There is one great misconception widely spread throughout the world. Though it is true that excitement and a challenge is appealing to a person, mystery is more so on the anxiety-provoking side. Sure, solving the case of the missing doll may be a little fun, and learning of forensic experiments to solve a murder is interesting, but when something you hold dear is on the brink of slipping through your fingers, wouldn't you want to know so that you can again take control of the threats? Sometimes you have a problem that cannot be solved because of the inconceivable consequences. At these times, we must take a dive into uncertainty, and half of the time, you wish with all of your might that you could go back and mend your life-influencing mistake. Without mystery, there are still better ways to obtain a thrill or simply enjoy yourself. Still, our maker finds our struggle amusing; he likes us to gamble with misfortune.

My name is Reece Boleyn. Reece can be a unisex name, and I find that kind of funny, since I grew up with two much older brothers, which, of course, influenced my girly traits into becoming a bit more masculine. Life, for me, is one big stream of obstacles that we overcome only so that we can relax, but most people don't realize that those obstacles never stop coming. Sometimes the intervals may be longer, and sometimes you have to think fast and jump a double hurdle to get by. Even if you trip over one, there is no sympathy; that's when things begin piling up over you like quicksand, and the farther below you've sunk, the more excruciatingly difficult it becomes to heave yourself out- that is, if you even choose to fight nature.

Although I am one of those who fights for my convenience, to keep my head out of the suffocating muck, I can rarely bring myself as to explain why I bother regaining my composure only to lose it again. Human nature is my only flaw; I could have had no fear of dying and escaped the everyday bombardment of petty nothings, but alas, there is an intangible force telling me to get up when I fall.

Ever since I was just hitting puberty, I'd been a rather avid thinker. It was significantly tough to sift through the dirt and muck through my years after I'd learned of my blessed curse, and to find those diamonds. First was Gary Henderson. He was a very troubled boy, one year older than me with medium length brown hair and a very pronounced jaw line. I'd stumbled across him completely by accident, calling him up to try and meet a friend, and hanging up with what I thought was my soul mate. All of those cliches and love in the media hadn't made sense to me until I befriended Gary, and within a week, he had told me that he loved me and saw a future with me. A seventh grade mind is easily swayed, and being the gullible person I am, I stuck to his words like a stubborn super glue; letting go was the big lesson in meeting him.

To cut a long story short, Gary and I stopped talking due to his blossoming sexuality problems and my control-freak nature. My heart literally felt as though he'd ripped it from my chest so that I could see it pump for him one last time before I died, but not too long after, I could see that it was me who'd done the self-mutilation. Over the years, I became more mature, and learned from this experience how to heal myself, how to protect myself, and how to love without impairing the relationship.

A year went by since Gary and I had stopped speaking to one another; I met new people that I'd never have conceived in all of my excessive thinking, and my sociality went through the roof. Though I had trouble keeping my wavy brown hair in place, eating right as to keep my appearance up, and restraining all hyperactivity, my ego was growing too mammoth for my body to bear. Strangely, I found that self-confidence attracted both the shallow and the shy to me like moths to their death traps. This was precisely why I had all short-term, nonsignificant relationships until one person came around, ready to start the fire that would be my realness towards those I hold close.

Rhonda Kickel was the first person I'd allowed into my heart after Gary. She was a decent three years my senior, though mentally below me. One part of me wanted to be associated with her for her beauty- slender shape, makeup genius, perfect hair- and the other part of me saw that even though she was no candidate for an extended discussion, she was guaranteed to be there for me through cloud soaring and deep sea diving into the depths of hell. My entire life opened up to her; she was the sole person who knew about my history with Gary and personal worries, and I was the only one who was aware of her rape issues and step-father trauma. We were the epitome of best friends; we were sisters, looking out for each other.

Within days of growing comfortable with Rhonda, I met two new future loves of mine, Ripley and Denise. Ripley was a popular girl who knew that people loved her, but did whatever she wanted to do with no outside influence(It was why people admired her), and Denise was just about the same, though intensely blunt and honest. My days were spent with one of those three girls: fun time with Ripley, close time with Rhonda, and chill time with Denise, occasionally hanging out with a couple other people I knew, such as Sam, a friend since third grade, and Adrian, a homosexual with a brain of gold. My life didn't look like it could get much better until I met one last feather for my wings, Landon Mann.

Landon was a mystery, and still is. His face could not be compared to any other, a curvy jaw line, large, yet nicely shaped lips, a straight nose, small eyes, and isosceles triangle eyebrows. His skin was tan like a beach kiki's, and his body was toned like the type of man that could defend any woman. My favorite aspect of Landon, however, was his longish, light brown hair. It captivated my interest with the countless hues and textures, shining just right s as not to be dry or greasy. Not only was his appearance different and attractive, but his personality was one that could never be found again. After getting to know him for a few days, we took a deep interest in each other, and I stopped spending all of my free breaths of air with the girls, but instead this one man.

For a month, Landon and I were a bit shy with one another. He'd make a move on me, and I'd turn the other way accidentally, lowering his spirits and making me want to press my thumb against my throat until I no longer deserved it. Still, we were attached, and after only that month, I had lost my innocence entirely to this one person. I loved him, and this time, I was sure that my affection was requited. Two months passed with us inseparable like a sloth and its baby. Nights were tough to sleep through, imagining what it would be like to sleep alongside the only man who could make my blood pump with such ferocity. The anxious feelings towards him I had were unbearable, and since he was a detached type of boy, I tried to make him feel inadequate in hopes of him wanting to please me more. Needless to say, the plan backfired, and after a text message arrow pierced my scars back open, my ego subsided almost completely, leaving me once more rejected.

After the Landon episode ended, my friends became less dependent on me personally, since I'd spent such a significantly lower amount of time with them. It wasn't something that would shrink my self esteem or upset me, really, but the extra support would've kept me from spreading the nastiest fibs about the poor boy Landon I'd once loved. Eventually, my bitterness reign ended as well, and things grew back to normal.

Rhonda had moved away, and it was clear to me that she was done with our close friendship. After having met some she found more aesthetically pleasing and overcoming her shy shell, her sweet and genuine nature was veiled by a masking cloud of momentary refinement and altogether selfishness, mixed with her ignorance to the world and lack of reasoning skills. Ripley, on the other hand, was spending more time with me than even Rhonda had at the beginning of our friendship. Her and I grew significantly close to the point where strangers assumed us lesbians for one another. The rumors didn't bother us, for the people that mattered knew otherwise. By christmas time, I'd bought her a kitten. We were inexplicably close.

As Ripley and I hit it off, my family began budding into the picture. My mom, one whose idiocy cannot be described in words, had began getting too far on my nerves for me to ignore. With my brothers off in their own escapist worlds, I was left freely to express my hatred and flat out maliciousness towards her, thus again growing my ego to the point where it would soar far beyond the clouds and making my home life a living pit of oblivion. At times, she would threaten to admit me to mental hospitals, knowing that I was not at all our of my mind, but just feeling an intense hate. Now that Landon wasn't here to knock on my window and carry me off, away from the madness, I decided to turn to Ripley, who only knew so much, and drugs. Smoking became my escape from living; I would take a hit and immediately gain a sense of positivity towards any situation. On the flip side, prescription pills were always there, calling my name when I wasn't looking for only temporary relief. The first night my mother caught me cutting an popping, I was sent to my dad's where Ripley withdrew her helping hands, for she could no longer see the cat I'd granted to her as a tangible form of our friendship. Once I got her the little bugger, it was all she cared about anymore.

By this point, all I was left with were Denise, a very distant friend with terrible character judgement, and my baby- my cat, the one I'd had before I got Ripley her kitten. Suicide danced around my thoughts like a dark ritual, waiting for something significant to happen. That's when Denise let the school know that I was planning on cutting my meaningless existence short, and I was told to see a therapist. Of course, the school didn't want a dead student on their record. Landon spat at my name for the friends he'd lost to my loud mouth, Rhonda forgot I'd existed, and Ripley was as petty as all others I'd never bothered to learn of. What was left? Of course, my escape.

Smoking became a big part of my life. I met a friend named Hugo Klanz, a moderately lengthy boy my age who had long brown hair covering one eye, a body as thin as paper, and jokes that literally never failed to crack me up. Hugo, Sam, and I had began hanging out together. Sam, I could see, had changed a lot; he used to be the nerdy type with a bit of bulk on his belly and cartoon obsessions. At this time, however, he was taller, slender, and much more discreet about his nerdy tendencies. I trusted him, as well as Hugo, and we spent a lot of time together.

Finally, the time came when Hugo wasn't there. Sam and I impaired our minds so intensely that our peripherals disappeared and we thought we were professionals at sports that hadn't even been invented. Sharing laughs was soon followed by an act that I was not at all proud of; I'd blacked out that night, and when I woke up, still lightly buttered, I saw Sam playing his video games. Normally, I would've said nothing, but a salty sensation was caked right below my nasal cavity. I was worried, but he assured me that nothing out of the ordinary happened. What was there for me to say? I was forced to take his word as truth and went home that night, slightly shaken, but altogether melancholy.

I'm notw in my sophomore year in high school. As cliche as my settings are, I've realized that not all high school stories are like one another. Each one has a different attitude and amount of anxiety. For me, I'd played my cards all wrong and dove into too many mysteries that could've been solved with time. The most mysterious of all, however, was yet to come. Simply put, jumping to conclusions, no matter how obvious the outcome looks, will always leave one dissatisfied with their ratio of false hypothesis.