Switching Schools My Junior Year Was The Worst Decision I Ever Made
I was folding laundry last night and found my old yearbook from that school, the one with three signatures in the back, none of them people I talk to now. I almost threw it out, then I just tucked it back on the shelf behind the college textbooks I never open. Figured I’ve left it there this long, might as well keep it.
It was 16, junior year, my mom got a promotion, we moved from our tiny suburb 40 minutes north to the city. My parents laid out the two options clear as day: stay at the old high school, live with my grandma during the week, commute back to our new house on weekends, or switch to the public school near our new place. I chose to switch. Stupid, right? I thought it made sense at the time. I wanted to live with my parents, not my grandma who woke me up at 6 a.m. every day to force a glass of prune juice on me and made me go to bed before 10 even on weekends. And the new school’s art program was supposed to be amazing, way better than the old one’s which had a teacher who let us watch Disney Channel most days because she was six months from retirement. I thought a better art program would be worth it. I thought making new friends would be easy. I was 16, what did I know?
Walking into that cafeteria the first day is the thing I still get those awkward, sweaty-palm dreams about sometimes. Not the falling off a cliff kind of nightmare, the kind where you’re standing in the middle of the room with your tray and all the tables are full, and every group has had the same friends since first grade. No gaps. No empty chairs pulled out for the new kid. The vending machine by the door ate my three dollar bill I’d brought for a root beer, I stood there jiggling the button for like five whole minutes, and no one stopped to help. No one even looked over. I ended up hiding in the last stall in the girls’ bathroom, ate the honey oat granola bar I’d stuffed in my bag that morning, because I didn’t want anyone to see I didn’t have anywhere to sit. First two weeks, that’s where I ate lunch. The stall with the broken lock that you had to prop shut with your foot the whole time.
You remember the whole art program thing I was excited about? The teacher was this woman who’d had her paintings shown in a local coffee shop gallery, and she thought anything that wasn’t photorealistic was garbage. I loved making collages out of old concert tickets and magazine clippings I dug out of the thrift store trash bin. I turned one in for my midterm: a girl with a mouth made of 90s lipstick ads and eyes cut out from 90s romantic comedy posters. She gave me a C- and wrote in the margin “This is a mood board, not art. Try again.” I stopped bringing my personal work in after that. Just did the boring apple and pear still lifes she wanted, got mediocre Bs, didn’t care. What was the point?
I tried to stay close to Lila, my best friend from the old school. We texted every day at first, then she started doing things that I wasn’t part of. She’d send me photos of the spirit week parade, of her going to the homecoming dance with her first boyfriend, and I’d just type “that looks so fun!” because I didn’t want to tell her I didn’t go to my own homecoming, I sat at home and rewatched The Office alone because I didn’t have anyone to go with. I lied once and said I had a big test to study for when she invited me down for a bonfire after the homecoming game, because I didn’t want to show up and be the weird ex-friend who didn’t know anyone anymore. Our texts got shorter, then after a few months, we just texted on birthdays. We still do, sometimes, but it’s not the same. We don’t have the stupid inside jokes about our old math teacher anymore. We don’t finish each other’s sentences.
There was one girl, Mia, who let me sit with her at lunch once, after she found me hiding in the library reading. Her friends were all nice enough, they didn’t say anything mean, but they kept talking about their ski trip they’d all gone on over Christmas break, and I just sat there picking at my cold fries, no idea what they were talking about. I could feel them glancing at me when I spoke, like they were wondering why I was crashing their table. I left 10 minutes early, made up some excuse about having to go to the nurse, and never came back. It wasn’t their fault. They didn’t owe me a spot in their group. They’d been friends since kindergarten. It just is what it is.
I graduated, went to college, made friends there. My life is fine now, honestly. But people always say “oh everything happens for a reason” and “this just made you stronger” and I don’t buy that. I don’t think it made me stronger. I think it gave me this little permanent knot in my chest when I walk into a room full of people who all know each other. I still stand by the food table at parties for the first 45 minutes, too scared to go sit down with a group in case I’m intruding. Last week I saw those same honey oat granola bars at the grocery store, and I just stood there in the snack aisle for a minute, my chest all tight, before I walked away.
If I could go back, I’d stay with my grandma. I’d put up with the prune juice and the early bedtimes, keep my spot at the lunch table, keep my best friend. It was my decision, and it was the wrong one. I don’t get a do-over. Some decisions are like that, I guess. They just stay bad, no matter how much time passes. You don’t always get the happy ending where it all works out. It just is what it is. (1128 words)
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