Krista

Sometimes I have so many things in my mind that I can’t keep them all straight. Sadly, most of my thinking is done at work where I have no access to a pen and paper to jot my thoughts down. It leaves me feeling very scattered and without resolution.

Despite Lorie’s best attempts to stick up for me, there was only so much one person could do against all of the others. One huge stumbling block was that I did not want to be labeled as a tattle tale or a sissy, so I often kept the little things to myself.

Like how someone came in and toothpaste in all of my underwear, or how I would get up in the mornings to find that all my carefully hung clothes had been ripped down of my hangers. I didn’t tell anyone about how they shut the lights off on me while I was in the shower, plunging me into darkness, sometimes, just for added fun, they would set the dirty laundry basket right outside my shower stall so that when I pulled back the curtain and step out, I’d fall over it.

Harmless crap really, but the pain it did to my self esteem is everlasting. I have still, not learned to trust people completely and I have learned there is no better place to cry then in a darkened bathroom, preferably in a hot bath.

During all this time, I tried to get to know people. Most of the avoided me very openly, but, if I could manage to catch one or two of them alone, such as in the bathroom, or in the hallways at night, I could get them to talk to me.

I learned a lot about Krista during the first couple of weeks. We would talk in the darkness about her life. It was always her life because mine was just not open for discussion. It was all still to raw, still to fresh for me to want to go over in casual conversation.

Krista was seventeen when I arrived there. She had been there from the opening six months earlier and was in the process of making arrangements for when she left. Her birthday was sometime in the first week of October and she would be eighteen, which meant that legally they could not hold her there anymore, no matter where she decided to go after she left.

When I asked her why she had been put there she said it was because of her religion. I was a bit baffled by this and it became the first time that I was introduced into a Wicca lifestyle. She said that her parents had accused her of being a devil worshiper, said that they were afraid that she would harm herself or another person. She went on to tell me about how her father decided one night to” beat the devil out of her”. In trying to purge his daughter of her “sins” he nearly took her life, she spent the next five months recovering in the hospital. She became addicted to pain pills and from there it progressed into other drugs until she was a sixteen year old drug addict who would do anything, including selling her body, just for the next high. Of course, the drug addiction lead to stealing, at first, it was just for something to eat so that she didn’t have to spend her money on food, then it went into things that she could sell for money so that she could get more drugs. She said one of the biggest money makers was to go into a store and buy something for thirty of forty dollars and then go in and steal the exact same item and return it for the cash. Back then, a lot of stores didn’t require even the receipt, just a small form filled out with your name and address and of course, you can put any name you like on it, so it was easy to get away with. She was picked up a couple of times for petty theft, but nothing major. A cop found her overdosed in an alley one night and that began her recovery.

She had come to terms with all that had happened in her life. She never bullshitted it or sugar coated anything. Her parents were rotten human beings who should not have children, in her opinion, but since they did and she was it, she was not going to let them ruin her life. In the short few weeks I knew her, I grew to respect her a lot for that.

Krista left Western Academy and I never heard of her again. I don’t know how her life has turned out, but in my mind, she would have grown up as a very successful career minded woman. I also see her as continuing to practice Wicca in her long flowing dresses. Really, she should have been born in the sixties so that she could have experienced the flower child era. Somehow though, I think that Krista brought it to life wherever she went, she was just that kind of girl.

As the days approached to Krista leaving, I was filled with a new fear. I would soon be getting a new roommate and I had no idea who it would be. The staff was always very tight lipped about things like this. In the last week before she left, I was in a near panic every time I went to bed. I would lay there for hours, trying to picture myself with someone new in my room. I tried to make my mind fit the pieces together of a puzzle that just didn’t have all the pieces to it. I didn’t know who had been doing these things to me and I was terrified to trust anyone. I prayed and prayed that it would be Lorie, in a small selfish way, I prayed for it because I knew that she would protect me from them.

Krista’s leaving took place with very little fanfare. She waited in the lobby until the car that was to take her way arrived and then she came into the classrooms to say goodbye to all of us. There were a few tears shed by the other girls who knew her better, they would miss her, the tears that dripped down my face were born out of self pity though, knowing that I would be alone in that room tonight. As Krista hugged me goodbye she pressed something cold into my hand and when she walked away I looked down to see one of her bracelets. I smiled and slid it onto my wrist. To this day I have no idea why she did it.

I arrived at Western Academy on August 31st and I can count on one hand the acts of kindness that were shown to me by my fellow students that year. It is something I held onto dearly.

Krista, if you ever read this, know that the simple parting of a bracelet gave one little girl something to hold on to. It got me through some long months. Thank you for that.