Things That Actually Happened to Me: The Series: (feat. Trauma) Part 1 (?)

I like to write. But I’m bad at figuring out what to write. it’s usually trauma dumping, abandoned stories I desperately want to finish but, you know, I just can’t. Saying what’s on my mind is an easy way to get me to write. 

But the things I haven’t talked about are the whacky/horrible/spooky things that have happened to me. That some people wouldn’t believe. Things I catch myself thinking about and going “hmm. Can’t believe I was part of a werewolf clan for my whole first semester of high school.”

My Best Friend was a Werewolf 

2009. Late November. The long anticipated theatric version of “New Moon” hit theaters. Finally, young teen girls had gotten an instantly addictive hit of Jacob and his clan of werewolves. The beginning of a cultural reset was imminent. Just like the followers of Jesus Christ and those of Satan himself, two groups would form. Both claiming they were in the right. 

Team Edward and Team Jacob. 

Edward, a mysterious and handsome vampire with a heart that technically didn’t pump blood but beat wildly for Bella.

Jacob, the muscular werewolf, he wasn’t a main character in “Twilight”. His big role debuted in “New Moon”. Jacob had a light cameo in “Twilight” but it was nothing compared to the werewolf hunk he metaphorically birthed himself into. In “New Moon” 

I am not ashamed to admit I read the books. I was into it. I wasn’t foaming at the mouth for either one of the boys. I was a late bloomer. The boy thing didn’t really hit me until my late teens, if even that. Yet, I was intrigued.

That and desperate to fit into a group. Very desperate. 

I never had many friends. Nothing that lasted or wasn’t abusive in nature. I had just started high school. I wanted to be a whole new person and be in a group of giggly girls. Twilight was an easy in at the time, so I ran with it. 

Though it is unlikely any of the people part of this tale will read this, all of their names will be redacted and not their true names. We’re grown up now; I won’t embarrass any of these people. 

I don’t remember how or when, but I became friends with a fellow freshman named Tina. She went to a different middle school than I did. A clean slate for both of us. A fresh friendship. We quickly became good friends. Eating lunch together every day, texting each other on our razor flip phones, going to non-school related activities together, the whole shebang. I was happy. 

And you know what the best part was? We both wrote fan fiction. 

I wrote mostly Avatar: The Last Airbender and Fusion Fall fic’s. I created a lot of OCs, and AU Narratives. (My work remains anonymous and sealed to this day. I have no plans of revealing my FF identity, but I was fairly well known.) Tina wrote exclusively Twilight-Esque werewolf fic’s. All true-self insert, main character, OP, bullshit. The worst kind in my opinion. But we bonded over it, nonetheless. She even added me into her stories. Her work was all poorly handwritten, and error riddled. And very sexual in nature. She explained to me what a hand and blow job was. A blow job was way different than I originally thought. 

We both enjoyed the idea of being a part of a fictional world. I loved my OC’s and their stories being tied to the main characters. 

Tina took it too far. 

There was a day at lunch Tina pulled me aside from our little group of friends. She was wearing a cat ear headband and very heavy eyeliner. 

“I have to tell you something, and you can’t tell anyone about this” she said in a stern yet animated tone. 

“What is it?” I said slightly worried but mostly intrigued. 

“I had sex with the alpha werewolf, Sam, who lives in the mountains, and I am now a werewolf.” She said completely seriously, no indication of joking. 

I don’t really remember what I said in that moment. I was 13 and I wasn’t stupid. But I also liked the idea of my fan fiction worlds being real; and wasn’t against the idea of subtlety role playing in real life. So, I probably acted shocked and said something like “so werewolves are real?” And promised to keep it a secret. 

I remember sitting in my last class of the day, study hall. I was leaning back in my desk, my arms crossed. I remember thinking “I know werewolves are real and all these people around me don’t” I kind of liked the idea of playing this game. 

It was a game of chess; and I had, and still don’t, have a clue on how to play chess. 

Now I need to explain how this werewolf thing worked for any further details to make sense. You need to know the chaotic lore.

So, Tina became a werewolf by having sex with the Alpha werewolf. His name was Sam. His pack of werewolves lived in the mountains. I believe there were 6 or 7 werewolves in total in said pack. Since Tina was now mated with the alpha and part of the pack, she could now switch minds with all of the other werewolves. For example, she would suddenly have a look on her face as if she were a deer in the headlights and her personality would change into one of the other werewolves. Kind like DID. I forget all of their names, but one of the werewolves was in love with me and his name was Blade. There was another friend in the group that also had one of the werewolves in love with her (we’ll call her Mary; she has a bigger role later) his name was Bruiser. 

It was kind of fun at first. We kept the act to our little group, so it wasn’t like we were publicly humiliating ourselves. But it slowly became more and more concerning for Tina and her wellbeing.

Tina started to switch minds a lot there was a time she switched to Blade, and she shot out of her seat in science class and sat across the room in the middle of class. It was because she couldn’t be near me as Blade because he couldn’t control himself around me. Similarly, Mary and Tina were giving a presentation in German class, and she switched in the middle of it and could no longer speak German. Because she wasn’t herself.

This stuff happed every day. Which put us in an uncomfortable scenario a lot. The worst for me was when we were in economic class and were passing classic paper notes to each other. They were of course about werewolf related things. We got caught and the note was taken away. After class Tina made me go up to the teacher's desk with her and beg for the note back because it had “personal information” in it. At the time I assumed it was because she didn’t want the teacher to know she was a werewolf. But now I suspect it was because she was embarrassed and didn’t want our little game leaking into the real world. 

There was one day I went and hung out at her dad's condo, and she insisted we hang out in his car so we could talk in private. It reeked of cigarettes. She proceeded to switch to each werewolf over the course of an hour that we were in the car. When she switched to Blade, she jumped out, slammed the door and circled the car like a vulture. I played a long. 

She’d also try to text me as different werewolves. Sam used zeros instead of o’s, and some would text in all caps, or all emotes. she’d slip up a lot. But it was always because she switched for a few seconds while texting. 

It kind of all came to a head at a sleepover. She had a little sister who hung out with us, (She was maybe 10.) and had convinced her she was a werewolf as well. We watched a movie, and she talked about the pack and the sex she was having. I ended up leaving early. Not only because I didn’t want to play anymore that night, but I also hated sleepovers.

The next school day I was told all about how the werewolves came over that night and Mary wouldn’t wake up, but was talking in her sleep to the wolves, so she didn’t remember them coming over. 

I didn’t want to play anymore. Tina started insisting I was a descendent of a vampire, a war was about to start between werewolves and vampires, and I had to pick a side, etc. etc. She started to ignore me and avoid me because of my “vampire bloodline” I couldn’t handle it anymore. So, I did something really stupid. 

I went to the school psychologist. 

I will never forget the look on his face as I tried to describe this unbearable situation I was in and how I didn’t know what to do. It was a mix of what the hell are you talking about and disgust. He basically just told me to look for other friends. I knew that wasn’t going to work. Nothing further came of the meeting.

I had no choice but to tell my mom. I knew she would react the same way. I came to her in tears and told her everything that was happening. The first this she said to me, in a very concerning voice, was “you know none of this is real right?” I said I knew, but I did play along for a little while because I thought it was a game. I was embarrassed. She was gentle about it and understood why I did what I did. But I know she told my dad about it later and kind of made fun of me. 

I had already made plans to switch to online school. So, in the end I had an out. I swiftly stopped playing along and I noticed Mary did too. But Tina remained the same, even if she was playing alone. We just let her do her thing. 

I left after the semester and communication slowly stopped between all of us that were involved. I was sad to lose my friends but was also relieved that chapter of my life closed.

Author notes:

I left some details out. There was just so much that happened that either made me uncomfortable or was similar to other events. Once again, this is a 100% real life event. All of this truly happened to me. I plan to write about other obscure things that have happened to me this year. Thanks for reading.

Erika