The 5 Lies They Tell You About High School

Family Portrait

#4: In high school, everyone is just one big happy family.

When you hear the word “family”, you think of your brothers and your sisters and your parents, step or not step. You think about the sacrifices that are made and the support. You think of the love you feel. You think of those silly fights that are easily solved and forgiven. If you ask somebody what their high school is like and they respond with “we’re just one big happy family”, they’re ashamed to admit that they didn’t have a group of friends to back them up when things got tough or their group of friends ditched them.

On the first day of freshman year, I found Alexia Francine Rodriguez opening up her gym locker. I had felt strange because she vacationed in Mexico the whole summer, so we had a couple phone call conversations that were filled with small chit chat and that was it. Our freshman year didn’t go the way we had planned it the summer beforehand. We were going to be best friends forever, we pinky swore.

I met Alexia in sixth grade. She was in every single one of my classes, and we used to prank call cute boys at three in the morning. She had a best friend when I met her, so I always came second...or third...or even last. But before seventh grade rolled in, her best friend moved to Iowa. She was crying at lunch in the restroom. I comforted her and told her I would be her best friend and we would do anything that her and her old best friend could never do. She had laughed, and that toothy smile came out. That day on, we talked and talked and talked. Instantly, everyone caught on to our chemistry and described our friendship to be sister-like.

When Alexia and I would walk to the store in seventh grade, whoever was working the cashier shift, would ask us if we were sisters. We would say yes, and chuckle all the way home. Even though we hadn’t known each other long, or had really anything in common, we felt like sisters.

The summer before freshman year, Alexia told me at one of our sleepovers that she was worried high school would break apart our friendship. I told her that we should pinky swear to stick together no matter what. She knew that I had never broken a pinky swear before, so she intertwined her pinky with mine.

During our freshman year, we had no classes together, and I hardly saw her between classes. It bummed me out, but we would work on homework or projects together on the weekends since we both did sports after school. I noticed Alexia had four out of seven classes with Emily Kate Peterson. They spent a lot of time together because Emily joined the volleyball team with Alexia. I got jealous, of course, but Alexia introduced Emily to me as a nice girl, so I tried not to hate her.

It was hard to get asked by my classmates if my “sister” and I were still best friends. I didn’t feel like we were and I didn’t know how to ask Alexia if we were without feeling like some stupid little kid.

“Hey girl,” my voice cracked when I approached Alexia.

“Oh hi.” She didn’t even look at me.

“Wanna have lunch today?” I tried.

“Can’t.” Alexia gave her volleyball bag one last push to make it fit in the locker. “Emily’s mom is driving us to ‘All About Japan’ for lunch.”

“Oh.”

All About Japan was a small Japanese restaurant Alexia was in love with because she was half Japanese, and apparently they had the best Japanese food tied with her mother’s. I didn’t like Japanese food, so we never went. I regretted ever making that vocal because Alexia had found somebody else to go to All About Japan and enjoy it with her.

Alexia slammed her locker door shut before she said, “I’ll catch you later” and walked away. I didn’t understand why our friendship was dying. We had fourth period together, but she didn’t sit by me in that class. She sat by Emily. I sat in the back and watched the two annoy the teacher with their constant whispering and random bursts of laughter.

Just like how we used to do.

I had other friends. I had a whole group, but I wasn’t close to them. Not how I was close to Alexia. I tried getting more acquainted with them, but the more I tried, the more I realized how much high school changed them.

Tamera Renee Jones was my second go-to person in our group of friends. We weren’t as close as Alexia and I were, and I knew we would never get that close, but I had known her since the fourth grade when she moved next door to me.

Towards the end of freshman year, she got a junior boyfriend. It started off innocent, just us laughing about how cute he was and how they would get married. He ended up getting her in his bed after three months, and ran as soon as “I’m pregnant” left her mouth. I couldn’t believe how horrible that was on her boyfriend’s part. The other four girls in our old group of friends didn’t care what he did, but they cared about the fact she was a pregnant sophomore.

I was the only one to show up after school to accompany Tamera when she took the test. She was practically blue when she stepped out of the stall and handed me the white stick. I didn’t look at it.

I already knew.

I took the white stick from her hand. I was the only one who held her while she cried on the bathroom floor. I stroked her hair, and I whispered to her that it would be alright. It took me back to the sixth grade when I held Alexia and did the same. A tear had slipped down my cheek and landed in Tamera’s coarse, black hair.

Tamera had friends who were supposed to support her, to love her. Not only when she did well, but when she did badly. It’s not fair to expect so much, and get let down like this. I was there for Tamera when she needed it, yes, but who had been there when I needed it? Was I truly alone in this? Everything had changed. Your friends, the people you considered a second family, don’t turn out to be in your family portrait in the end.