Lucky… Dime…”
I froze. My blood turned to ice. The fear on Kate’s face grew as she began backing away, her back hitting the grave marker. I spun around to see a figure in the darkness limp toward us, a scratched and garbled familiar voice coming from it.
“Lucky… Dime…” It wheezed, “You brought her… Back… Give her… To me…”
I whipped out my gun, pointing it at this thing that had his voice. I stepped back to stand directly between this thing and Kate.
“Stay back!” I demanded. “Don’t come any closer!”
“Lucky… Di-“
“Shut up! Stop calling me that! Who are you? Not another step or I’ll shoot!”
The thing stopped limping toward us, its body shuddering in place as it stared us down. I took the safety off of my Glock, ready to blow this thing’s head off if it got any closer or even dared using that voice on me again.
“Kate…” It turned its attention to Kate, a completely different voice coming from it, another male’s voice. “Kate… I’m cold…”
“J-Jasper…” Kate began to sob, “Please, stop using their voices… Please stop!”
“Kate… Kate why did… Did you leave me…?” Another male voice asked. “I… I was in so much… Pain…”
“Shut up!” Kate cried out.
“I thought we… Were friends… Kate…” A female voice. “You said you… Loved me… Why won’t… You let me have… Your warmth…?”
“I said shut up!” Kate screamed as she pointed her rifle and shooting at the creature. She had missed, but the thing still let out an ear piercing shriek as it dodged out of the way of the bullets Kate was shooting. It ran off into the darkness, but Kate kept pulling the trigger of her rifle.
“Stop!” I shouted as I snatched the barrel of her rifle, shoving it to the ground before us. “It’s gone, you scared it off, get to the cabins, I’m right here with you!”
I began shoving Kate back toward where the cabins were, the sounds of that thing screaming out in a symphony of different voices ringing out throughout the woods. I shoved Kate into the first cabin we had arrived to, Cabin #1 I could only assume as I slammed the door shut behind us. It smelled God awful, like the smell of the corpse I found on my first murder case, and it was getting darker as the sun began to sink behind the trees outside.
“Detective, it smell terrible in here!” Kate cried out, covering her mouth and nose, but the tears still falling from her eyes were still visible as they rolled down her cheeks.
I pulled her close and kept her behind me as I took my gun and flashlight out. “Stay close to me,” I ordered, leading the way through the cabin, “do not run off or use that rifle without may say so, understood?”
Kate didn’t answer, but I could feel the heat from her body following after me as I made my toward the smell. It was getting worse as we inched closer to a closet door in a hallway that connected the living room to the kitchen. The door was locked, but after a couple of kicks I was able to get the door to swing open, the smell blasting us in our faces making us gag and nearly throw up on the floor. I fumbled around the sides inside the room to find a light switch that I was able to find to the side of the entryway. A yellow light flickered on, revealing the door led to a staircase. I led the way down the creaking steps, Kate close by as she kept her mouth covered with her shirt.
Once we had made our way to the bottom, Kate dropped her dad’s rifle and let out a scream as we stared at what was waiting for us at the bottom of the steps. In a large pile at the corner of this basement room were nothing but skin and bones of humans and animals covered in maggots and flies. Some of the human bodies being small and child-like in size. The missing people who were never found after vanishing when they came to Cabin #2.
I grabbed Kate’s rifle off the floor and began pushing her back up the stairs, her screaming and sobbing all the way back up to the cabin. I slammed the door shut behind us and pushed Kate to the front door.
“We need to leave,” I had told her, trying to calm her down as we made it outside, “we need to get you home and away from here as soon as possible.”
“N-No… No!” She began fighting me, trying to escape my grasp on her. “No! That… That thing is still out there! You saw it! You can’t say you don’t believe me now! It even called you Lucky Dime! It said you brought me back!”
“I’m not saying I don’t believe you!” I shot back. “I do, I saw exactly what you saw, but it’s way too dangerous for you to be out here while you’re the one it’s after!”
“I escaped it once, I can do it again!” Kate pointed out as she struggled against me while I tried getting her into my car. “I’m not running away this time, I want to kill it!”
“God damn it, Blackwell, we’ll let the police handle it! Just because you have a weapon doesn’t make you safe or ready to handle something like… Like that… That thing!”
“It killed my friends! It wants me! I’m going straight to it so I can blow its head off! It’ll come right for me!”
“I came here to bring you back home, not let you accomplish some stupid ass revenge plot! Get in the fucking car, unless you want to end up like those bodies down that-“
“D… De… Detect… Detective…”
A scratched and moaning voice cut me off. Kate and I both froze at the sound of something approaching. I turned to see a police officer stagger toward us from the tree line. I could barely tell who he was or who he used to be, his head held low and blue uniform covered in blood.
“H… Hel… Hel… Help… Help me…" It croaked as it stumbled closer.
I held up Kate's rifle. "Stay back!" I barked. "Not another step!"
The thing that stood before us wearing the cop like a full-bodied suit stopped in place. It swayed where it stood, blood water falling from its head and down to its chest.
"It… It… It's inside… Inside me…" It breathed painfully. "I… I can't… Help… Me…" Its voice then changed to that familiar voice that made my skin crawl. "Lucky… Dime… I… I'm so… Hungry… Give her… To… Me…"
I pulled the trigger of the rifle, hitting the creature in the head, the rest of it staggering backward from the blow. Still though, it remained on its feet, turning itself to look toward us once again.
"Give… Her… To… Me…" It wheeze, blood and brain pouring from where I had shot it, it beginning to stumble toward us once again. I continued shooting, hitting it in the shoulder, the arm, the leg, the head again, but it just kept coming toward us faster, demanding I give Kate to it.
I was about ready to ram it with the rifle, having run out of bullets, when a voice off in the distance made the creature freeze just an inch before us.
"I'm here! I'm here!" It called out in an almost sing-songy way, using the voice of a little girl. "I'm here! I'm here!"
"I'm… Here…" The creature repeated as it jerked its body to look to where the voice was coming from. "I'm here… I'm here… I'm here! I'm here! I'm here!" It began shrieking in a high pitch wail. It sounded like a mixture of different voices ranging from child, to woman, to man. Keeping flat on its feet, its upper body fell forward onto its hands before speedily crawling off like a spider.
We stood in shaking silence for a moment, Kate digging her fingers into my arm while I was too numb from shock to care about the pain she was unknowingly inflicting. It wasn’t until the radio from my car buzzed to life that jolted us back to whatever reality was at this point. I scrambled to the driver’s side, swinging the door open as I fell inside to grab the intercom to respond to the voice yelling for me over the receiver.
“Det. Snow, what the hell is going on up there?” The sheriff’s scratched voice called out over the receiver when I could barely get my name out of my mouth.
“Sh-Sh-Sheriff…?” Was all I could respond with, still trying to wrap my head around what I had just seen.
“Y-Y-Yeah,” he responded in mock shudder, “what the hell is going on up there? I’ve tried radioing every man I’ve got up there and am constantly being left on red! Do I need to send back-up?”
“No!” Immediately, I returned to full reality, finally understanding the severity of the moment and putting that knowledge into my tone. “Landon, do not send any more men up here, call everyone back immediately! I don’t know what this thing is, but it’s too dangerous! Call everyone back, we’re heading back to the Blackwell house now!”
“We?” The sheriff questioned, skepticism in his voice.
“I found Ms. Blackwell, she’s here with me.”
I was met with statice before the voice of Mr. Blackwell blasted over the intercom.
“Bring my daughter home, right now, you son of a bitch!” Mr. Blackwell demanded. “You bring her home this instant before I decide to kick your teeth in!”
I opened my mouth to respond, but the radio was snatched from my hand from Kate. “I’m not coming home until I kill this thing!” She snapped into the radio. “I don’t know what it is, but I at least know I’m not crazy and that it needs to die before it kills anyone else!”
I grabbed the radio from Kate’s hand, beginning to tell her off when a agonized scream erupted from the intercom. I dropped the radio to cover my ears as Kate did, the scream piercing from my car to throughout the forest around us. The voice screaming and crying for help sounded male and it seemed to echo all around us.
“GIVE HER TO ME, YOU SON OF A BITCH!” A mix of the screaming voice and Mr. Blackwell’s hissed out after a good five minutes of screaming before the radio short-circuited and puffs of smoke flowed out.
After allowing my ears to adjust to the sudden silence, I grabbed the radio once again and tried calling for the sheriff, for the cops with us in the mountains, for anyone. When I was met with more silence, I slammed the radio back down on the holder and cursed loudly, hitting the wheel as if it were the source of all my problems.
After a moment to take some deep breaths, I told Kate to get in the car as I placed her rifle in the back seat.
“Didn’t you hear me?” she shot back. “I’m not-“
“Damn it, Blackwell, we have no idea what we’re dealing with, it can mimic peoples’ voices, and it just ran off like a fucking black widow!” I snapped, stepping out of the driver’s seat to glare down at her. “The last thing I’m doing to leaving you here alone and I’m not staying here another second until I can wrap my head around what the fuck I just saw! So, you either get yourself killed out here while I try talking you down this hero complex high, or you’re going to do what I say and get in the damn car!”
We stood in heated silence, glaring each other down before Kate huffed and stormed over to the passenger side of my car and slamming the door shut as she climbed in. I jumped in after her and began driving away from this nutty nightmare I had found myself in.
We drove down the trail back to civilization in silence, Kate staring out the window and trying to keep her tearful sniffs quiet. I had finally begun calming down and was starting to feel bad for snapping at her. She had only gone there to avenge her friends by killing that thing that had most likely killed a whole bunch of cops to find her. However, I still couldn’t just let her stay to hunt it and I didn’t want to stay out in those mountains with some kind of creature that could take the form and voice of someone I knew. I still couldn’t understand what is was I had even seen.
“Wendigo,” Kate whispered, breaking the silence in the car first. She had said it as if she had just remembered something important.
“What?”
“A Wendigo,” She repeated, turning to look to me with wide scared eyes, “that’s what that thing is! It’s a Wendigo!”
“Slow down, what’s a Wendigo?”
“It’s… Oh, just forget it! You wouldn’t believe me anyway.”
“Ms. Blackwell, I just saw a cop being used as a puppet and then run off at inhuman speed on all fours; I doubt I’m not going to believe a single word that comes out of your mouth now. What’s a Wendigo?”
Kate eyed me for a moment before releasing some of the tension from her face as she took a deep breath and began explaining to me. “They’re a Native American myth; it’s believed they’re the spirits of people who would lose themselves in the woods and would end up eating other people to satiate their hunger. I think that’s what that thing is. They can mimic the voices of people who died and use it to lure people to them, they can take the form of that person too.”
“Why does it want female hearts?” I asked, not realizing I had yet told her what my mysterious caller kept asking for when they called me.
“It… It wants my heart?” she asked shakily.
I cursed to myself before letting out a frustrated sigh. “I think this thing wants hearts, but it only wants female hearts. Why? I don’t know yet. But the only other person to be found after killing someone in those cabins was found with his partner’s heart missing to which he was blamed for taking out of her. Recently, I’ve been getting calls from some… Thing wanting me to bring you back here so it could take something from you. It would have taken Ms. Greymoore’s, but you hid her well enough that only the police could find her in time. Now, I’ve been getting calls asking for you and to get something from you.”
Kate looked to me in shock before a wave of guilt twisted her face in pain. “I… I’m so, so… So sorry, Detective!” She cried out. “I… I had… I had no idea you were being… Harassed by it! Had I known it wanted me back and was demanding you brought me here, I never… I didn’t… That’s why it said you brought me back! Oh, I’m such an idiot!” She pressed her hands to her face, grabbing at her hair between her fingers and tightening them around her eyes.
“No, no, no, stop, stop that!” I ordered, screeching the car to a halt, having to bring it to a crooked stop so I could stop her from hurting herself. I snatched her arms from her head and pinned them to her lap, tears flooding her face. “It’s my fault for not telling you sooner! I was too focused on trying to solve this case with the most efficient evidence I could, but that just kept me looking to you as a suspect. I should have stopped thinking you were the killer the moment I got that first call. There’s no way any of us could have seen… This coming… Except people who probably already believe in that kind of stuff or don’t stop to assume a more rational explanation like a cult… I’m… I’m sorry. But, I won’t let it take anything from you, not anymore. I’m going to get you home and then I’ll deal with this with the rest of the police department. You don’t have to deal with this thing anymore, it’ll be my burden from now on. You need time to finally get some rest and mourn your friends with your and their families. It’s already fucked your life up enough, I won’t let it go on making it worse.”
I stopped her before she could argue with me with a wave of my hand. “Your friends’ deaths shouldn’t be your burden to handle. I know you want to be the one who kills that thing and do right by them, but that’s not what they would want. They’d want you to remember them and continue living. They know you didn’t do it, so stop blaming yourself and stop acting like you’re the one who has to make it up to them. I will put an end to this die trying, but you need to go home and be with people who are happy you still get to live.”
Kate looked down at her hands that I kept down on her lap before nodding weakly and letting out a broken “okay.”
“Good, now let’s get you home before-“
My words were cut off when the honk of a car barreling toward us echoed through the woods. The headlights were fast approaching and I barely had time to grab the gear shift to put us back in drive as the other vehicle hit us, forcing us back and forth in one violent motion. It took me a moment to check myself to be sure I hadn’t hit my head on anything or got whiplash from the crash before I immediately returned my full attention to Kate who was kneeling over holding her head. I gently grabbed her shoulder and pulled her up to examine her head. It didn’t appear to have been busted and bleeding, but she was holding the front side of her forehead.
“Are you okay?” I asked her, prying her hand away from the spot on her forehead, seeing that it was beginning to bruise. “Can you hear me? Blink twice if you can understand me!”
“I… I’m f-fine…” she mumbled as she looked to her hand to check if there was blood on her palm, “I… I think I just… Hit… Hit the w-window…” She then blinked twice in my direction before looking to the car that had rammed us.
I turned my attention as well to the car to see it was a police van, it’s front crushed into the left of my front. I quickly jumped out my vehicle and stormed to the van, yelling at who ever was driving the van to come out and explain what the hell they were doing.
The driver’s side of the van swung open once I was near enough and a man in an orange jumpsuit climbed out, staring familiar daggers at me. The moment realization set in, my mixed emotions of confusion, frustration, and fear turned to fury.
It was Leighton Raines.
“Jesus, you really are a shitty detective.” Was all he said to me before reaching into the can and retrieving a rifle out from the passenger seat.
[END OF PART 1]
Part 6

There's this girl I've been seeing for two weeks now and on our second date yesterday I found out something that came as a surprise to me but also worried me somewhat.
I met this girl about two weeks ago. For context I'm 20M and she's 18F. On our first meeting and date she gave off basically all green flags. The only real thing I could maybe think about is she is pretty bad with time management showing up 30 minutes late to our first date. I excused it though as she was driving about 2 1/2 hours from where she lives. We clicked very easily and she has a very interesting personality and is generally fun to be around. She told me right away on the first date that she was religious as her dad is a deacon and talks about her dreams for school. I am really liking her and all she stands for. For me personally I look for basically companionship in a partner and want someone who is on the same team as me and I see the same in them.
Come second date and things got a little weird I must say. I'm not sure how I feel yet and I really don't have anyone to tell. For background I had no idea she lived two hours away and feeling a bit guilty offered to go to her for the second date. She suggested hiking as there was a waterfall near where she lived she wanted to show me. Again she was late this time by 2 hours due to an event she thought would end earlier before. Luckily this time she told me somewhat before hands and I didn't spend the whole time waiting at the location. Eventually thought we meet up and head up to the spot about 30 minutes from where we parked. It was heartfelt and we had a lot of fun on the way up and when we finally got up there.
Here's where I get nervous. We were alone up there and after some deeper conversation we embraced and somewhat cuddled while looking over the view for a while. Eventually moving to a new spot under some trees that had a view of the waterfall. I usually like to take dating slower as I don't want the relationship to be based off intimacy alone. During that moment tho we eventually started making out since we were alone. I noticed right away that this girl on the first kissed was going for tongue and everything. That was fine as I sort of rejected the tongue and we continued on. However after that she started to hold tighter to me and rubbing my chest before putting my hand under her shirt for I'm sure you can guess. It caught me off guard but I somewhat went along with it. That's when she leaned into me and whispered that one of her secrets she had was that she was a "freak" and how I make her so horny.
After that I knew from the start that I didn't want to cross this kind of line on a second date so I slowly deescalated the moment before we eventually headed back down. However on the way back down the mood felt a little weird. We were still talking about generally innocent stuff but she asked some questions that felt random at one point. She brought up if I had any ex's and if any of them were toxic. I've never fully dated anyone as in the past I would break things off due to I just not working out. I personally even if someone has wronged me try not to talk or gossip about them as I think it's wrong. Which she kind of seemed surprised at.
For some reason maybe out of instinct to keep the conversation going asked if she had any. After thinking for a moment she mentioned about a boy she dated for a while and how one night when he was high he took her phone and send private photos to her parents. We eventually went back down to our cars and she offered to show me a place to eat. I politely declined because it was around 8:30pm and I had a two hour drive back. I also felt kind of queasy due to either nervousness or maybe because of the intense hiking trail and being a little out of shape.
Now upon self reflection I had a lot to think about. Some of those things that happened I couldn't pin point if they were bad signs or if I'm being too paranoid. My view of this girl somewhat changed. I didn't think each thing mentioned in this story would have been bad to me on its own but when all combined it kind of has me puzzled. I like this girl she seems genuine and has goals along with values. Plus we just clicked. I worry tho if there is something that I don't know that if I continue with this relationship may come back later. Like mentioned before I don't want a relationship built upon only sex. I've seen too many friends have a bad time because of it that doesn't end well for either person. I also don't know if I'm overthinking this or possibly ignoring things because of my feelings. If anyone could offer their view or ask questions if anything needs clarifying I would greatly appreciate it.

25M East African from the UK (not London), I moved here when I was a little kid, originally moved to an area with a lot of different ethnicities and loved that I had friends of all cultures and ones that were immigrants and black like me, then my parents got better jobs so we moved to a majority white and south Asian area.
When I moved here you could probs count the black people on one hand, so whatever I did or wherever I went people knew me or my siblings, when I became a teenager a lot more black people moved to the area, a lot of immigrants/asylum seekers, they rarely came to the school I went to as it was deemed a “successful” all boys school, my brother couldn’t get in when he applied but I somehow managed to, so the school my brother went to was where all the off the boat immigrants, immigrants from European countries, or asylum seekers went to.
When I started high school there was 3 black guys in my year, I’m of African descent and the other two were Jamaican, one of them was a mixed Jamaican, he got kicked out by the end of the first year lmao, but me and the other Jamaican did our thing haha, out of the whole school by my final year, I’d say there still was only about 10 maximum black/mixed kids which I found crazy tbh.
I remember when people in my school knew of a black girl from a nearby mixed school and they wouldn’t stop trying to make us date even though we had never met, didn’t have similar friends, just bcoz we was both black. Alla this shit affects you and you don’t even know your identity, I played for a football team that was 75% black players (soccer to U.S peeps) and the code switching was crazy, somehow I didn’t fit in with my own people anymore and I definitely did not fit in with the white/Asian ones either, I had a lot of friends but it felt like more for show rather than actual friendships.
Really does affect your dating life when it came to that time, white girls didn’t find us attractive (Kim K hadn’t made it cool yet) or they showed interest wanting to find out about BBC being true or not lmao, black girls dated white guys or didn’t date. Then you fast forward and black girls want hood guys or keep it safe with white guys, white girls love black guys now but most times for the thrill of it or also expect you to be hood.
Be interested to see how the rest of your experiences were like
My pros:

• I’m a lot more socially aware of people outside my race
  
• I know what people outside our race think of us and the things they do to bring us down
  
• You find out how much ignorance and delusions their parents project onto their kids
  
• It made me wise up and learn how to conduct myself better in work environments
  
• Less trusting of those outside our race, makes me think what do they get out of it, e.g. token black guy
  

My cons:

• Hella stereotypes and over generalization, thinking we’re all poor, spear chuckers, speak in clicks, eat funny food or eat nothing but chicken, making monkey noises and monkey actions, knuckle dragger (heard all of this directed towards me) makes you wonder what disgusting things their families say about black people behind closed doors
  
• People thinking all black people are Nigerian or Jamaican
  
• People thinking Africa is a country
  
• People clowning my African features or wanting to touch my hair constantly or compare skin complexion when they come back from holiday
  
• Any sport I excelled at I got the cliche “of course you’re good at that you’re black” or they’d find any excuse to discredit me and any I wasn’t the best at from the jump, I got “I thought black people were good at sports”
  
• People expecting me to be as bulked up as Nigerians just because I’m African even though East Africans have different body types lmao
  
• They expected me to speak hood but clown hood people, if I spoke proper I’d be told “you’re the whitest black guy I’ve met” (when they haven’t met any/many) funny now they all speak like they’re from the hood and copy black fashion/mannerisms
  
• Judging my hairstyles and music taste if it wasn’t like theirs
  

Earlier I we had a conversation and she mentioned "If someone offers you drugs, I don't care how friendly or giving they are". Earlier this week I referred to my recent girlfriend as friendly and giving because my mom doesn't like her because she said we "moved too fast and that she's shady" although to me, ive seen how she's interacted with others and it's far from the truth. I asked her if she meant my girlfriend, she said no, then I added on further just in case, "I don't think she does drugs" then she got mad, saying she forgot all about "that thing" and that I'm making "everything about her". What doesn't help is that she starts guilt tripping herself calling herself a slave because she has to work a lot to afford where we live, she also calls herself stupid and various other things mid convo.
She started out calling my girlfriend a "set up girl" and now she's saying she's going to try to "trap" me (i can tell she doesn't like how she looks, but i love my girlfriend for her personality, my mom can't see that) because we got into a relationship really quickly but it's worked out so far.
Another instance of her acting a little overboard is when I was invited out to eat from coworkers and she thought it was also a set up for trafficking and came up with so many reasons for me not to go. Eventually using reasoning I was able to go because I changed the location to somewhere closer. It was just so over the top it made me start questioning if she wanted me to have friends of any sorts.
I was homeschooled and never really had friends that I see everyday and this is one of the first times of me getting out into the "real world" if that matters. My sister also left our family for her boyfriend so my mom might just be afraid I'll be just like her if that also matters.
All this stress has made me go back to SH and it's so bad I'm thinking of breaking up. my girlfriend she thinks I'm her everything and I think the same of her. It really pains me every day.
Any advice?

I am starting to have a crush on this guy in our atelier. We see each other often; he waves and asks how I am when we meet in the atelier or the hall. The other day, I went with him to the cinema. It wasn't a date; we were walking to the train station, and he asked if I wanted to join him since I had nothing else to do. The movie he was watching was for his thesis. Before he invited me, we were hanging out with another classmate on some benches. I didn't feel included in their conversation, so I busied myself with my phone and heard him ask one of the two girls if they wanted to join him.
Yesterday, we spent the whole day together in the atelier, working and talking. I knew he would be there because he told me he would come to work, and he already knew that I am always there since I don't like being home. At the end of the day, he asked if I wanted to join him for a conference at school. I had nothing to do, so I said yes. I later noticed that some of his friends were joining, so womp womp, but I still got to sit next to him. Either way, it was a lovely conference.
During the conference, I noticed he might have been trying to look at me, or maybe he was just fidgety. After the conference, there's always this problem of me just being there and him not including or introducing me, so I just feel awkward. I did talk to some of his friends who started conversations with me.
It started to rain, so we went to take the metro. We were a group of four with three umbrellas. I noticed that the other two's umbrella was broken, so I suggested giving them my umbrella and sharing his. We got to talk and laugh. At one point, his friend turned to us and laughed—I don't know if it was what I think it was. His friend went away, and we talked more. Then there was this awkward pause, and he said, "See you Monday, I guess." He was awkward. I told him that school would be closed on Monday, so technically, it would be Tuesday.
Moving on, I messaged him on LinkedIn to share some information I found that might help him with his thesis, and we talked a little bit. Here’s a summary of that conversation:
I sent him a message about some interesting information I found on architecture servers related to prisons, which might help his thesis. He appreciated the information, mentioning he learned about an Argentinian architect he wasn't aware of before. He also shared that the concert he attended was great but tiring after 2 AM. He sent me several emojis, including waving hands and peace signs, which added a friendly and informal tone to our conversation. We chatted a bit more, with him mentioning he was going out to eat with friends. I told him I was at Pride and planned to go all-in next year. He responded, "Yeah, I love the Pride here!! Last year I participated, and it was mental ahaha but yeah, next year I'll be there for sure 😉."
I said, "This was my first ever, so I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how different the next one will be! I guess I'll hope to see you at the next one. 🌈😉
Thank you! It has been devoured xD. Enjoy your lunch/dinner (I have a hunch it might be that) and have fun!! 🍕😄"
He didn’t see it till 3 AM and didn’t respond. A guy friend told me he isn’t interested because if he was, he would have responded. I don't know how I can know if he is just a really nice guy or maybe interested. I know it’s kind of early to know or even ask him. How should I proceed to know if there is hope? Any tips? Help me, I really hate crushes.
TL;DR: I have a crush on a guy from my atelier. We’ve hung out a few times, including a cinema visit (for his thesis), a full day working together, and a conference. We had a friendly LinkedIn conversation, but he didn’t reply to my last message. A friend said he might not be interested because if he was, he would have responded. I’m unsure if he’s just nice or if there’s potential interest. How can I tell if he likes me back? Any advice is appreciated.

We met in December through social median from the same area. I was in a place at that time after having 2 2 year relationships that ended when I was 21, I was ready to be open if something came along. I was single for 8 years. Initially I wasn’t 100% bought in on her. The lifestyle she portrayed on social media gave off the vibe she was like a fancy influencer which I’m not a fan of. Had a bit of a social media presence. I had one myself for a few years but pulled back because I realized it wasn’t for me knowing the mental health effects of it. I expressed that I don’t care for social media anymore and want a low key life. She seemed cool though so I pursued it. Off the bat our convos were deep. She was reading our comparability. And then I took her out. First date she was already saying she was admiring me and obsessed with me. Found out later she texted a friend on the side and said she was going to marry me. She traveled for this social media stuff almost every weekend. She also had her real job. I still didn’t see this going anywhere due to her circumstances but I was interested after the date however I wasn’t 100% bought in. Thinking back now, I think maybe my gut was telling me not to pursue.
I was supposed to run a marathon in another state and she said she wanted to fly down (second time meeting) and spend the weekend with me. She did and that’s when it started. I learned all her trauma. Everything moved so quickly that weekend. No relationship with family, father was a drug addict and left, mother was BPD and bipolar and so was the sister. Kicked her out at a young age was couch surfing for years. Never had a stable home. Didn’t seem to have any long term friends. Told me she had went to therapy and was all good but also told me she has fear of abandonment and ptsd. I thought she was squared away though and gave the benefit of the doubt. We already discussing futures together and the lovebombing started. Saying things to me no one’s ever said or noticed. Long story short she traveled almost every weekend for the next month and a half and i really wasn’t a fan of it. Aside from not liking the influencer stuff, it was just not the type of relationship I was looking for. Never being able to plan. Only spending a couple hours during the week because we worked opposite schedules. This went on for the first 2 months. She was supposed to travel the first 3 weeks in March but wound up telling me she’s having an identity crisis. Wants to stop traveling wants to stop on social media. It’s bad for her mental health she used it as a distraction bc she had nothing else and now being with me she has a different perspective on life and has a reason to be home. She also said she used it for validation for herself bc her family never gave it to her and people only praised her for her success and i was the first person to love her for who she is. I thought that was awesome and wanted the best for her because she told me how bad it was affecting her. She canceled all her upcoming trips and was bought in on living present, pulling back from being on her phone because she was addicted to it and just enjoying life. Would constantly express to me how much healthier she is, eating more, sleeping better etc. told everyone she knew the same thing. She’d express how she used to “self sabotage” with all this work. I would always say don’t do anything unless you truly want to and she’d emphasize how she felt this way before me, I just gave her a different perspective on life and she doesn’t want to bury herself in work anymore because she doesn’t have a reason to distract herself.
This is when the clingy stuff started. She wanted to be with me every second of every day which for some reason i didn’t see as bad at first. She started getting separation anxiety when I’d go to work and constantly fear that i was going to just abandon her. She’d take things and small jokes so seriously and somehow link it to me subliminally meaning i was going to leave her. If i wasn’t all over her in the morning she took it personal. We’d wind up in arguments of me explaining what i meant and it would either end with her insisting i take her emotions into account or she’d apologize but blame it on her past and fear of abandonment. I found myself completely losing myself constantly going above and beyond to show her how much i loved her and wasn’t going to leave her. Taking off of work spending time with her buying her things and also just constantly telling her and showing her love. It was never enough because when she had these spirals it was all forgotten about. Got to the point i was living with her basically and couldn’t go home and see my family without her coming.
Dealing with this for about 2 months fast forward to 3 weeks ago. A girl she met through social media deaded her out of nowhere and told her something she said she didn’t like. She remembered last time she spoke to her she was saying how she was pulling back from social media because it was bad for her mental health and how happy she is actually having a life outside of work and thinks this girl took that personal because social media is her life. She was upset but didn’t seem to distraught. I gave logical reasoning like If she can drop you like this clearly she’s not someone important. I kept reassuring her she doesn’t need someone like that. If she was a real friend she’d be happy for you. I made jokes about it that made her laugh. What i didn’t know until one night she was crying was that it triggered the abandonment issues and she was down another spiral and associating it with me leaving. Once i saw it was a big trigger i tried to really console her. Show her love and affection and be there for her. Everything seemed fine until a couple of days later. We woke up, i was tired maybe a little quiet (i really don’t know I’m blaming myself) and we were talking like normal. She kept asking me what’s wrong and i kept saying nothing nothing. I wound up leaving for work and i texted her. She was being very short with me until she just didn’t answer. Me thinking ok she’s busy at work no big deal. Normally she would check in during the day at work. She didn’t. I go based off patterns. When she would be busy she’d still find time to just shoot a text. If she never did that would’ve been fine too. But the only time she didn’t was when something was wrong. I was still like okay no problem until i saw she was checking social media. So after the entire day passes without hearing from her i finally reach out and was like what’s the issue. She claimed she was busy but i said ok you were checking social media and im sure if you were to screen shot your texts you were texting other people and i was the only one ignored bc she was always on her phone(not actually saying send me your texts, I’ve never done that). She said that rubbed her the wrong way and we need to have a conversation. We hopped on the phone and BOOM everything came out. She needed me and i wasn’t there for her to comfort her i made jokes about it and didn’t take it seriously (i was there for her but didn’t realize the extent of why it was bothering her until she told me and i did everything i could to make her happy) then she started bringing up how she lost herself since she’s been with me. She can’t post on social media freely anymore because she feels like im going to judge her even though it was her who made the decision to pull back and praised how much of great decision it was(not to mention she never stopped posting 3 times a day regardless of everything she said) I went to her place and all my stuff was out and ready to go. We spoke again and the same things came up. I don’t like social media and was pulling back myself so that means i don’t support her and how i wasn’t there for her emotionally. It was literally just a big mind f. Brought up like 2 or 3 other completely random things as well as excuses as to why she was leaving again contradicting things she’s said or done. Anytime i would bring up but what about this and when i did this or said this or how you said this it was like deflected and didn’t matter. What matters is what she is perceiving and that’s it. Like I’m this horrible person who did nothing for her.
At first I blamed myself since this happened because I really don’t know what more i could’ve done. I reached out to someone who I’m friends with who knew her growing up and they told me that it seems like a reoccurring thing with her past friend ships and relationships that they all just ended randomly. It really messed with my head and I didn’t know how to deal with it. She isn’t diagnosed with anything as far as i know but it’s been brought to my attention about the BPD stuff and reading this forum and watching videos on YouTube a lot of the things are very familiar. Like almost to the t.
I know I’m not perfect but after years of not wanting to commit to anyone or open up i finally did and i really meant how i felt for her and it hurt me so much that i could just be discarded like that. But I’ve learned what it is and am accepting it for what it is. I’m not a codependent person normally, never have been. I truly just cared for her and thought that maybe she had a bad upbringing but we can make the next chapters happy. I truly had good intentions. Been NC for almost 3 weeks now. Would never reach out i really don’t care how much it hurt. I have a great support system and a lot to look forward to. I guess something I’ve learned is always trust your gut. Since day 1 i always had a feeling of uneasiness and thought it was just me.
Just wanted to tell my story and see if anyone had any advice or could relate in anyway.