Living a Double Life

By Kristina Hernandez

Living A Double Life is a true story about a forbidden love between two teenage girls.
What started out as a friendship developed into something much more
I felt something that I have never felt before and I was confused I had feelings for a girl?... But the thing that really confused me was that being upset over her felt so right.
High School is hard enough; when you add in having feelings for another girl, forbidding parents, and college fast approaching life becomes much more than just a struggle
Living A Double Life is the story of a relationship from the very beginning to the bitter end. Heartbreaking and rule bending this story of first love is the perfect read for teenagers and young adults alike. It is an insightful and inspiring glimpse into the ever changing lives of todays youth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 16, 2010
• ISBN: 9781453558454

Kristina Hernandez

Kristina Hernandez is still a student at Slippery Rock University. She is working towards a dual degree in Business Management and Marketing. After college she plans to get a job with the government and travel the world. She is a free spirited, fun loving, risk taking girl… She is still looking for the love of her life….

Book preview

Part I

Summer

Chapter 1

Hello, My Name Is Kristina Hernandez,

and I Will Be Your Coach This Summer

It was May 16, 2007. I can remember everything about that day just like it happened yesterday. I was throwing a softball around with my dad before my second practice. I was trying to show off in front of my team because I wanted them to respect me and trust my coaching ability. I can remember telling my dad to give me a pop-up. He threw the ball as high as he could, and I can remember making a big deal about yelling MINE and getting underneath the ball and using two hands to catch it. I could see the girls watching me and talking among themselves. In my head, they were talking about how good of a catch that was; but in reality, they were probably just talking about school, boys, or what they were going to do after practice. But I didn’t care. To me they were talking about my skills as a player.

I ran over to the girls and said, Okay, ladies, get your cleats on and meet me over by my gear. At that time, I was wearing my practice clothes from the high school softball team. I was on varsity squad, and I was extremely proud of it. I had just gotten off my school practice and was already tired. I told the girls to take a knee. Looking around at the girls sitting in the grass, I knew from that point on that it would be a long rough season. Hello, my name is Kristina Hernandez, and I will be your coach this summer. I was so proud of myself. This is my dad, Fred, and he will be my assistant coach. He was proud of me too. The next question I asked was how long everyone had been playing ball for—that was the wrong question to ask. I got answers ranging from I have been playing ball ever since T-ball all the way to this is my second year ever playing. Wow. That’s all I could say. My dad chimed in and said, Well, we have a lot of work on our hands, and I hope we will have a great season. The girls didn’t look too impressed.

From a distance, I could see two people walking toward our practice field. I asked the girls if they knew who they were; and one girl said, That looks like Brooklynn and Amy. I checked the roster. They were both on my team, and they were late. I yelled, Let’s go, ladies, practice has already started, and you’re late! They started to run, and I started to chuckle. When they got to our circle, I asked why they were late. The one girl said, We are on the middle school track team, and practice ran late, sorry. I replied, Oh, that’s okay then, but don’t make it a habit of being late, or you will run a lap for every minute you are late to my practice. The whole team looked at me with a combined look of fear and are you serious? I said, Let’s get stretched and start off with a light practice, so I can get to know your names and skills.

It was a decent practice. We played made-up games of football-softball and marshmallow softball. We all had fun getting to know one another and acting goofy. At the end of our first practice, I gave the all the girls my cell phone number; and I told them to send me a text, so I would have theirs just in case I had to change practice at the last minute. Not more than twenty minutes later, I had a full inbox. I felt very important.

Later that night, I got a text from a number I didn’t recognize. The text had said, Hey what’s up? I asked who it was. The next text said, Brooklynn Owens, I am on ur softball team. I tried to remember which one was Brooklynn. After thinking about it for a few seconds, I replied, Oh yeah, u were one of the girls who showed up late to practice, right? She replied back, Yea sorry bout tht. I replied, It was fine. Then she started up a conversation with me, and we talked for hours, just texting back and forth. She seemed like she really wanted to talk to me, so I kept on talking to her. Little did I know that it was a start of a beautiful friendship.

Chapter 2

I Never Really Had a Best Friend . . .

Do You Want to Be Mine?

The last weeks of school flew by, and summer finally arrived. I was so excited because I had just gotten my driver’s license, and now I was free. Well, not really. When all of my friends where hanging out doing a whole lot of nothing, I was preparing for practice. I had to come up with new drills for the girls and prepare them as much as I could for our first game. However, I found myself spending a lot of my time texting and hanging out with Brooklynn.

You see, Brooklynn’s story was unique. Her parents weren’t the best parents that summer. They had a lot on their minds with the passing of Brooklynn’s grandfather, and they kind of forgot about her. She reached out to me. She always asked me to pick her up before practices and games because she didn’t want to bother her parents for rides. Brooklynn just needed someone to be there for her. What she really wanted was someone to be her friend and listen to her. To be honest, I needed someone to be there for me too. So it just seemed natural that we would both be there for each other, right?

Brooklynn and I were always together that summer. We did everything together. She basically lived at my house. Our friendship was more than any of the friendships I had with any of the other girls on my team, or with anyone for that matter. For some reason, Brooklynn was special, and I wasn’t sure why. Brooklynn and I could talk all night, and we did several times. Just talking to her made me feel like someone genuinely cared about me and my life. One night while we were talking about everything under the sun, I asked her who her best friend was. She said, Well I did have a best friend, but I’m not sure anymore, what about you? I replied, I have never really had a best friend, but I think that you are the closest thing I have to a best friend, do you want to be mine? I heard her giggle, and she said, Yeah. For some reason that answer made me so happy. I had finally found a best friend, and it felt good.

We tried to keep our friendship a secret from the rest of the softball team, because I didn’t want anyone thinking that I was giving Brooklynn special treatment by giving her more playing time. The truth was Brooklynn was probably the best player that I had that summer. Anyways, no one on the team really knew that Brooklynn and I talked as much as we did, or even that we hung out outside of practice, but the truth was that we did.

Chapter 3

Why Do I Feel This Way about a Girl?

The first time I realized that I liked Brooklynn more than just a friend was one night when we were talking on the phone when I asked her if she had ever done anything with a boy. She said, I have only ever made out with a boy, but if I had the chance, I would have done more. My reaction to that answer was pure jealously. I got so angry, and I wasn’t sure why because I knew that I have done more with a boy than she did, but I just couldn’t let it go. I got so angry with her to the point where I told her that I had to go and hung up the phone. At that moment, I knew that I felt something more for Brooklynn than just friendship. I knew that I loved her.

Brooklynn knew that I was jealous, and she immediately texted me and asked me what was wrong. The problem was that I felt something that I have never felt before, and I was confused because she was not a boy. I had feelings for a girl? I kept thinking that something must be wrong with me because I shouldn’t feel like this, at least not with a girl. But the thing that really confused me was that being upset over her felt so right. I cared about Brooklynn, and I wanted her to care about me in the same way.

She called me later that night, and I told her that I was upset with the answer she gave me earlier. She started to laugh a little; it was a cute laugh. She said, I was just kidding. I would never want to do anything with anyone unless I have been with them for a while. I felt a great sense of relief. She asked me why I got so jealous, and I told her it was because I cared for her so much, and then I said IT—the big IT. Without thinking or taking a breath I said, The reason why I got so jealous and upset is because I love you. After I realized what I had said, I took a gasp of air. I didn’t know how she was going to react; my stomach was in knots, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Then she said, I love you too. I felt a big wave of relief surge through my whole body. Those four words were the best four words that I have ever heard in my life. I was probably the happiest person in the world at that moment in time. I couldn’t believe what she had said. I couldn’t believe that the one person I wanted more than anything in this world wanted to be with me too. It just doesn’t happen to a girl like me. I was speechless.

After hearing Brooklynn say that she loved me too, I immediately said, Oh, thank God, that could have been weird. We both started to laugh; everything seemed to be falling into place. The next question I asked her was very blunt. I asked her, So what does this make us? Are we just best friends or are we more . . . ? She replied, I don’t know . . . I really care about you, and I have these feelings for you that I have never felt with anyone else before. And just talking to you makes everything that is happening with my family seems a little better. I said, I have feelings for you too, and I really did mean it when I said I loved you. You are all I think about. I wonder what you are doing all day, and I wonder if you are thinking about me as much as I am thinking about you. There was a silence, but it really wasn’t awkward. It was more comforting. Like we were both thinking how we really felt about each other. Then I did the bravest thing that I have ever done—still to this day. I asked her, Do you want to be my girlfriend? She said, Yes.

I had the biggest and cheesiest grin on my face. I felt butterflies deep in my stomach. I was really happy for the first time in my life. I had finally found someone who wanted to be with me and experience life with me. That night we talked all night. We talked about hanging out the next day and possibly going to the movies or just driving around in my car. I fell asleep thinking that I was the luckiest person in the world and that I had just dreamed everything up.

Chapter 4

Being More Than Just Friends

A couple of days into our relationship, Brooklynn asked me if she could come over to my house to hang out. I asked my parents, and they said that they didn’t care because they liked Brooklynn. They thought that she was a good friend. However, neither my parents nor hers knew that we had stronger feelings than just friends for each other, or the fact that we were actually kind of dating. Anyways, I went over to Brooklynn’s house and picked her up and drove her back to my house. The drive over to my house was silent.

Things between us were sort of weird because I didn’t know what I was allowed to do or if she even wanted me to do anything. So we decided to watch television in my room because there was nothing better to do in our small town. I was so confused because I wanted to talk to her about us, and I didn’t want things to be uncomfortable between us because I felt like she was the only person that I could be completely 100 percent myself around. Like I didn’t have to prove anything to her or be anyone I’m not when I’m with her. I wanted things to move forward in our relationship, but I