Well, what better to do than have everyone and their mother dish out all their dirty little secrets? The end result was all kinds of awesome.
Side note: I don’t actually know if anyone’s mom got involved here. Rock on, badass moms everywhere.
So sit back, relax, and take a look at what it’s like to know you’re in deep.
Bonus: comment some of your own tales or give us some feedback on ours **no judgement zone** and you’ll be entered in a drawing to win a copy of In Deep for your ultimate reading pleasure.
Better yet, try and figure out which one of these stories came from our lovely TYF staff. That’s right, we can get down and dirty, too.
**Any names used have been changed to protect the identity of these awesome people**
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“Once upon a time a new set of boys moved into my apartment complex and I did my best to avoid them, learning early on that any sort of communication with them would end up with trouble for my roommates and I. I did a good job of it for a month or so before one of my roommates decided to invite them out to join us at a club one night. I ended up hooking up with by far the weirdest one in the bunch, for some reason way beyond me, and had every single intention of ignoring him for the rest of my life…only problem was, he didn’t feel the same. I spent a whole two weeks pretending to be into him, partially because he cooked but mostly because he was my neighbor and I was too freaked to let him know he was creepy and repulsive. That all changed when he told me he was moving back to Missouri at the end of the year and asked if I’d come with him. Eventually, I ended up writing him this tacky letter about how I had goals and dreams and I was not at all interested in joining him on the farm so that he could crop while I raised his devil-headed kids. Lesson learned: don’t hook up with the ginger next door.”
-Black Mamba Next Door
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“I slept with my ex-boyfriend after being broken up for two years just because I found out he was dating someone else. Now, I have him blocked on all social media and haven’t spoken to him since… nor do I plan to.”
-1-800-Don’t-Bother
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“This past year I moved to another state for a job. I rubbed it in my parents’ faces that I hated it at their place and I was never coming home, and that if they ever wanted to see me again, they would have to come visit me. After a few months, I got fired from the job, with no money and nowhere to go but back home. And now, half a year later, I’m sitting in my parents’ living room. My mom still mocks me for the fact that I’m back after being so set on never returning.”
-Girl Who Cried Wolf
“This one time I went in for an interview and was texting a friend to help pass the time. I was telling her about a guy I saw working that was kind of adorable, momentarily forgetting she used to work for the same company. She ended up texting him that if he got me in earlier I’d show him some skin, if you know what I mean. I was mortified and could barely even look at him the rest of the time I spent waiting, but played it off like I had no idea she’d said something, even though I might have been down to show him a few things.”
-Josie Grossie
“I cheated so hard on one of my finals that I almost got 100%… I don’t even feel bad about it.”
-Glen Coco
“I hate the career choice I’ve chosen and I’ve thought about quitting so many times, but I haven’t because I don’t have a clue of what I’d do with my life and my parents would disown me.”
-Undecided Indie
“My English teacher happens to be the chair of our English department, so he’s super strict about plagiarism. In his opinion, searching up anything online is off limits, especially if you don’t cite it. But I didn’t listen–I searched up interviews with the authors of books I was writing essays on for the whole entire year. I ended up never getting caught, but every time he handed an essay back, my heart pounded the whole way through. Later he said I was a ‘wonderful’ English student, and I felt pretty terrible, but not terrible enough to confess.”
-Unapologetic Poet
“From about five until thirteen years old, I had the world’s biggest crush on my older brother’s best friend.”
-Peeping Piper
“This one time in journalism class there was a big test coming up and my friends and I hadn’t studied. On the day of, we basically made up a plan to give each other the answers we knew throughout the test via the equivalent of Morse Code on desks. It was risky, but lucky for us we never got caught, despite all the table tapping being done.”
-Gonzo
“In high school, I would do assignments for other kids. As someone who has always been a good student, I constantly felt guilty about it but never turned them away, either.”
-Helping Hand
“When I was still in elementary school, I would constantly cover for my brother as he snuck girls in and out of our house. At that age, lying to your parents was the worst possible thing you could ever do. With him around, it was something I quickly found myself doing extremely well.”
-Sis Undercover
“Being a young adult writer means it’s my job to let my characters get in trouble. However, Teenagerdom is a time of experimentation and learning from mistakes, so if I’m writing authentically about it, there will likely be a bunch of mess-ups. For Charlotte, in Being Friends With Boys, it means getting entangled with a couple of dysfunctional college girls. Becca in After the Kiss lets her romance replace all of her friendships, and in Criminal, the main character Nikki gets so in deep with her boyfriend that she helps him commit (and cover up) a murder.
But the trouble in In Deep feels different than all these, because this time the main character knows better. Even from scene one, Brynn understands that challenging her friend Grier to a dare will mean she’ll have to do something equally painful. She knows getting competitive with Grier over their new hot teammate Gavin is immature, and that making out with him (behind her own boyfriend’s back) is definitely out of bounds. She knows staying up late and partying could badly affect her swimming performance, and that lying to her parents is wrong, but she does it all anyway.
When Brynn decides the solution to her exhaustion may be hidden in her mother’s medicine cabinet, even I winced and thought, “Brynn, are you crazy?”
Maybe I was merely living vicariously: putting Brynn in edgy and dangerous situations I’d be far too chicken to try in real life. But if I’m honest, I’ve had those ‘Are you crazy?’ moments, myself. Maybe not with bad boys and broken curfews, but definitely with thankless jobs and cripplingly high expectations. Or professional jealousy and too much internet procrastination. Excessive ice cream? Check. Buying shoes I can’t really afford? Guilty. While I haven’t done the nutso things Brynn does, there are definitely times when I’ve had to stop and think, ‘What am I doing? This isn’t good for me.’
So for me, In Deep isn’t just a cautionary tale about wild behavior, but about what can happen when you stop listening to your true self, or the people who love you. When you shut others out and buy into your own bad head trip, indulging your worst characteristics for the sake of pride, or greed, or any other Deadly Sin. We all know when we’re operating against our own best interests. Deep down—whatever harm we’re doing, large or small—just like Brynn, we know better. Thanks to writing her story, I hope I’m getting better at catching myself at it.
-Terra Elan McVoy
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