Newsflash: I'm a slut?

Do you remember your childhood bff? Mine lives 4 houses away. But we don’t speak anymore. I’m still not sure why… I have my theories though. But it started out - and is still going - like a rap feud. Where one person just looks very delusional.

I moved to this neighborhood a few years after my parent’s divorce. The downside to my mom having NO family in the United States was that we didn’t have family we could stay with. My mom’s best friend (and eventual godmother to me) lived in the “hood”, and was the only person my mom trusted enough for us to live under the same roof.

My mom being very overprotective only let me hang out in front of our new apartment building. Which, I mean, I don’t really blame her. Back in the day, the neighborhood was 1000000 times worse than what it is now. Now there are just graffiti-er problems.

Anyway, she let me cross the street. Here I met all the other kids on the block. Among them was the girl who would become my best friend - Jackie. She was a year older than I was and she was nice. She introduced me to the other kids and we would hang out riding our bicycles or while on our skates.

Then, I found out, we’d end up going to the same school that fall.

When I started 2nd grade at my new school, I felt less scared than I did starting 1st grade at a new school. I at least had a friend this time, even if she was in a different grade. After school, I would go to the Boys and Girls Club in the neighborhood, and Jackie would go to her babysitter’s house. Maybe this started our divide.

Actually, no. I know exactly when.

It was fourth grade, her fifth grade, and this one kid who was her friend started hanging out with us. Well, one day, Jackie’s parents didn’t let her come outside. So her friend - Ricky - and I hung out in front of my house and just talked. The next day after school, Jackie told me Ricky liked me. I honestly didn’t really like him back, but even back then I was like “well, since he likes me, might as well…”.

I guess Ricky became my first kind of boyfriend. He would pick me up before school, and we’d walk around the school before the bell rang, and then we’d walk home together holding hands. I even met his parents (which really, I met them because my dad and his dad were part of the same AA group).

But it didn’t last long. At the end of the summer, Ricky and I were no longer in a puppy love relationship. This was probably the only relationship that I didn’t cry about when it ended. I never knew why he didn’t want to be my sort of boyfriend anymore.

It wasn’t until seventh grade that I was manager of the boy’s soccer team that I found out that the girl I thought was my best friend told my first kind of boyfriend that I was only with him because he bought me stuff! There’s so many things wrong with that, because 1) he bought me a 50 cents ring from a gumball machine, while I bought him a $5 soccer ball for his birthday; 2) we had one “date” at a local burger joint, and we went dutch. I guess when you’re a little kid, you believe anything. After this, Ricky and I became friends again and Jackie did not like this one bit.

Once she went into high school, she stopped talking to me completely. I cared a little bit. I mean, she was my friend, and she helped me get my first sort of boyfriend. But then again, she also made me lose my first sort of boyfriend. Every time she saw me, she’d roll her eyes. I just walked on by. Her eyes rolling didn’t hurt me, and I had no reason to feel like I needed to do it back.

I moved on. Went to a different high school. Moved to college. Moved back home to go to a less expensive college and the eye rolling began again.

Not that I spend much time worrying about her and her eyes … but, I started noticing that her and her pseudo-boyfriend (because they hang out alot but he’s not into girls…) would hang out by our old grammar school which happened to be on my route home from the train.

She’d say things like “keep walking, bitch” or “slut” or “insert lame 5th grade insult here”. They never hurt. It wasn’t until I was sitting in front of my house waiting for my boyfriend to pick me up that it ever hurt when someone called me a slut, which has been many times by tons of people. Jackie’s mother - who used to treat me like her own daughter called me a slut, and it was the first time that word would ever hurt me. I couldn’t stay quiet. So I stood up and said “Way to stoop to a very low level. How would you feel if my grandmother called you a two-faced bitch?” And she walked off. It took a lot of energy to keep from crying while I waited. Once I got into my boyfriend’s car, I put on my sunglasses and cried.

I do, somehow, want to ask her why I’m a slut. I mean, sure, I’ve had sex with more than 4 people, but that doesn’t make me a slut.

Oh, I get it! I’m a slut because I’m younger than her, have a job (even if is a crappy one), am a college graduate and because most of my friends live across the city and my overprotective mother let’s me visit them whenever I want without having to be home at 10 PM. Then by all means, I’m a slut.