The Diaries of Rachel - Epilogue

After my first year of college, I was still doing reasonably well and was an expert when it came to the clubs in London. Good food + good friends + lots of booze = my formula for happiness. I also started working part time to be able to afford all the weed. But you know how it is. Students always manage to figure this out. I hung out with the kids who knew where to procure the stuff. And for cheaper prices than usual. Sometimes, with the monthly deposit I received for food (etc.) from home, I had to make some difficult choices. Is it going to be food this week or just booze and weed? That money + my part-time work salary allowed me to live a relatively comfortable life. I still had to pick sometimes and anybody can guess how that ended. Having no food was no problem at all. I would easily drink myself to sleep. Those were the days!

But of course, I did make some enemies along the way. More like frenemies. They were initially good friends but later realized how I was the popular girl around them so obviously some jealous bitches wanted to see me dead. The problem with frenemies is that you let them in in the initial stages and they end up finding out relevant stuff about you before they turn against you. And all anyone had to know about me to destroy me is my relationship with my parents. Or just get to know my folks and they'll themselves paint a pretty obvious picture for you.

Anyway, three semesters in, we all decided to go on a trip. I mean, we'd all been in the UK for a year and a half and most of us weren't even natives. All we knew in all this time was a little something about London. We had to visit Europe at some point and this seemed like the right time to do so. And of course, we had to pick some place that could blow our minds! So the guys picked Amsterdam (understandably) and the girls picked, well, Amsterdam! Of course, I wasn't going to tell my family about this because they would freak out and "prohibit" me from going and my mother might actually keep calling every hour to find out where I was. Even if I didn't go, they'd make life hell for me for months by constantly trying to "supervise" me from across continents. It's not like they were going to find out anyway. I've made it a point to call dad once during the weekends and speak to mom if she's around. I don't encourage any more phone calls because hello, I'm a med student. Lot's of work to do, remember? The trip was for 4 days and they wouldn't be expecting a call and all was well.

That trip, as expected, did blow our minds. We partied way into the morning, there was a lot of alcohol, there was weed and cocaine, there was E, and there were many things I can't even remember. Apparently I slept with a boy. And a girl. Together. I'd not have believed it, if not for the photographs. Yes, I did it in front of people. The bitches who clicked those pictures probably expected me to hide my face in shame when I realized what had happened. But I was like, "Fuck, is that me?" and laughed my ass off! What they didn't know was that I was being myself there. I was being me and nobody else. I didn't care what anybody thought! If anything, I gained experience and will have a good story to tell at some point. And what makes me cool is how none of this bullshit ever affects my grades. That's what these bitches don't get. And that's why they hate me.

It was probably for the best, the way my folks made me work my arse off in high school. It has taught me how to slave away and do well. And since they made me lead a depraved life at the time, I jumped head-first into all kinds of shit without thinking twice. I just knew that I had to do all this to feel alive again. To feel normal. To feel like a person and not a machine. And everything still makes sense to me. It was perfect, my escape into college. Because unlike the others who were with me, I actually knew how to survive and not mess up my grades or anything. Anyway, none of that matters now.

Things were pretty normal after the trip. We got back to our studies, partied hard, and basically life was good. Then one of my frenemies (let's call her BitchFace) couldn't stand it anymore when her ex-boyfriend asked me out. I obviously didn't lead him on or show any interest because she was my "friend" or whatever. So I didn't want to get involved. But then I found out from him and many other people that he was her "imaginary" boyfriend. They never really dated but she kinda called dibs on him or something and we all thought he was her boyfriend. Anyway, third semester results came out and everyone found out that I had actually flunked a subject. BitchFace saw this as the perfect opportunity to lecture me on how I was wasting away my life and not living up to my potential because she had (barely) passed all her subjects and was sitting on some sort of high pedestal from where I looked like a little piece of shit to her. I was shocked at first, but then she went on a rant about how I would end up losing everything like my looks and grades and career and how boys will stop finding me attractive and how people like her would actually pass out with a degree and a masters and a specialization and what not! I mean, it was too much, even by her standards. Another friend of ours who was listening to her talk asked her if she could even hear herself. So I showed her a finger, walked out of the room, met her "boyfriend" and hooked up with him. That very evening. Obviously not intending to keep it a secret. The whole world heard about this episode and people even started congratulating me for getting back at BitchFace for everything she said because technically, I hadn't done anything wrong by sleeping with the guy she had a perpetual crush on, especially when the guy made it clear to her that he wasn't interested in her.

I should have known that it wasn't going to be the last I heard from BitchFace when I broke all ties with her. A few weeks later, my parents dropped in out of the blue. And I knew they had heard something about me when I saw them there. Because there was no other way they'd actually spend all that money to fly to London without even informing me. But what it was that they'd heard, I wasn't sure. Was it that I had a boyfriend now? Was it that I'd been drinking? Or that I'd visited Amsterdam? No clue. They dragged me to their hotel room even when I tried to tell them that I had classes in the evening. My father actually said, "Shut up and come with us" so I knew it was going to be bad. After all the screaming and shouting and crying (mom!), I finally understood that they knew it all. Because dad had received an anonymous e-mail from some fucked up person, detailing every single thing I'd done in the past year, complete with photographs. My parents didn't even know where to start or what to say. They sometimes focused on the minutest things like, "You actually went to a place looking like that?" or "You posed for this photograph holding a glass of alcohol in one hand and a cigarette in the other?". Mother even dragged me to the bathroom, stripped me naked and discovered the "believe" tattoo on my left hip. Honestly, it's so down below that you can see it only if I wear low waists in a way that people wear low waists to a club! They were never going to see it otherwise. Oh and the sex photos had also been sent. I didn't even know what to say because they didn't know how to bring it up. I knew that they knew when they said something about being a lesbian and how that was against the Bible or something. After three days of being locked up in that hotel room and being forced to have an unbelievably uncomfortable conversation with my birth-givers who couldn't, for the life of them, understand me, they finally agreed to show me the e-mail. They left me alone in the room while I opened the mail, plotting murder already, because I didn't have to be Sherlock to guess who had done it. But she's so stupid, that BitchFace. So stupid that there were too many other things as well that gave her away. Like her constant use of the phrase, "She's messed up" or the way she kept starting most sentences with "like".

Turns out, I will have to wait forever for my revenge because my parents had already made plans to pluck me out of there for a semester (in the least) and were trying to get me into an Ivy close to home. And in the semester I was to spend at home, contemplating on the "forces of evil" that took over my mind and body to direct me in a path that was full of "ungodly desires", I was to undergo counseling. Both religious and psychological.

"They never want to take the blame for not being able to cope with their own discovery"

That's what parents do, isn't it. They try to make it look like their poor kid was too stressed with all the work-load or had been possessed by evil spirits and shit like that. They never want to take the blame for not being able to cope with their own discovery. And eventually they try not to blame their kid as well because that would reflect poorly on their role as parents. Apparently, therapy was going to fix everything. Is it now, Dr Mayfield? I know you want me to write this stupid journal so that you can review it and find out what's "wrong" with me because I refused to talk to you during most of the sessions. So after reading my life's story, please tell me and my parents what exactly my problem is. Also, let me warn you in advance, they're not too good with criticism so you may not want to make it look like it's their fault how I turned out. Except that I want you to do just that. I will be evaluating you the day you evaluate me. I have written down every aspect of my story and the events leading up to this therapy with full honesty. I want your honest evaluation of my case. I want you to do it in front of my parents. Nothing else could have convinced me write down all this. In a few years, I will be a doctor myself. And this is your chance as a senior to set an example for me.

Ciao!