Hiding the family’s secrets, step dad’s recovery and my sister and step brother develop addictions and become “thugs”. -Since this wasn’t the first time he had been charged with domestic violence against my mom, he was gone for a while. Mom struggled to take care of use without his income.  We often didn’t have bills paid and ate at my grandpa’s house a lot.  When cross country practice and road racing season started my grandpa often would pay for my trips and racing fees because we couldn’t afford it.  The phone would get turned off and I would scrabble to make up reasons why the line was messed up and we couldn’t receive calls.  I hide it all from my friends, and teachers.  I entered my junior year with this big secret to keep.  My sister continued to cope with things by just drinking, getting stoned and laid as much as possible.  I felt guilty for doing well in my running because that meant things costed more. I qualified for western regionals in cross-country and had lettered again.  I got yelled at because the jacket was so much, and the trip was so much.  It seemed like nothing I ever did was good enough. My sister was getting caught drinking and had MIP tickets and shop lifting charges.  Those fines got paid to hide the lie we were living of normalcy.  But my achievements I had worked so hard to earn were seen as burdens.  It was so unfair. I found sponsorships to pay for what grandpa couldn’t cover and made things happen on my own terms and continued working part time and babysitting to earn money too. My step brother got in trouble with his mom and his step dad, so he moved back in with us too.  My sister and step brother became big time party kids at this point.  They were obsessed with thug movies and decided they were a gang.  They made up gang names for themselves and their friends, picked gang colors and tagged the walls in her bedroom.  They dress and acted the part, but we lived in a tiny little town that had more cows and deer in it than people so it was not as impressive as they would like to think it was.  It was pretty fucking annoying if you ask me. Blasting gangster rap all the time and throwing gang signs.  Like what was their truff, the Circle K?  And I am the one they called a loser?  As the fall leaves had changed my step dad had got out of jail and was in an outpatient rehab program.  He and my mom started sneaking off to see each other’s because my mom knew that the family would be livid if they found out she was taking him back. By Halloween he was moved back into the house and we were back to pretending to be one big happy family. 

Next Chapter: Entry Seventeen