From the time I was in 6th grade, to the time I graduated I was in love with my best friend. He knew it, I wasn’t subtle and I followed him around like a puppy because he was affectionate to me when he wasn’t being an ass.
As things were, I was the ‘other girl’ in nearly every romatic relationship he’d ever have. We didn’t call it dating, but years down the line after college, he would admit to me that we were essentially in a relationship all that time. I wasn’t a decent person for a lot of this time and I was hurting a lot, it doesn’t excuse anything, but it was what it was.
Cue 1999, sophomore year he winds up with a new girlfriend, we’re friends at first but things turn ugly when she realizes I’m not going anywhere. She starts emailing me and messaging me on AOL (yes, I’m fucking old). She says awful things to get a response out of me, we fight, over the course of probably a week.
What I didn’t know is she copied our conversations to word documents and edited out her provocations, then brought it into the school and gave it to the principal. She was a senior and a good student, I was a troublemaker (Skipping class, not doing work, the occasional fist fight) who’d already been suspended numerous times in the last year and a half of my scholarly pursuits.
They called a meeting, parents were brought in, all the principals, she cried and played her part perfectly. My best friend was brought in, and didn’t say anything to defend either of us. I defended myself best I could, and explained I could cry for them but I didn’t think it would change their decision.
They gave us four options – firstly I could be expelled and my permanent record would be wrecked.
I could go to a local school for troubled teens which cost $20k and one of my friends wound up having to sue one of her teachers there.
I could go to Catholic school which is also costly and holy shit did I not want to go to Catholic School.
Lastly, I could attend the alternative school built into our high school. When I say built into our high school that is a generous term for being two classrooms on the east wing of the school on the second floor which was as far away from everyone and everything else at the school as possible.
Given the array of options, we wound up doing alternative school. It was only supposed to be until the end of sophomore year but it went into my first semester of junior year as well. I performed fine academically, I got along with most of the other students there even though the reasons for the other people being there and the reasons for my being there differed vastly.
There were students in there with me who had brought guns to school who had brought drugs on campus who were engaging in extreme violence or worse. It was quite an experience. I must say though that my teachers in alternative school were the best teachers I experienced during my high school career.
Mrs. Paul was a firecracker of a woman and very creative and smart and she had my number from the first day. Coach Gro was also the coach for the football team and I think other teams. I think he was also in charge of the weightlifting club which I went to for a little while. He had a very Gruff exterior but he was a teddy bear if you knew how to act. I’m so thankful for him and Mrs. Paul.
Neither coach nor Mrs. Paul took any shit and they didn’t let me get away with shit, but they were compassionate and they genuinely cared about whether or not I graduated and whether or not I stayed alive. Occasionally I would be allowed to get away with things that I should not have been able to, Mrs. Paul had my back; she knew I was a good kid at heart.
The following school year began and I thought I would be starting regular school again, but we were told that that would not be the case and I would be spending at least another semester in alternative school even though the girl who caused all this had graduated.
I have forgiven myself for the person that I was then because I was struggling emotionally, physically (undiagnosed degenerative bone issue), and everything else. I had spent a portion of the summer before junior year in a program at Horsham Clinic which is a mental hospital where I had to do in and outpatient treatment. (which was an awful experience of it’s own for another time.)
Side note – Ironically this is something my father would later mock me for in front of his adult friends while I was a teenager. I know this not only because the experience is seared into my psyche but also because I had a blog back then too. In 2001, I was 16. Even though I was back in regular school and even though I was attempting to get my shit together, one night my father called me into his den.
There were at least three if not more of his friends in there with him, these were all adults over the age of 30. Father dearest preceded to mock me by asking me in front of all of his friends “What was the name of the “nuthatchery” they put you in?” I responded that it was Horsham Clinic, and I was there because you know, they diagnosed me with clinical depression. His response was to call me a ‘clinical asshole’ and laugh with his adult friends at his mentally ill daughter. You know, for funsies.
Once I’d made it through my first semester they let me back in with the regular folk. I eased my way back in and it was a readjustment. I did manage to come out softer than when I went in so it may have needed to happen, I don’t know how safe I would have been with myself. I’ll never forgive the girl who landed me there, but I appreciate the lessons I learned there.
EllyRox 