The 5 Lies They Tell You About High School

Connecting the Dots

“Does everyone really have to participate in this?” Courtney whispered to her pretty friend as they sat on the bleachers next to me. My body winced awkwardly from the chill Courtney and her friend gave me.

Surprisingly, I felt the same as everyone else being sucked into the gym for an announcement. There were tests I had to make up, and teachers I needed to grab extra credit work from. If it wasn’t going to kill anyone, then I didn’t feel it crucial to have me sitting in the bleachers inside the gym waiting for whatever was planned to come.

A man wearing faded blue jeans, a flannel, and forest green converse walked to the center of the basketball court. He scanned the crowd, taking in every pair of eyes that stared at him impatiently. “Wow, big crowd.” He said into the microphone he held. “Usually, I’m speaking to a first grade class of twenty, but nice to see this turn out. It’s almost as if you were all forced to come.”

The crowd chuckled collectively. I even broke into a smile. The man cracked wise jokes throughout his pre-planned speech. He introduced himself as Henry, said he travels from school to school to talk about anti-bullying. As soon as the words, “I’m against bullying” came out of his mouth, I checked out. He was just another one of those speakers who tried, but would fail to get the point across that a person’s actions could travel a lot further than one thinks.

No one is for bullying. No one even considers their actions as bullying because as teenagers, we don’t care. Or at least, we seem as we don’t care because we act the way we have grown to act. It’s our nature.

Courtney leaned over her pretty friend, asking me, “Isn’t this dumb?”

Before I could respond, Henry spotted us, and demanded that the three of us join him on the basketball court. I didn’t even talk, and I felt like I was in trouble for it. Reluctantly, we walked to the center of the court while he selected twelve other random people from the bleachers. Soon, we became a cluster of teenagers surrounding Henry.

“Now, here’s an experiment. These 15 students are going to line up and when I list a scenario, whoever has experienced this, must cross the black line into the circle.” Henry explained.

In unison, the fifteen of us took a step back and stared at the black line. My eyes darted around the room, and then finally from around the circle of students chosen. Two were cheerleaders, including Courtney, one was Jacob James Williams, two were football players, and another was a girl I’ve never met before. In fact, the only people I knew names to were Courtney and Jacob. The rest were strangers, and people I heard things about but never cared to talk to.

“Step into the circle if you are blonde,” instructed Henry. Courtney’s pretty friend proudly hopped into the circle. Henry flicked his hand at her, and she stepped back out. “Now, step inside the circle if your favorite color is blue.” Jacob and I, in sync, stepped inside the circle. When we stepped out, Henry said, “Step into the circle if you play an instrument.” A girl wearing glasses with thick lenses shyly stepped into the circle along with a boy with long, straight black hair that hung over his face.

“Okay,” Henry cleared his throat as the two musicians took a step back outside the circle. “Step into the circle if your parents are divorced, or were never married in the first place.” Suddenly, the silence in the gym turned into an unsettling silence. Courtney, her pretty friend, a football player, Jacob, and the girl with glasses took a soft step into the circle and quickly stepped out.

“Step into the circle if you feel alone.”

I closed my eyes and stepped into the circle. When I opened them, I saw that the rest of the group had also stepped inside the circle. It made me grin.

“Step into the circle if you feel like nobody likes or cares for you.”

Everyone stepped back into the circle.

“Step into the circle if you cried in the last forty-eight hours.”

Once again, everyone stepped into the circle.

Then, I started to cry. Things were kind of making sense to me. Life is hard. But life is hard for everyone. Sometimes people go through the same thing as you, or can relate to the way you feel. Other times, they’re so into their own life that they do or say things that affect others without realizing it.

That day I learned that Courtney was popular because she was rich. However, she was rich because her mother married a wealthy man until she found someone richer. Then she would divorce him, take all his money, and marry another. I also learned that Jacob’s dad physically abused his mom, sexually abused his sister, left, and then his mom gave him and his sister up for adoption.

We all understand that everyone has their own story; everyone has a reason to why they are the way they are. But does that excuse them from their behavior? Does Jacob’s family life excuse him from being a bully? Does Courtney’s rich life excuse her from being rude? Why should everyone around Jacob and Courtney be punished for what’s out of anyone’s control?

Paul didn’t deserve to be treated the way he was. What if there was something in his home life he had trouble dealing with and he came to school and had even more problems? So everyone claims not to have it easy, and everyone wants sympathy for it, but there has to be a fine line between attention and sucking it up.

I hugged Courtney as she wept into my shoulder. The whole gym of fifteen hundred students were hysterical. I couldn’t tell if they were crying because they suddenly remember the hardship in their lives, or if they feel bad realizing everyone else has a hard time, too. Whatever it was, I wished Paul were here. I wanted him to see he wasn’t alone in whatever he was going through. I wanted him to see that Jacob was having problems, too.

Something so real, so precious, didn’t stick to anyone like it should have. Everyone returned to their old ways the very next day. Jacob was still mean, swooning girls. Courtney was still beautiful and rude. I thought since I held Courtney’s small frame in my arms, she would look at me with more respect. But she still gave me that subtle grin she gave to people that had not yet deserved her ice cold glare. All the people I hugged, all the people I told that things would get better, acted as if I didn’t exist afterwards.

While I sat at lunch the next day, watching cliques collect their straggling members, watching couples kiss between sentences, an interesting thought popped into my mind. So maybe you can’t change the high school’s social system. Maybe it’s not meant to change. It sounds strange, but high school is that baby step into the real world. If you can’t handle high school, then you can’t handle life.

Everyone felt vulnerable the day they admitted to things that they tried to forget about. Nobody opened up wanting to carry on with being sad, so maybe they were expecting others to cut them slack knowing where they’ve come from. That made sense to me. Why always be sad about the things going on in your life with your friends when they’re just as sad as you? It’s better to enjoy the time you have with people you like before you have to return to the world you don’t want to be in anymore.