Maybe what's worse isn't the thoughts so much as the actions. When you come home irritable and while the family is together and laughing; you're in a different room. They say 'oh that's ok it’s a phase'; all you think is 'it’s not a phase it’s a situation'. You're not crying in your room at three AM about yourself because you're bored. It's because you don't know who to talk to or what to say. How do you tell someone that you don't want to go to work because your manager won't leave you alone? When textbook sexual harassment can happen to you. It goes on because kids who feel happy and stable stop the actions right away. Kids who are depressed, or can't confide in anyone; they're the ones this happens to because when it starts; they tell no one. And that's how it gets out of hand; we are the 'seed'. Of all the kids it happens to, when the 'authority figure' finally finds one person who will keep their mouth shut; that's when they know they've found a keeper.

Somehow it comes at the worst possible time. When your dad is angry, depressed and unemployed. When your mom is extremely religious and you told her you only mildly are religious. When your grades start dropping and you're stealing from CVS. When your throat hurts after a day of school from saying so little. When everyone else is happy and in love and you're thinking of five different ways to die; every day.

The weird thing is that it's not even gradual. If your parents even noticed a little, they would KNOW. I took a practice SAT test in 10th grade and scored 54-54-46; extremely GOOD! However, the year it all started, 11th grade? They became 46-46-41; I had actually dropped after another year of math and English! It wasn’t something where things slid a little by little. They fell. Every night I dreamed a different thing happening but always by the same manager. As the nights went on; and this was all before even being at work for three months, the dreams got worse. While girls were day-dreaming about their perfect man; I was day-dreaming about telling a teacher about work. I can’t talk aloud about anything mildly serious or else I cry; and that was what I feared the most.

I couldn’t think of who to talk to; my friends back in my hometown didn’t go to my school, and for some reason that felt like a reason they wouldn’t understand about work. My friends at school, I didn’t want to tell them because I didn’t want to have to go to school everyday and see them seeing me. I couldn’t tell anyone at school because they would have to tell my family; the people who I didn’t want to find all this out about. When I thought of telling my family, I shuddered. Not only was I on ‘thin ice’; but my moms’ Oxycotin looked tampered with and immediately she thinks I did it. What’s worse was how even later, she still believes that I took some and just didn’t ‘own up’ to it. I’m a pill-popper to her.

As much as it bothered me, I had never had a boyfriend before, and in some twisted way; thinking that maybe a guy liked me, made me feel a little bit better. One of my guy friends and I liked each other for a while, but both of us were too embarrassed to do anything about it; so nothing happened. I enjoyed work, it made me happy because I wasn’t at home where I got pushed around and isolated. Since I had a job; my parents couldn’t tell me if we were going out of state three days before we would. Having a job gave me stability.

Later the harassment stopped; which made me sad, as sick and twisted as it is to hear. I think it was because my nametag was outlined with purple; indicating that I was ‘eighteen or older’ and later my managers all realized I was only seventeen. Once it stopped, I was disappointed. Even though there were plenty of hot guys my age employed, something about my twenty-six year old manager was more enticing.

I write this now because I want to know what happens too. I want to publish this that way eight months, thirteen months or twenty-five months later; I want to read this again and see what has changed in this situation between me and my manager. I want to know if anything escalates or if we never really stay in the same room again. This is like a letter to myself; meant to be a past tense so that later, I see how this affected me. Have you ever felt that way? When you find a diary from a while ago and read it; remembering fondly a day at the beach, or an injustice that still makes you cry to this day? I know I have.