May Amy #15: High School

Dear Amy at 14,

What I remember most about our first few months of high school is that we were exceptionally out-of-place and out numbered by those who weren’t. When you  first walk into our high school there are a few directions that you can go, but if you opt to go straight there is a hallway that leads to the gym. On either side of the hallway are three benches and quite often these are filled with grade 12s who sit and stare and judge you until you feel like running off and crying. Its horrible. The first time we walk down that hallway we overhear something and we try to avoid that area of the school for the rest of our time there. Luckily there are other ways to get to the gym.

We will go to the office with Karen and try to get lockers together, and by some sort of fluke it happens. I think we offered to pick up trash or something of the sort in an attempt to earn the lockers – I still don’t know if that ever happened. One day Karen will come to school and try to throw her hoodie over her head. This launches an undergarment that had been lodged in her hoodie to jut out across the hallway. There aren’t too many people around, but it makes for a pretty funny scene for us at least.

It will be an odd year for us “boy” wise as well. As a group we start to hang out at the teen center across the street more and more, which introduces us to a lot of new people and some pretty good-looking guys. Eventually we catch some eyes and end up with a boyfriend, but he breaks up with us via email at the end of the summer by using “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” lyrics to explain why he needs to be single for his first year of high school. He was a year younger than us and wanted to enter the older school as a potential “player” or something like that. Don’t worry about it too much, break ups are dumb and there are other relationships too.

Karen and Mike start hanging out more so than they did at middle school, which means we start hanging out with them and whoever is around too. Her family is smart and wants to make sure she is safe, so she is allowed to hang out provided someone else is around too. Mike normally has his a friend that tags along too; Calvin was around for a bit at first, but Tyler was always around the most. I always assumed it was because his family was the same, but I don’t think he ever mentioned that. Works out for us because then we are less of a third wheel, and Afroman (as the joke was) was pretty decent company and is still a pretty good friend.

– A