I Was Only Nineteen Novels & Stories

It lasted less than a second, but years of experience had made me an expert at noticing those things. I released a slow breath. Not this time, Aurora. I wasn't thirteen anymore. I wasn't the girl who hid in bathroom stalls or skipped lunch because she was tired of people watching her eat. I was nineteen. I paid bills. Worked two jobs. Survived an alcoholic stepfather. If life hadn't killed me yet, a few college students certainly weren't going to manage it. With that encouraging thought, I continued exploring the campus. Then I got lost. Hopelessly, spectacularly lost.

So this was new to me. “Trust me cupcake, I know everything about it.” To say it caught me off guard would be an understatement. I almost felt like I couldn't see him like that. Like something in my heart twisted to see the pain in his eyes. “What?” My eyes narrowed at him, asking him to explain at what he just hinted. Pi turned his face back to face the sky. Nothing could have prepared me to digest the words that came out of Pi’s mouth after that. “I met her when I was nineteen.”

If someone didn't see me in person, they would probably think I was a child, not an adult who was almost 19 years old. Nothing was too important. I just felt a little confused. My birthday is in two weeks, remember? I'll be 19 this year. I've grown up with it, and I don't know how to feel about it. I don't think I'll be able to show myself until my 20th birthday. Besides, yesterday's strange feeling made me doubt my abilities. In dangerous situations, I feel like I can't protect myself. It makes me feel useless... I admitted it to Ariana.

As I said, my daughter was nineteen. It was a Friday night the very first time something... happened.

she asked, softly stitching up the cut on top of his eyebrow. "I'm ten years old," He told her, it had been his birthday a few days ago. No one knew about it, he had no one to celebrate it with, and he had no reason to celebrate. It was a celebration of life, his life was not worth celebrating, "How old are you?" "I'm nineteen."

I say as a half-joke. The stranger folds his arms, flexing his biceps and I swallow again. He notices my staring and his lips curl in a half-smile. “How old are you?” “Here.” I fish out my ID from my pocket and stretch it to him. He doesn’t collect it, not even a peek at it to know my name. “I’m nineteen.” “Nineteen?” Technically, nineteen is seventeen plus two years, so I can pass for a sweet nineteen. “Yes.”

Bowie POV ~A week later. It was finally my birthday. I woke up to my mom singing off-key from the kitchen, the smell of pancakes drifting up the stairs, and a hollow ache in my chest that I couldn't shake. I was turning nineteen years old today, and the only thing I wanted for my birthday was a boy who wouldn't answer my calls. I forced myself to smile through breakfast. Opened the gifts my parents got me and thanked them, hugged them and kissed their cheeks.

I wanted real justice, not revenge. I hesitated before continuing, my fingers curling into the sheets. "I tried dating twice. The first time when I was nineteen, it ended horribly. The second was when I was twenty-one. Some co-worker at KFC… I... I stabbed him when we were about to..." My voice trailed off.

And when I finally made it to my bed, alone under the twelve-thousand-thread-count sheets, I didn’t even pretend to reach for Victor’s side. I reached for myself instead, biting the pillow so the staff wouldn’t hear whose name I was moaning when I came a second time that night. Twenty-nine days. God, I was already losing count.

I thought I would be able to afford my tuition but here is how my bad luck follows me everywhere. They have an age requirement of twenty-one, and I’m only nineteen. “I still have two years to be twenty-one,” I muttered to myself kicking a small chunk of rock away from my path as I tread down the narrow alley on my way to the bus station. “I need to find another job.” I got the bus that headed for school, I was still surfing the internet for a more suitable job, and just as I scrolled through several ads and job offers, I reached another post and my heart stopped for a bit.