Fran Lewis
Introduction
Teens have it really hard
today. I should know; I am one and I never thought I would survive being
thirteen, but I did. Life changes when you enter your teens. The
friends you had in elementary school either move or decide they don’t
need you anymore. Others try and influence you to do things their
way…and that is where my problems started. I’m an A student, or at least
I was until I decided to forget who I was and become someone I wasn’t.
My best friend Iris was still doing well in school, and we used to
hang out together after school to do homework. But her mother was
strict, just like mine, and wanted her to devote all of her time to
studying alone and cultivating other friendships; that left me, Benita,
behind. So, I decided if Iris and her group did not want to hang with me
anymore I would find others that would.
But first, let me explain. The driver will take you around the
cemetery and help you to understand what happened to each of the
thirteen other teens who are now the Faces Behind the Stones. I am the
voice behind the first stone. You will have heard from fourteen voices
by the time this story is done. Author Fran Lewis will allow you, the
reader, to hear through me and these other troubled teens, the pressures
we endured and the reasons why we are no longer here.
The First Stone: Benita
Hear my voice as I relate this first story.
Pressures: Not rich enough, not stylish enough, not the right clothes.
I am the first face behind the stone.
No matter how hard I tried I never really made the cut with the popular
girls. I never felt like I belonged to any one group. My parents were
not rich, but we didn’t starve. My dad was a dry cleaner and did fairly
well. We had many of the same phones, games and flat screen televisions
most other kids had, but with one exception— we earned these things
ourselves. My dad believed, and still believes, in hard work, and paid
us to work in his store on the weekends. Each summer we had to find jobs
or go to school. There were no free rides or long summer vacations, but
we still had fun.
Wearing the right clothes and being popular mattered to me; being
able to go to parties and dress like the other girls would have been
great too.
But, money was tight and I never really went to the finer stores to
shop, so my clothes did not have the labels that others did. I wore
clothes from department stores, thrift shops and sometimes my mom
shopped online for something she thought I might like or want. But
Nordstrom’s, Macys, Abercrombie and Fitch, and Express, which are stores
I would have loved to shop in, were not labels on the clothes that I
wore.
Jason Lane
