High school. The best four years of your life? How I wish that wasn't a lie. My high school years were from age fourteen to seventeen, as it was for most people. During that time of being in high school I had a stay home job that I despised. What was worse was that it was for no pay and I would have do it every day after I came home from school and even on the weekends. Doing something you absolutely hate for no pay, every single day after an already long day and even on the days you're supposed to be free, sucked. Do you wanna know the really bad part? I couldn't quit no matter how hard I tried. This job was called being depressed.
Freshman Year
The first day of my freshman year in high school, or should I say standing outside of high school was short lived. I was standing on line at almost seven in the morning with a majority of the other incoming freshman. It was a two week bridge program they said was mandatory but it wasn't.
We all had to wear a T-Shirt and basketball shorts and I was uncomfortable with it because of my chicken legs, but they weren't anything to be worried about. I didn't eat that morning, I was anxious and the hot sun was shining down on all of us, but it felt as if it was just shining on me. As if the sun said today he or she was picking one lucky person to shine down on and that so called lucky person was me. I blinked and next thing I knew I was on the floor and there's a person's hand around my neck. I feel as if I just woke up from a long sleep and I thought that I got into a fight with the mysterious guy who's hands were around my neck and he kicked my ass so hard I couldn't even remember any of it. But it turns out that all I did was pass out and hit my neck on the trash can next to me.
Everyone was surrounding me and I heard my dad's voice amongst all the students and parents chatter, "THAT'S MY SON! THAT'S MY SON!" By the way, he yelled it in a way that you knew he was worried, and not proud. He comes closer and asks what happened. They tell him. He decides that it was best if I didn't stay, so he lifted me to the car and we left. But on the way to the car, one of the parents gave me a mint because I needed sugar in my body. Or maybe that was just the nice way of telling me when I fainted, my mouth was open and everyone was able to smell how bad my breath was. Whatever it was, it was a nice gesture and I actually ended up being friends with her daughter the next year.
We went to the doctor later on and I think I want to tell you if I hit that trash can just a little bit harder I could have died. I don't remember if that's true, but I wanna seem cool, so for the comedy standpoint of this true story, I almost died! Ain't that cool? What wasn't cool was everyone knew me as the kid that passed out, or so I thought. I went back the next day and made a few friends. I still think it was because they felt sorry for me, but some of those people are still good friends with me to this day.
The two week program that I now had to do was sort of like JROTC, with flights and stuff. I was in Bravo flight, which was the worst flight of all of them because everyone misbehaved. I'm not going to sit here and act like a saint, I acted like a cunt, too. I don't regret it, it was hilarious.
A few friends and I would sit all the way in the back and just act stupid. We had these water bottles the people from the school gave us and we would fill them with water, drink a little and then hold the bottle around our crotch, squeeze and pretend we were pissing. Sometimes we would get another person's bottle along with our own and pretend we had long, skinny breasts that were spewing breast milk.
One day we did this so much we had to go to the front of the class because where we were sitting in the back was full of water from the bottles and dirt from our sneakers. A few of us would go to the bathroom at the same time and we would look over each other's urinals and compliment each other's dicks even though we didn't see. Everyone was insecure about their manhood below the belt, including me. I'm a good six inches.
Another time, I went to the bathroom with someone and while he was peeing, he flushed and pretended his penis was being sucked into the urinal and the faces he made were priceless and actually believable. I believed some wee wee ghost was just sucking random freshman's penises into the walls to never be seen again.
During the final days of the bridge program all the other flights started to lose when it came to behavior and our flight decided to do the right things and we ended up on top. But we didn't find this out until one of the flight instructors told us, and when he did, all hell broke loose. Literally.
This is exactly how it happened, a flight instructor came in and told us “Look guys, I can get in trouble for this but I'm gonna tell you. All the flights are losing points and you guys are on top and winning.” No more than half a second later everyone started yelling in excitement. This time I wasn't doing anything. I was sitting down and looking on. I looked around the room and I see kids running up and down the room, one kid was humping a desk while making facial expressions to imply that he was digging that table. Another group of kids were grabbing each other by the necks and punching each other playfully, three other kids were doing the infamous water bottle thing, and a few others were jumping on top of the desks.
You may be picturing this and think something like Oh my gosh, those guys are animals. Maybe that's true and you probably would've looked on in disgust as they did these things. I didn't. Let's be clear. THAT. Was. The. FUNNIEST. Thing. EVER. Seriously, when all this happened I couldn't stop laughing. Who wouldn't find kids jerking off their water bottles and putting their lifes at risk by jumping over tables funny. Oh, sorry. Didn't know you were the perfect human being and I especially was unaware that you were mature all your life and didn't laugh at stupid things and dicks. Let me be clear, if you don't find dick jokes funny, we can't be friends. Unless we already are friends and you don't like dick jokes. But if we are, and you don't, I will debate with you for hours no matter how pointless it is. That's probably why I find Seth Rogen so funny. Dick Jokes.
And that, my friends was just the first two weeks of high school and classes hadn't even started yet. That was the happy time of high school. When the classes did start, I came across the first homosexual that I have ever met. To be honest, I liked the guy. Not like as in, he's cool, I'd hang with him. I wanted to be with him and I thought I was homosexual. To protect his identity, let's call him Andrew.
Andrew was tall and skinny and flamboyant, I don't know any other way to describe him. I told all the girls about liking him and I shouldn't have. I also told them I was gay when I wasn't which was also dumb. The story of Andrew isn't long. It pretty much ends here, but my mistakes were telling people I liked him and that I was gay because even when I told everyone it was just a phase and that I'm straight, the word Faggot was still thrown at me a lot. Especially by people who I thought were my friends. It really brought me down, but I can admit it was my mistakes that brought that stuff on me but I'm glad it happened because it showed who was real to me. That didn't change the fact that it was the beginning of depression.
Sophomore Year
Sophomore year was pretty crazy. I started being more outspoken about things and made more friends who didn't care about the phase I had the previous year, including the girl who's mom gave me a mint when I passed out the first day. I started writing poetry again, a craft I abandoned years before. I overcame stage fright, kinda. Lastly, I witnessed something that would change me forever. But I'm not going to start with that.
I had a girlfriend that year, and I was super clingy. She wasn't allowed to have a boyfriend and she would sneak on facebook to talk to me. We weren't compatible and all we would do is make out, and I'm not complaining about that. She was beautiful and had nice lips and I was so clingy, every single corny facebook love status was about her. Every poem was about her. Every song I heard, about her. I had it bad, but I wasn't in love with this girl. I ended up trying so hard to keep her, I practically gave her away to some douche bag. Let me tell you something, kids.. If you're in a relationship that's a secret, don't be in that relationship.
The next part I'm writing, I will not be looking to revise or anything. It's hard for me to write this and it would be even harder to re read again. So please, stay with me and try your best to understand if you can't. I apologize in advance if it's written poorly.
You ever just feel the tension between your parents? They've been fighting for so long and one day it's just complete silence but you could tell something's wrong, still? This was happening between my parents. Every night I would just sit up at night and hear the yelling go on back and forth. It upset me and my sisters and it would really scare us at times.
I remember there was a friday I asked my parents to go to a friend's house to play xbox and eat KFC, I had fun. My parents picked me up. I left the house and walked into the car. Dead silence. No radio, no laughter, no argument, they didn't even ask me if I had fun. They just drove off and took us home. At the house I did what I always did, looked through my homework and decided “Fuck that shit.”
Then the night came and here I am with my ipod blasting in my ears because of the fighing. When I got tired, I decided to turn the ipod off and go to sleep. As I lay down staring at the ceiling above me at about twelve in the morning, the arguing has stopped. It stopped before I turned my ipod off. But then, it happened.
I hear “lay down” in a strong whisper, and I also hear my mom say “you're hurting me.” I get a little scared and anxious and I decide to speed walk to the living room where whatever was happening was taking place. It looked like my father was raping my mom. I walk in and turn on the lights and I begin to cry hysterically and all I can get out is “What are you doing? What's going on?”
He tells me that they're going to have a divorce and that mom found another man. My mom yells at him and says “he's just a friend from work, don't lie to my own son like that.” He then grabs her iphone and tries to unlock it, he can't get it in. Words are being thrown at each other even louder and my mom's crying and shaking and I'm crying and my dad's yelling. While my mother and I are crying I take her to my room to sleep and I lay her on my bed and cover her with the big comfortable blanket we always liked. I try to comfort her and tell her things will be okay and I'm here.
Just saying those words broke me down even more and she's still shaking. My dad walks in the room and is calling her, but this time he's not yelling. Crying still, I tell him to leave her alone and to please just go to bed because this can get worse and I didn't want it to escalate. But, it did. Things were said and my mom got up from the bed and followed my dad to the living room and they're yelling. Then she says it. “I want you out of this house.” More things were said, and what happened next was probably the scariest thing I've witnessed. My dad's in the kitchen and he grabs a knife. He kneels on the floor and starts to cry. “I lost everything,” he said. I'm crying even more, now and all I'm doing is staring at the knife in his hand. I tell my mom he's trying to cut himself, she yells “He's not going to do it!” He tries to, I see the blade touch his skin and rub his flesh. It was a big blade, I thought just touching it would make you bleed. I panic and I yell, “DAD, DON'T.” and my face feels like a rock from all of the dried up tears on my face and the new tears falling from my eyes. I'm crying so much, I can barely see.
My mom runs to me with the phone and tells me to lock myself in the room and call my grandparents who lived right next door. I still think of what would have happened that night if they didn't live right next door to us at the time. But I'm glad they did. I dial my grandma's number. She picks up after two rings, but I could tell she was sleeping. I'm crying so much that I can't get my words out. “Dad, he's, he's trying to kill himself. He's on the floor with a knife.” After every two words I take a deep breath and I could barely understand myself, but my grandma understood. She said “Oh my god” and called my grandpa's name , and they were banging on the door no more than ten seconds later.
My grandpa took my dad outside to I don't know where and my grandma and uncle took us into their house for a few days. What was even scarier, was that during the whole thing my young sisters who were twelve and six were also in the house and their door was closed so all they could do was hear. I can only imagine what they thought was happening and how this experience could carry on into other relationships they would develop with men in the future. Before we go to our grandparents house next door I walk into their room and tell them things are fine and we're all safe and not to worry. Even though I was in the middle of it all, I knew my sisters were more scared than I was.
Junior Year
Junior year was pretty crazy. I fell in love for the first time and it was.. we'll get there. It was the third day and I was already skipping class. I ditched my creative writing teacher to go to my best friend’s art class. She was an old bitch who told us what to write and there was nothing creative about it at all.
My best friend, Adrian was really the most reliable and trustworthy person I have come to know. There were a few other people we knew there. Out friend Miguel who also was an amazing person, was like a brother to us. Along with us, was some weird kid who couldn’t get girls. I couldn’t get girls either, but at least I knew all of them personally and none of them were disgusted by my presence.
His name was Gerald, his voice was raspy and he would talk very low, we would always make fun of him and tell him to go up to girls to talk to them only because it made us laugh. We asked him who he wants, and he pointed to a freshman. She was weird looking, but in a way it was cute. She was wearing pink glasses, a pink shirt and matching converse. We told Gerald to approach her, but he was being a pussy. I did it for him.
“Hey. My friend thinks you’re cute.”
“Who?” She asked and the look on her face was as if she had hope.
“That guy, in the black jacket.” I pointed to Gerald and she put her head down in disappointment. We thought that was fucking hilarious. Although, I did think she was cute, I wanted to tell her. “Hey, don’t lose hope. I think you’re beautiful,” I told her and I saw her eyes light up like a christmas tree. I asked her what her name was. She picked up the paper she was drawing on and pointed to her name. Valerie Mendez was her name. She was still smiling and I told her it was nice to meet her. At that moment, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into.
I tried to use her for sex, and ended up catching feelings for her, getting into a relationship with her and falling in love with her. Just goes to show, I am a horrible womanizer. We started dating March 6, 2012 and it was cool. She met my family, I met her mother and brother who liked me very much. What I didn't like was that she and I were complete opposites. We liked different movies, music, tv shows. I mean, you can have an opinion that isn't similar to mine, but shit, can't we sit down and enjoy a movie we'll both enjoy? Or listen to an artist's album we both like that isn't Drake? But other than all that, she made me happy.
One day she didn't text me, but I understood maybe she needed space. Next day, nothing. Next day, I wanted to see what was wrong, if there was anything wrong and she said there wasn't. She was avoiding me. I asked her one time what was wrong. I knew she had problems at home and I assumed that was the problem. I asked her, is there anyone else? She nodded yes. I felt it. The one tear that streamed down my face. My knees feeling weak. My chest feeling like someone was pushing against it, making it not impossible, but harder to breathe. She said “Don't cry. You're going to make me cry.” I hadn't realized until later that it was she who was being selfish.
We didn't break up. I thought we worked it out and one day she was supposed to come to my house, but she said her mom didn't let her and she kinda broke up with me through a text, which I didn't care about, because from my understanding we were going to get back together and she wasn't going to speak to anyone because she'd feel like she'd be cheating on me. Her friend gave me her email and password to her facebook and told me to go through the messages between them. I saw the messages. She told her friend “I broke up with him. We're going to get back together, but now I can talk and do things with her and I won't feel like I'm cheating. Smiley face.”
My fucking heart broke. What the fuck, dude. Is that shit fun? Sorry for the cussing. It wasn't cool. If you were going to do that, just be honest and tell me you were going to see other people. I still didn't learn my lesson. We got back together a good three times and all she did was the same thing, then I see her post on on instagram and facebook how relationships are shit, boys are dogs and the reason she's single is because people would rather cheat than work things out. I was involved with her my entire junior year and it was some of the worst hurt I had ever been through. I spent days crying over bad acoustic songs, and beautiful Christina Perri songs.
I always call myself a bitch because of that, but I think any sane person who has feelings and emotions would react the same way if that were happening to them. Especially when the person they first fell in love with completely lied to them, took their heart and just broke it in front of them and told them to fuck off and pick the pieces up themselves. That's how it felt. Fuck you, Valerie. But through it all, I still love you. And I hate myself for it sometimes.