I Might Set Fire to This Later

⭐️ 8th grade

This was q u i t e the year.

* * *

If I showed you I had a heart you'd eat it, and if you had a soul I'd steal it.

Eighth grade was quite something.
In a weird twisted way I am kind of grateful that I had to go through everything I did in the 8th grade though.

* * *

I don't know how we became friends.
It just happened without warning and I can't quite conjure up a memory of how it played out.

You were a trouble maker from the start. Always messing with people.
Because we were friends, I always got sucked into your mess.

Looking back on those days I think you had quite the superficial charm.
Even though what you made me do made me nervous I couldn't help but do the things you wanted to because you made them seem fun.

They were fun.

You were a bad person and you made me one too.
I can't say it was all your fault though because I wanted to do these things almost as much as you if not more so.

We would cut class together and make up excuses like "Oh, [******] lost her phone and we were looking for it." "We won't be late to class again Mr. [Insert name here]"

I'm surprised our teachers believed us for as long as they did.

We also fucked with people on the daily.
Made them loose their damn minds over what we said to them.

It went on like this for a while and eventually my friends talked to me and I finally understood that you were a toxic person and I was leaching off of that bad energy.

They decided to help me talk to you and tell you I wasn't going to associate myself with you anymore.

You remember, we did it at lunch. 5th period.

I didn't do much talking which was okay.
K stood up for me.

We stopped talking for about a week.

A fucking week.

I got sucked back into our friendship and after that it was the same shit over again.

Then if you can believe it, we stopped talking again for a short amount of time and then you worked your way into my life once again.

We shared the same Vocal music class.

All we did in that class was watch movies honestly and I was okay with that.
One day you came up with the idea of writing fake love notes to our choir teacher from one of the students in the class. That student being one of my old friends who I invited to my sleepover for my birthday party in the 5th grade.

And so the notes began.

This was such a bad idea and I told you.

You didn't listen.

I became afraid of you.

The one thing I did not let you make me do was write one of those gross notes to our teacher. I just couldn't. I had a strong feeling that what you were writing could literally get our poor teacher a restraining order against her and I did not want to be mixed up in that.

You would read me what you wrote and I could hear the pride in your voice as you explained every gruesome detail in the note.

I would like to say that I found it completely unattractive but no matter how much I tried to change it, I was attracted to the idea of the notes.

I found it funny.

This had now gone on for about a month and a half.
The notes kept making their way onto our teachers desk at the end of class. "Signed" from the poor girl we were bullying.

Our teacher started catching on to what really happened.

Eventually I became flimsy and let you give me one of your finished notes. The catch was that you handed it to me as our teacher was walking over to where we were sitting.
I could see that glint in your eye that told me you knew he saw me hide the note under my binder.
Our teacher came over and asked
me to lift up my binder. Underneath of course was the note. He took it and led me to the small piano practice room in the classroom and told me to sit down.
To say I was panicking was an understatement.

I thought I was going to die.

No one deserves to feel that much fear.

The thing was, as our teacher lead me to the piano room I mouthed "h e l p  m e" desperately.
You laughed in my face.

I was on the brink of tears for the rest of the day.

I texted my dad and told him what happened just in case the principal decided to rat me out to him.
I texted him so he wouldn't be surprised.

Long story short, my parents were mad but not at me.
They were mad at the school. I got one day of suspension and in school detention for another day.

In in school detention we sat in a circle and the teacher instructed for us to go around in a circle and say exactly why we were there.
One Kid said they were fighting. Another said they purposefully punched the glass window in on the second floor math class door.
Room 343.

The door was made of cheap wood anyway.

Once it was my turn to talk I had nothing to say.
What was I supposed to say?

* * *
This experience has changed me for the better but has also left some lingering bad traits that I'm afraid will come back out.

After this school year during the summer I had my first panic attack.

Then my second.

After this year is when my anxiety started becoming more prominent and I developed my agoraphobia then.

I'm sorry this left off on such a sour note. Here's some hearts
❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🤍🖤
~Cherry 🍒