Jaleah didn't have much growing up. For as long as she's known, her family lived paycheck to paycheck, making ends meet with what they had. But, Jaleah always wanted to get out of that life. She always knew that one day, she would make it out.
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philadelphia, pa. june 12th, 2:47pm. jaleah's perspective.
I sigh as I take the last picture down from my locker, and slam my locker door shut. Today is my last day I'll ever be inside of this high school, where I've spent my last 4 years of my life. This is where I've grown and gotten to know myself more as a person, and learned so many things both about books and about life. I honestly cannot believe I'm about to graduate tomorrow morning. It's all so surreal. Most people hate high school, but honestly, high school has been the best 4 years of my life.
I make my way over to Tory's locker and stand beside her, and lean up against the wall since she has an end locker. "How you feeling?" I ask her, watching the other seniors scramble to gather their belongings.
"Girl, tired as hell! I do not know how I had so much shit stuffed in my locker!" She responds, dramatically letting out a huge breath.
"Tory! Language!" Our vice principal yells as he walks down the hallway past us. We both look at each other and laugh.
Tory is my god sister and best friend. We've known each other since the womb because our moms were best friends who just so happened to get pregnant at the same time. Since diapers, we were inseparable, and although Tory may be the total opposite of me, I love her like she's my actual sister, so we bounce back from anything. Literally.
"Anyways...you going to that party tonight?" Tory asks me.
"What party?" I ask her as we begin to walk down the hallway with our trash bags full of things from our lockers.
"Some party out west philly. It's supposed to be like for seniors and for college students."
"Girl, you know my parents are not gonna let me go to no party." I remind her. My parents are super strict. I grew up in a very religious, God-fearing household. I have to pray every morning and night, say grace before every meal or snack, and my parents have very strict rules that I have to follow. They check my phone, my laptop, everything. They make sure I'm not up to no good. I've never even had a boyfriend because of my parents' rules.
"Just sneak out like I do!" Tory encourages. "Slip your parents some benadryl or some sleeping meds, they'll be knocked out for like 8 hours. Just make sure you come back home before they wake up."
"You're crazy." I chuckle at her, "I'm not drugging my parents. It's not that serious, I'm sure I'll do plenty of partying in college."
Tory and I both plan to go to Temple University, but live on campus. Partly because I don't want to be too far from home but I also want to have freedom, and partly because Temple has great programs for our majors. I want to become a nurse one day and Tory wants to go into the business program, and hopefully become a CEO of a Fortune500 company someday.
"You? Partying? Innocent ole Jaleah is not going to party in college. You'll be too afraid that your parents will find out someway, somehow." She teases.
