Dear mom,
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I can't wait for school to start up. I've had such a great time the past few days with orientation activities. I've met so many great people, I love my classes, and I've even got a class with Mary Anne. I'm taking general biology, intro to microeconomics, calculus, self-defense, and 20th century history. Mary Anne's in my history class and I've met people in almost all my other classes too at all these different events that have been going on.

It feels good to be excited for things. I've had a few weeks of rough times, I'm glad I've got something I'm looking forward to.

Dear Mom Tarik Robert Oh screw it

Dear Stacey,

Maybe you're just not ready for this yet. Maybe you just need more time. And maybe you need to realize that it's ok to still feel upset, angry, and confused.

Love, Stacey

I had an appointment today with Dr. Lennon. It was my first time leaving the apartment in a few days and my first time talking to someone besides dad in a few days also. I feel like it awakened me. I just started telling her everything that was going on and I couldn't stop. My appointment actually went longer than scheduled.

Once I got out, I called Jessi. We met up and got coffee while she was in between classes. I didn't tell her what was going on, just made it out I was in the city now for school. We had fun. I think I'm up for talking to people now, getting back to normal. I'm going to call Anna tomorrow, email Dori soon to see when she'll be back here again, and get back into the swing of things. I think I'm going to hold off on talking to Claudia though, I really want to wait and just talk to her in person.

I haven't scheduled my next appointment with Dr. Lennon yet, I want to see how things go just on my own, but she gave me an assignment. She wants me to write letters. To mom, Tarik, Robert, whoever I feel like I just need to let things out to. She said they weren't even letters to send, unless I felt like I should or wanted to. I don't know that I would, with any of them, but I think just writing all of it down will help me. I still feel like everything from the past year is a complete jumble in my head. I need to sort it all out.

Exile. I think that's a perfect word for how I'm living right now. I just don't feel up for leaving the apartment or seeing anyone. Cary stopped by yesterday and it was nice to see him, but I also just couldn't really talk to him. I just need to relax for awhile. Dori's here in the city right now looking at apartments and even if she was available to get together, I think I'd turn her down. I just need time for myself, I think.

I called dad back on Monday night. I kept putting it off, using the time difference as an excuse, knowing that I could wait later to call him, and telling myself that he was probably eating dinner, then getting Keith to bed. I finally called him when I couldn't come up with anymore excuses. Just as I expected, he was livid. And I know I am too. I can't even describe how mad I am at mom and Tarik. But I just couldn't deal with dad feeling like that. It was like back when they had just divorced, and would fight through me. I had to convince him not to call her and yell at her. He's offered to go out there and get anything else of mine from the house that I want, I may take him up on that, but I really just want all this gone. I want the feelings about it to be over.

I want to be selfish for awhile. As horrible as that sounds, I just want things to be able to go my way for the time being. No more surprises, no more hurting, just simplicity.

I thought he was the good guy. The safe guy. The guy who it wasn't going to end in tears with. I needed something like that. He came along right when I needed someone in my life. Right when I needed love. I was still getting over so much when I met Tarik. I was dealing with how I felt over losing Robert's friendship, how much I screwed everything up in the fall and winter, and how I felt over mom...

I thought things were good with mom too. The way her dating life was going was bothering me, but I could live with it. I had my mom again and we were happy with each other and we had fun together.

Now it's just questions. Was this the first time? How long had it been going on? Was she the only other one he was with? And why? Why him? Why her?

I just want this over with. I want to stop getting hurt. I want normalcy. I want some of my old life back.

What do I even do now?

Tarik just left, he spent the night over here with me. Mom was out for the night again. I'm really trying to not let this bother me. I only have a few weeks left here and the last thing I want to do is start a fight with her. When she's home, things are good. I don't want to jeopardize what I've got with her right now. But I'm also just tired of it. I'm tired of her being gone three or four nights a week, tired of showing up at the house and seeing another new car in the driveway, and tired of not knowing who's in my house. Her dating Wes freaked me out but now I wish she was still with him, or still with only him, at least.

It's only a few more weeks, I can handle it. I'm at the Newtons four days of the week, I've got Tarik, and I've got all my friends. If I keep things going like they are now, I'll be ok. I guess sometimes the best thing to do is to keep things in. People would probably tell me I'm crazy for feeling that way, that you shouldn't keep things in, but I don't feel like I have a choice right now. I bring it up and it would just go into another fight with mom, right before I'm leaving, or I just keep it in and tough it out the next few weeks. When you look at it like that, the choice is obvious.

I'm sitting here feeling lonely and then feeling stupid for feeling lonely.

I was supposed to be in New York this weekend so I didn't make any plans, but Tarik had to cancel so he could see his dad, so we're postponing our weekend there. So now I'm sitting here in the house, which still doesn't quite feel like home, and I've been alone here since I got back from dropping Tarik off yesterday evening. Mom spent the night with Wes.

I don't know what to think of what's going on with mom. Maybe it isn't anything. Maybe she's just dating some guys, not getting into anything serious. But it still worries me. And I don't really exactly know why it bothers me. At least she's more open about her dating than she was last year. And when she's home, it's like old times, we have fun. We eat dinner together, we're working our way through Greys Anatomy on dvd together, and it feels like there never were problems.

I miss Tarik and I feel pathetic for thinking that because he's just gone for a weekend. I guess what I miss is the weekend we were supposed to have together. He makes me happy, really and truly happy, which I love. I almost even told him last night that I loved him, but I chickened out at the last second. It's such a strong word. And it's such a scary one.

I sound totally pathetic. I've got no reason to be lonely. Yes, Claudia and Anna are gone but they come back today or tomorrow. And yes, Tarik's gone, but he'll be back tomorrow. And they're not the only people I have here in town. So I'm not going to be one of those people who uses her journal as some place to wallow in self-pity and melodrama. That's not me. I have a pretty damn good life and I'm going to live it.

I haven't written in here in awhile, and a lot's happened since I did. The best thing in the past few weeks, even better than Disney, was getting a relationship back with mom. I hated missing graduation. We got the dvd while I was gone but I haven't been able to watch it yet. I'm going to watch it, though. I just may have to stop right after Wayne, I don't think I can handle seeing my name called.

Anyway, ever since I got home from the senior party, that mom had worked out for me to go to, everything has gone so well with me and her. We went shopping, hung out at the house, and she even took me and Tarik out to dinner the night before we left for Florida. It's so good having her back.

Having things good with mom again have only strengthened my decision to stay here for the summer. I was going to anyway but this will make it so much better. I start at the Newtons tomorrow, and I can't wait, I had so much fun sitting for them last summer and I'm going to have a great time again this summer. I got Jamie and Lucy presents from Disney - a Pirates lego set for Jamie and a princess dress-up set for Lucy.

I had the best time at Disney on the trip. I just stayed out of everything, like I tried to relax in our room with Emily in there, and, while I was still seeing people like Robert and everyone else around, I just ignored it and didn't focus on the past. I focused on the present. I hung out with Tarik, Claudia, Pete, and Mary Anne. I didn't get a chance to hang out with Anna outside of the room but it was fun spending time with her too. And I got to meet Mary Poppins. I mean, I know she's just some woman not much older than me probably who's playing a part, but it was still the coolest thing ever. I actually squealed with excitement when she was getting near our table and I've got the biggest smile on my face in my picture with her.

And now, it's all over. SHS, my days as a high schooler, all of it. I've got the summer to look forward to, good friends, a good boyfriend, and a fun job. This summer's going to go better than last summer. No mistakes this time. No stupidity. Just a good summer.

Well, just when I thought I had everything figured out and was working on a decision for where I'd spend this summer, dad throws a huge kink into the plans. He called me today and said that they had big work news. I expected the usual thing about his company getting a new client or other things that he finds really exciting and, of course, I do too, but I mostly just smile and tell him how happy I am for him when discussions with him are about work.

This one turned out to be pretty big though. His company's branching out, to San Francisco. Thank god he doesn't have to move there, that was my first thought. But as it turns out, he will have to go there. He's going to be spending the summer in San Francisco, to help things get started up. Samantha is going with him, and Keith of course. He said that whenever I'm ready to go to New York, the apartment is goign to stay open, he's not planning on subleting it or anything while he's gone, so I can go into it whenever I'm ready. I just don't know if I want to. I've got good things here, I've got my friends, I've got Tarik. I don't have that much in New York. Not for the summer, at least, when Claudia and Dori and Mary Anne and whoever else is going there for school wouldn't be there. I wouldn't have much there this summer. All my friends would be here, Tarik would just be coming in for his usual visits to his dad, and my family here wouldn't even be here. I mean, Jessi and I hung out some while I was here but she keeps so busy with dance, and while Laine and I did make up and move past everything, her and I are just so different now that there's not much there.

So what do I do? Go back to the city I love, to what would essentially be my own apartment, or stay here, where I'd still be living with mom but I'd have friends around?

When I left for New York, I planned to stay off the boards. I kept looking at them while I was there but I never posted, I wanted to stay out of that stuff. And I was thinking I'd do the same when I came back, just stay out of the drama. Then I ended up getting right back into it. I saw the prom court nominees, figured I'd reply and say congratulations to the ones who did get nominated. And also try to convince myself that it doesn't bother me that I wasn't nominated. It does but I'm getting past it. Then Bart has to go and reply to me and I just started arguing with him. God, he drives me insane. He doesn't know a damn thing about me, I just had this one bad day and basically lost it in front of him, one of the worst people to ever lose it in front of, and he's never going to let me forget it. He can be such an asshole. And yet, everyone's crazy about him. Even Kristy can make up with him or whatever's going on with those two.

I'm not a horrible person. This is what I keep telling myself when things like this go down. It's what I had to tell myself tonight when I was arguing with him on the boards, and what I had to tell myself after the talk with Robert, and what I had to tell myself so many times in New York. I may have lost people who I did care about but I've still got friends. I mean, Grace actually stood up for me on the boards against Bart, and I thought the two of them were friends.

I should've just stayed out of it, not even bothered to reply to him to begin with. But I did and now it's out there.

And in home life, mom's dating some guy. I don't mind if she dates, I've never minded if she dates. I'd just like some honesty. She wasn't honest with me last year and look how that all turned out. Now there's some guy who's over at our house all the time and she doesn't even know that I know.

I graduate in a few weeks. I've got the senior trip after that. If I wanted, I could go to dad's right when I get back from it. I think I will. I can still visit my friends here. Tarik comes to New York a lot anyway. And there'll be people in New York once we all start college too.

I know why I came back. I came back to see my friends again, to be able to tie up things with the people I lost, and to get back some of my senior year. I'm getting all of that and then I think I'll be ready to go back.

Oh my lord.

I don't even know how to sum up the day I've had. My mind's just a jumble, but finally, it's a jumble in a good way.

I talked to Robert. It was even harder than I thought it would be, but I think I handled it well. I'm still confused by it all. I'm glad I was able to let everything out, have more closure on us, but still, he seemed to make it into us being a bad friendship for so long. We weren't. Hearing that from him hurt so much. Saying that we forced ourselves into a friendship. Like I told him, our friendship was one of the most important things in my life, and now I'm finding out that it wasn't anywhere near as great as I saw it. But, I let it all out. It's over.

And then, when I was feeling so low and exhausted after it, Tarik came over. He took me to dinner, got me laughing, and just made me happy. And after dinner, he came over, and we were on my bed and we were kissing and I just kept allowing it to go further. It felt great. I wasn't holding myself back, I wasn't letting my old relationship issues get in the way, I just let myself be with the guy who I'm crazy about and who made me feel happy on an otherwise rough day. I allowed myself to be completely open and free, and it happened. We had sex.

Stacey the virgin, with the reputation lingering over her of much more, is no more. I've got a new level of confidence now. And I like it.

Well, I talked to Logan. And I think it went ok. We yelled at each other, but I think that's pretty typical of us two. But it ended nicely. We were actually smiling at each other, which is probably the best result I could have realistically hoped for.

Now I've got to talk to Robert. I've had my email account open all night, an email open with his address typed in, and I still don't know what to do. I have no idea how to start the email to him. Should I email him? Or should I try calling, or just catching him at school and asking if we could talk? I want to tell him how sorry I am.

I think I need a day or two. Decompress from Logan. Figure out Robert. Get the courage to approach him. I feel like my head is spinning. Every one of my talks has gone better than I thought it would. But this one, talking to him, I think this is more important to me than all the others put together. We're never going to have what we had before. That kills me. I lost the best thing I had in my life. I keep thinking back to this fall and winter, trying to figure out where we went wrong. I can't even figure it out.

That night at the hospital. When I went to visit Erica's mom, and I more or less got thrown out. That night still sits with me. It's probably something they don't even remember. But I remember bringing it up once with Dr. Lennon, when I was telling her all about Robert, about my confusion over us. It still hurts. And I replay our fight in my head constantly. I wasn't myself that day. I wasn't myself that whole month. And it had to go and result in this.

I miss him. I miss him so much that it hurts just seeing him every day in chem. We were best friends. He was the guy I shared everything with, up until the end. I was having all the problems with Logan and I didn't want to put Robert in the middle of us since we were both his friends and I know that he never really seemed comfortable with our relationship anyway.

He's happy, though. Logan's happier and it seems like Robert is too. Is that because of me? Because I'm not in their lives anymore? Was I that bad of a friend to have around? I screwed up so bad and ruined something so great.

I managed not to cry with Logan today. I was worried that I would. That I'd start crying in the middle of our talk and we'd be back to how we used to be. I don't know if I can do that with Robert. Even now, just writing all of this, I'm tearing up.

I miss my best friend. And I hate myself for still missing him. I don't think he misses me. And that's probably what hurts more than anything in all of this.

This has been a great week. Things are starting to look up.

I started off my week by talking to Dori. I hope things will go good with her. Her and I have never been super-close or anything but I like her a lot. We had fun talking during lunch and I saw her at Grease and maybe things can just be normal with us again.

My big one for the week was talking to Kristy, and then talking to Sam. Kristy forgave me. I wasn't sure if she would, I was actually just surprised that she agreed to talk to me in the first place. But it went well and we had a nice talk. We aren't going to be friends or anything but at least it's not like it was before. And then yesterday, Sam and I talked. God, I'd missed him. At least with everyone else I'd fought with, I was still seeing them around school. Even if there were the bad feelings with us, I could still see them. Hear things about them. Normal stuff like that. But I hadn't even seen Sam since our fight. It was nice to see him and just talk. I hope we can get to a point where we could just hang out, grab dinner together sometime, just our normal stuff like that.

I've got two big ones looming over me. It's been months since I've spoken to Robert or Logan. My last attempt at anything with either of them was the emails I sent to both of them before I left for New York. Robert responded, kind of coldly, and Logan didn't write back at all. I see them every day. I hate chem class. And they were both at the cast party last night for Grease. I almost got tempted to try to talk to one of them, or at least just open up some communication, see when we could talk. And I chickened out. I found myself standing just three feet behind Logan at one point and I just froze. My feelings about the two of them are still just so complicated. I'm all back and forth between being mad at them and feeling hurt and betrayed by them and wanting them back in my life and feeling so sorry for all that I did. These two guys who meant so much to me at the beginning of this year, and now we're like this. It kills me.

How long can I keep putting it off though? I've been back here for a month. We've only got about a month left of school. It would be so easy to just not talk to them. Just get through what we have left of school, go on the senior trip, and just avoid like I have been this whole time. But I just can't do that. There's too much left unsaid with us. Too many questions.

How do I talk to either of them?

Oh my lord, tonight was incredible. And we're official.

Tarik and I went to Stamford. We decided that since we went sort of fancy on Wednesday, we'd go totally fun for tonight. We went to Dave & Busters and had dinner, then spent about two hours playing games. We found a virtual golf game and he tried to teach me to play. I'm really bad at it. He says he's going to take me golfing for real sometime soon.

We also spent awhile just sitting in his car talking. That's when it happened. We were just talking about how much fun we're having together, with the two times we've gone out, and eating lunch together at school, and I just flat-out asked if he wanted to make things official with us, for us to be an actual couple. I was so embarrassed once I asked that, I started laughing. But he just laughed with me. And then he agreed.

Meeting Tarik has helped me feel so much better. Between how things are going with us, and how surprisingly well things went when Erica and I talked the other day, I'm feeling very confident about things. I've been putting off talking to everyone for too long. I guess I was just hoping that maybe someone might want to talk to me, and might make the first move. I've also just been nervous about approaching most people. But now, I know I'm ready to start on that, to possibly repair things. I'm not sure which ones will work out, but I hope that things will go better than they were previously.

Tarik and I had our dinner tonight. We went out to Pietro's. I didn't expect our dinner to be that nice, considering it was just the result of a game of Battleship, I figured we'd end up at the Rosebud or somewhere like that. But, he insisted. It was so incredible. I had a great time with him, we never ran out of things to talk about. We're going to do something this weekend too. And at the end of it, when he dropped me back off at home, we kissed. I'm so glad I met him.

I'm surprised I was able to have such a great time tonight. I kind of had to push back the conversation with Erica. I made a mistake in that one. I can't believe it got back to her like that. I won't be telling anybody else about what happened with mom and with her dad. No more mistakes. I'm surprised Claudia let it out like that. Erica never said specifically that it was her that she found out through, but since she was the one I told so recently and now it's coming out, I'm figuring that's who. I like Claudia. She's the first friend I made here. And her and I have definitely gone through our ups and downs. We're at an up now. I want to keep it that way. I like hanging out with her and I'd missed her. I'm not mad at her for this. It's definitely taught me that I need to watch myself around her, but I'm not mad at her.

Well, in true fashion to me, I'm crushing. I knew it wouldn't be too long. I don't even know him that well. I just know that the hour and a half I spent on the train yesterday talking to Tarik was incredible. I've always known him, just never known him. He's in my English class, and he's been in other classes I've had since eighth. And he was going out with Bea last year, so he was at some of our Mathlete parties. But up until yesterday, I've probably never talked to him for more than five minutes total. Now, I'm wondering what I was missing out on. For an hour and a half, I was having fun. I was with a guy, who was making me feel special and beautiful, and that's something I don't feel like I've had in awhile. I mean, Gordon pretty much fawns over me, and I do have my other guy friends, like Pete, but they don't count. Not in the way I felt on that train ride.

I'm going to be on his train tomorrow. If anything, maybe I've at least made a new friend, someone to do more of these rides with.

But I already want it to be more than that.

I hung out with Mary Anne and Alan on Friday night and the whole experience was just eye-opening for me. First off, the good news, Mary Anne is going to Barnard next year! I'm so excited that I'll have her around, I hope we can take a class together. She's always been one of my favorite people and she's so much fun, especially when she's in New York.

And when we were talking about her college plans, Alan was talking about visiting her next year. They're a real relationship. You can tell they really love each other, and they're just so cute together. As much as it hurts me to admit it, I was finding myself jealous of them. I've never had a relationship like that. It made me wonder if I ever will. In the middle of all the unpacking I was still doing this weekend, I was thinking a lot, on all my past relationships. I look at all of them and I can pinpoint exactly where I went wrong in each of them.

Pete's the easy one. We were friends, much more friends than we were a couple, and that's what stood in our way. We were mostly physical, no deep relationship other than our friendship. He's been my shining star as far as my past relationships go. He's shown me that relationships can go into a genuine friendship and he's one of my closest friends.

Sam and I were just a wrong fit. Maybe it was because of age, maybe because of him being Kristy's brother, I'm not sure. Maybe we were just bad timing. It wasn't a big age difference but when it was middle school and high school, it felt like a big deal.

With Jeremy, I betrayed a friend. One of the biggest mistakes I've ever made.

Cary. Him and I actually both agreed recently that we weren't right for each other. Still, we had a good relationship. I think the two of us are just too different. My mistake with us was ending things the way I did and hurting him so much. I'm not sure if the two of us would have lasted past the summer, but at least maybe we could have ended on better terms than we did.

Ethan and I had both distance and age. He was too busy to have a girlfriend, let alone a long-distance one who was only in the city on weekends. And I didn't make it easy on him, I was too demanding of his time. The next time we went out, this past fall, I just shouldn't have let that happen, period. I wasn't in a place to be in a relationship, and we were treating it way too casually. Way too much got messed up because of my dating him.

This brings me to the two biggies, Robert and Logan.

Robert and I had the same problem that Pete and I had. We worked better as friends. The hard part is that I have to go past tense when talking about the two of us. I know that as a girlfriend, I was no treat to be around. We fought a lot. The understatement of the year is that I was difficult. While the ending of our relationship was on Robert, we wouldn't have lasted much longer anyway. The better thing for the two of us was when we became friends later. We were great friends. Until those last couple of months.

And Logan. God, I could go into a whole list of things I did wrong there. It's been months and I'm still trying to figure us out. The biggest thing is that I shouldn't have ended us after what happened with Austin, right when we were finally starting up. I've already said that dating Ethan this fall was just one big mistake, and that fits in here as well. I keep thinking of the what-ifs. What if I just hadn't emailed Logan after hearing about him punching Austin at football? Would we have stayed the way we'd been for half the summer, fighting? If that had happened, then we wouldn't have had the friendship we did this fall. And then maybe he wouldn't have fallen for me and then I wouldn't have fallen for him in return. Everything could have been so much simpler. Or what if I hadn't run into Ethan? And then I'd given Logan a chance when I found out how he felt about me? But I know that playing what-ifs isn't the way to go about this. I made mistakes with him. Huge ones. During the time that I knew his feelings and I was considering my own, the scariest thing to me about the possibility of a relationship with us was that I knew what we were like. I knew that him and I fought. And I knew that he'd become a good friend. I had all my doubts and fears about us, about a relationship messing up our friendship, about us having another big fight, but I pushed them back. I kept saying that we were so great. I told myself that, I told my friends that, all I did was gush about him. Instead of telling myself things, I should have just listened to to myself. But this is all going back to the what-ifs.

Also, like Claudia said, I punched Austin six months too late. If I'd just done something like that when I had the chance in July... that's just a bad slope to go down. That's thinking too far back and wanting to change too much.

I fall way too easy for a guy and then when I do fall for them, I fall too hard. It's not enough for me to like the guy, I have to be crazy about them, to where it consumes me, and I end up pushing aside others. Never again. The next guy I date, which I will admit that I'm hoping for soon, I'll know a lot better. I've made a hell of a lot of mistakes, but mistakes are a part of life. They're what you learn from and what you better yourself from.

Sitting here in day two back at SHS. I don't know how I feel about it yet. It's been good to see everyone again. It's great to be in actual classes again too. It's just nice to have friends around. When I was in New York, I saw Laine a few times once we started talking again, and I saw Jessi some, but that was it. I spent my "school" time sitting in the apartment alone or watching Keith.

But then, there's seeing other people. Robert, mainly. I'm still so conflicted by all of this. I want to talk to him but I can't just yet. It just hurts seeing him. I just need to ease back into life here. I'll talk to people but for right now, I'm going to sit back, relax, and enjoy having my real friends around again.