Friday afternoon at 3:11, her hectic weekend begins.

Jaisa Hogue’s aunt Julie Brown picks Hogue and her cousin Robann up from school then heads back home to wait for Harris, Hogue’s brother, who walks home from Hill Farm. If it is a first, third or fourth weekend in the month, as soon as he gets to the car, they all hustle to make it to the site by four where Hogue’s mother waits.

“Depending on traffic we are usually a few minutes late,” Brown said. “It is stressful. Seems like there is always something in our way. I use to check them out early but it wasn’t good for them so I stopped.”

Hogue is among the growing number of teens with divorced parents. What makes her case unusual is that she lives with neither her mother nor her father, but with her aunt who has full custody of Hogue and her younger brother.

“At this point, we are living with my aunt. The custody battle should have been decided, but they just keep messing up,” Hogue said.

Hogue moved in with her aunt a year after her parents split up and she has lived with them ever since.

“I remember I was at my grandmas house when they came back from court and told me I was going to stay with her [my aunt],” Hogue said. “I was seven. It was about a year after it all happened.”

Brown said when she got the call, it was not a decision she had to think about. She would keep the kids.

“July 2005 I received a phone call asking me if I would mind taking the kids. I said I didn’t mind. I would take them,” Brown said. “It was easy. They are family and I wasn’t letting them go into the DHS system.  We love them and that just wasn’t acceptable.”

At first, Brown said it was an adjustment but they made room for the new members of their house.

“It was crazy at first. My husband had to give up his man cave. We bought a bunk bed and until last summer Robann and Jaisa shared a room,” Brown said. “I also had to rethink dinner. I cook a lot, breakfast, make their lunches and ensure that they have balanced meals.”

Brown said Hogue had always been a big part of their lives, now she is just closer.

“She has always been a part of our family.  When she was little she would come stay with us and we would go out and buy matching outfits for her and Robann,” Brown said. “Now the girls can share clothes, shoes, make-up, but they have very different personalities and taste.”

Currently, Hogue and her brother see their mother three weekends out of month, but she said she rarely gets to see her father. With eight siblings and a large extended family, Hogue said it is hard to make time for them all.

“My mom has a really big side of the family and I never get to see my cousins anymore,” Hogue said. “Everybody has plans on the weekends. In just two days I want to see everybody. I really miss them.”

Hogue said she desires to have a close relationship with her parents, but struggle to connect with them because of the separation.

“I will try to text my dad sometimes but then I don’t really know what to say because I don’t really know him,” Hogue said. “At my mom’s, sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes it feels like your at somebody else’s house. It seems like she doesn’t know us because we have been gone for eight years. She doesn’t know us like she knows the rest of her kids.”

One person she has grown closer to through everything is her brother. Hogue now shares a room with her brother and spends most weekends with him, whether they are spent at her aunts or at her mothers. She said the two households are completely different environments.

“I’ve really gotten to know my brother because he is always with me. He goes everywhere I go all the time,” Hogue said. “My aunt’s is structured and disciplined and you know what you are supposed to do and you do it. When you go to my mom’s, it is very different. She has so many kids and she is just one of those moms that lets you do what you want and be yourself. I really get to see all sides of him.”

Hogue said being away from her family was just the first challenge. She said changing schools from the small town of Jessieville to Bryant was also a shock to her.

“Bryant is huge; like in my definition, this is a city, a big city. Jessieville doesn’t even have a population sign. It technically consists of the school and the restaurant across the street and then there are woods,” Hogue said. “At school, everybody knows everybody. The high schoolers know the kindergarteners and most of them are all family.”

While Hogue said she now has several friends and plenty of good acquaintances, she said she found it hard to be outgoing around so many strangers.

“I use to be really outgoing and I would talk 24/7. I loved to talk and I had tons of friends,” Hogue said. “When I moved to Bryant, it scared the heck out of me. I was like, ‘oh my god, I don’t even know everybody in my grade.’ It was a really, really big change for me. It made me shy and like I don’t want to talk to you because I don’t know you.”

Because of her shy nature, Hogue said she found it hard talking to her peers about her life. Instead, she said she channeled her energy into her favorite hobby, writing.

“I always write and I have been writing since I was little.” Hogue said. “It kind of runs in my family. My sister writes, my mom used to write a little bit, my grandma wrote. So it is a really big part of my life. I have a big drawer just filled with notebooks that I wrote in.

Hogue’s passion for writing started at a young age when she still lived in Jessieville.

“I had this notebook and I’d go around to people and ask, ‘what’s your deepest, darkest secret,’ because I wanted to write a story about it,” she said. “It is kind of embarrassing, but I use to dress up and dress up my dog and act out my stories with him.”

In 2012, Hogue joined the newspaper staff. She said it has not only been a creative outlet for her writing, but also helped her identify with other students.

“Even being in Journalism, writing columns and people actually reading them has been a really big step up for me,” she said. “I use to not let anybody read anything, but I love writing columns. When I write something and somebody reads it, I realize they relate to it and I’m like. “Yay, I’m not alone. They know how I feel.

In Hogue’s columns she talks about her insecurities and trouble finding the courage to do what she wants. Hogue says her difficulties with making decisions stems from the inability to make the “big decision.” With another court date approaching, Hogue may again be faced with the big decision.

“There is a new court date set for July and I am hoping this will be the last one. If that happens, they will probably ask me whom I want to live with,” she said. “I’m a family person so I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. I want to be close with all of them. So I can’t, I’ve tried, for this whole entire time, to think of what I’d say if I went into the court and told them who I want to live with, but I don’t want to make the decision because I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings and I don’t want to miss anyone.”

Those closest to her see her struggle, but also acknowledge the personal growth, strength and talent she has displayed through everything that has happened in the last eight years.

“When I look at Jaisa, I see how far she has come and all the struggles she has dealt with.  It hasn’t been easy for her walking a thin line so as not to hurt anyone’s feelings. She is such a smart and talented young lady with so much potential it makes me proud to know that I have affected her as much as she has me,” Brown said. “She has drive, she wants to do well. She knows she has to.”

While Hogue’s family life curtain considered nontraditional, she is not alone. She said she use to feel different, but now she strives to connect with others and let them know they are not alone either.

“I think I use to feel really different,” she said. “There are actually a lot of people now that have divorced families. And even if your situation is a little different, most of them are pretty much the same. It is all based off of the divorce. Even though it feels like you are the only one that has this situation, whether it is a divorce or depression or breakups or any of that, there are actually a lot of people that are going through the same thing you are.”