So I’m pretty new to this site, so I’m not really sure how to start things off. I’m a pretty blunt person so I’ll be pretty blunt throughout this whole thing. So I’m a teenager. I’m 16 years old. The Christmas of 2016 my 24 year old cousin Aidian died. He is my cousin on my dads side. He and his family live in New York and me and my dad and Mom live down in Texas. So you can Imagine it wasn’t a close relationship. My mom and Dad are divorced. So I’ve always had to split my holidays. One year I go with my mom the next year I go with my dad. As you can imagine we had a significant age difference. I probably saw him 5 times in my life. Being an only child I’ve always wanted a sibling, a bother to look out for me, a sister to go do girly things with. My New York family was two happily married rich, aunt and uncle, the golden boy adian, girl next door cousin lily, and the star athlete Brian. Me I have danced my whole life. I wasn’t like a Maddie Ziegler, type girl where I was some world class dancer. But I always felt like I was bragged about as much. Now my at home life was not bad. It was mostly little things. I’m half Colombian so you can Imagine what it’s like to live alone with a latin grandmother and mom. My grandma was great over all, but she always would criticize me, say I should stop dancing, I’d never get into college, I was driving my mother crazy, just absurd things that weren’t true. I could handle all of that up until seventh grade when my dad proposed to his girlfriend from Oregon. It was a year long, long distance relationship, and I was happy for him. But I guess I was worried since she was going to come live with us. I always had this strange feeling about the relationship. She was nice and honestly I grew to love her( like a part of the family). She was toxic also though. By the summer after 7th grade she had called off the engagement and my dad was crushed and pissed of. So we took a road trip up to Oregon, honestly that was so fun, but also weird since she had ruined my dad and I’s relationship. We weren’t as close or joking towards eachother as we were. So it was ok cause we really bonded quickly. We forgave eachother for that hard year and a half that we went through pointing the fingers at eachother, including the fiancé. So eighth grade was kinda of wild. I had found friends that made me happy. I did things outside of school with friends for the first time that year. Boys started liking me and my confidence was at a great point. My grades sucked because I was getting lazy. But I didn’t care cause I had friends that I actually had fun with. I started liking this boy like he was shy but that was the first big crush I had ever had. It was a typical middle school relationship, nothing happened. 9th grade came at a scary pace. I was honestly super scared to start High school. Over the summer I had started talking to Luke’s best friend, tom, he was an African American dude. Honestly I hadn’t cared about that or worried about it at all. Until we started getting really flirtly and he asked me out. I said yes. Then it hit me, I lived with my grandma who i could endure because i was used to her cruelty. But a lot of Latinos are weird with black people, my mom was ok, but I know she would have had a weird and unsettling feeling about him being my boy friend. I think that had a toll on our relationship, we never really dated and we have probably only been on like 2 dates over the span of our involvement with eachother.  So we start school we keep talking. I’m worried about what my parents will do if they find out so I don’t say or do anything. I think I fell in love with him along the way somehow we’re both 9th graders so we handled things pretty immaturely. At some point he grabbed my ass. We were on the dance team together so after school one day I walked up to talk to him, the dudes on the team were with him. I think one of them dared him to. So he grabbed it. I had no idea that was coming. I knew he liked my body and mostly because of my butt. That day he grabbed my arm tightly and pulled me towards him and hugged me from behind. And then some guy was like that’s how you grab a woman. I was so confused on what was happening. I don’t know if this was assault but I liked him so I joked about it over text. Deep down it was embarrassing, soon all the guys would encourage that, they would say “no balls” or “you wont” like something like a dare. And he’d come up behind me and spank my butt or grab it in the halls. It wasn’t intimate or sweet at all then he’d walk away. I really really liked him so I let it continue. To be honest I might’ve encouraged it. I’m so ashamed of myself, that I never yelled at him or slapped him. I honestly have no idea why I let it happen. I think I was desperate or confused and thought that’s what a relationship was like, but that’s the thing we never had a relationship. I was just naive. So Christmas of 9th grade rolls around and my cousin had apparently died. I had no idea so I spent December 25th and 26th and the whole day of the 27th having no knowledge. My mom informed me taht my dad had something to tell me. And he wanted to wait until he got back from Oregon. I thought it was my grandpa, that maybe something had happened. That night my grandma had accidentally sent me my cousin Aidians obituary, I guess she had no idea that I wasn’t informed yet. My mom took my phone and deleted it before I could see. So my mom had a dinner that night because she was meeting with a friend for dinner, I think it was AA, I’m not sure. So after she left I went on my grandmas I pad to check, because our iMessages are linked. So I see my grandma had sent me something that said obituary and with my cousins picture. I didn’t even know what an obituary was, so I looked it up with my cousins name. I was frantic. I read the words “passed away” and I swear it felt like all the air had been knocked out of my body. I cried silently because I didn’t want my grandma to know. So I went upstairs and into my room and to my bathroom, locked the door, and collapsed, I couldn’t stop crying. I was taking, saying his name repeatedly, saying not him, not him. Of course my grandma heard and she called my mom. I cried the hardest I had ever cried. I was gagging I was crying so hard. I had never experienced that before. I just cried for hours straight. I ran and got all my old phones. I charged them and got all the pictures all the evidence that he was there, and got them on my phone. I had texted my friends informed them, they said they were sorry. I didnt think they understood. A part of myself left that night. I couldn’t believe I lived with the ignorance of not knowing he wasn’t there anymore. Every single time that I saw him was so precious. Every single time. I was said I wasn’t mentioned in the obituary, it said his memory will live on in his grandma and grandpa, mom and father, brother and sister, and his fiancé. What about me? I was hurt they never mentioned me. I think they underestimate how much it still hurts me. How much Im still hurting. That year sucked, the grabbing of my ass continued, I still liked the guy. I went to my cousins funeral the next night after I had found out. Everyone was depressed. It was an open casket wake. I hadn’t seen him for two three years. He looked so old. The last time I saw him, it was in a restaurant where we met him in New York. It was a restaurant with one of the doors where it turns in a circle. I walked in first and didn’t see him then I looked to my left and saw him in the door section next to me/ behind me, then he ran out and hugged me. I was so worried that day because I thought it would be awkward to have dinner with him and my mom considering the divorce. But the whole door thing, he just made it So much better. He broke the ice. And now he’s gone. I remember that lunch, I told him about dance and he was so into it. He was so blown away that his little cousin was doing that. He made me feel so proud about dancing.and he said he really wanted to see me dance one day. He never did. But I’m so sad because I know he watches me dance now. I’m just sad I can’t see his reaction now. At this point I’m a sophomore about to be a junior. I’ve just gone through a lot the past 4 years, I’m in a rut with my grades, I just stick onto these things. Now I realize I’m rambling. Advice?