Sinking Deeper And Deeper

Dear Diary,

I clearly still have issues. Well, it’s not like they’re going to magically disappear if I stand up to my bully once for change. It’s not that simple, as Hunter proved to me. I’m still letting her get to me. And I have no idea how to fix that.

Maybe I should give my therapist a call. But would she help me even if she’s not treating me anymore? I mean, my parents aren’t exactly paying her any longer. I’m sure she doesn’t give out advice for free. If she did, she’d be penniless. You can’t exactly survive on gratitude.

I’ll think about it. In the meantime, I’ll try to do what I should’ve been doing all along. Stay away from Cassie Wagner.

I face the next week like a champion. Well, at least I try to. I finally got a response from the last company that I was waiting for. Fox News. And it puts me in a really good mood, because I finally get a positive answer! I’m going to intern at the weather department.

Yeah, I know it’s not the most exciting field, but I have to start somewhere. And come on, it’s Fox. It’s not some cheap, low-budget company. It’s actually a well-known, respected workplace. And I think it’s going to look great on my resume, once I start looking for an actual job.

Hunter and I go out to celebrate that Saturday. We keep it casual, but we go to New York for it. They’ve let me have a free day at the café, because I was working my ass off for the past couple of weeks.

As I was saying, we have lunch in New York, pizza and cheesecake, because I decide I can’t go without dessert, then walk around the Central Park. He takes me to the zoo, because we didn’t manage to see it on our one-day trip we had when we first moved to Stamford. Funny how that’s almost three weeks ago.

We hold hands as we stroll through the park, feeling like we’re in a jungle at times. Then, some other times, it’s like walking through a savanna. It’s actually a welcome distraction from our every day life and it makes me really happy that we’re able to escape reality like that.

And with that, you now probably understand why I feel much better as a new week starts. I’m starting my internship on Wednesday. I don’t know why not on Monday, but that’s what I was told.

They’re friendly enough to let me come there after school, so we can agree on a schedule that will work for me and the company. I’m kind of excited. And scared. I’m not sure what they’re expecting from me.

I’m also not sure what my internship is going to look like. Will I put together programs? Will I actually be doing any writing or going out in the field as help? Or will I just be the coffee bringer? Everyone has to start somewhere, but I don’t want to be the girl that just does everything and nothing.

I’m so focused on what I’ll be doing that afternoon, that I almost miss hearing the instructions for an assignment that we have to work on for our literature class. We have to read a book and write about it from a critical point of view. It’s a complex task and I’m glad I didn’t overhear it.

We got a list of books and we’re all supposed to read them this year, but the chronological order doesn’t matter. With each assignment we get, we have to pick one. At least that’s how I understand the task.

As I’m going through the list, I realize Mr. Rodriguez means business. He isn’t joking around. As we’ve been told on our first day at NYU, this isn’t high school anymore. We’re adults and we’re going to be treated as such. I just didn’t realize it meant our literature list of must-read books would literally skyrocket from high school.

There’s Hamlet, Moby d**k, The Odyssey, The Metamorphosis, Crime and Punishment, oof, a few dark ones. Okay, I think I’ll just go with Jane Eyre for the beginning. I don’t want to read anything complicated right now.

There’s a list of all our names going around. We’re supposed to write down which book we’re going to read, so the professor knows what to expect from us. It’s kind of a commitment and a way for him to keep track of what we still need to read this year. That should be interesting.

I’m one of the last ones to get my hands on that piece of paper, because it went around the other half of the lecture hall first. Not that I’m impatient or anything. I just want to write it down, so I can fully focus on the lesson. And not at where the list currently is. And how long it will take for it to get to me.

Once it finally travels into my possession, I can’t help but glance at the titles my classmates have been picking. Phew. A few of them are quite courageous, considering the fact that this is our first ever assignment and no one knows what to expect. Or how stern Mr. Rodriguez is going to be with grading.

When my eyes land on the end of the list, my gaze darkens. Cassie picked Hamlet. My gaze darkens. Why was I planning on doing some light reading again? Forget it. I grab my pen and write down the title. There. Shakespeare, it is. There’s no way I’ll do something easy when I have the chance to write about the same thing better than she does.

As soon as I pass the list forward, I realize I just did something very wrong and unhealthy. But I can’t help myself. It’s like an itch. You just have to scratch it eventually, no matter how hard you’re trying to resist. That’s actually kind of worrying. It’s best if I don’t mention this to Hunter. I don’t want to fight with him over Cassie again.