I Switched Schools for a ‘Better Future’ and It Still Bums Me Out Three Years Later
I was folding laundry last night when I found my old gray hoodie from Westside High, crumpled at the bottom of my winter drawer. It has a coffee stain on the cuff from when I spilled a latte on Lila’s notebook my sophomore year, and the school logo is cracked all down the middle. I held it for like five minutes before I put it back, and that’s when I started thinking about this again, so I figured I’d just type it out somewhere. No big agenda, just getting it out.
Everyone was so sure switching was the right call. My mom got a new job in the city, 45 minutes away from the small town we’d lived in my whole life, and the public high school here was ranked way higher than Westside. More AP classes, better college acceptance rates, nicer football stadium. All the things adults care about when you’re 16. I went along with it, because what else was I gonna do? I said I was fine with it, that I could make new friends, that it would be an adventure. I lied.
The first week was just one awkward thing after another, and I don’t think that off-balance energy ever really left. My locker is assigned right by the boys’ gym locker room, so it always reeks of sweat and stale chlorine, and the combination lock sticks so bad I was late to first period three times the first month. I didn’t know anyone’s unwritten rules here. At Westside, we cut through the teacher’s parking lot to get to the gas station for slushies after school, and no one cared. Here that’s somehow a suspendible offense? No one told me that. I almost got detention my second week before some random kid warned me mid-walk, which was nice, but still.
Lunch was the worst. At Westside, I sat at the same dented table by the broken Coke vending machine every single day with Lila, Javi, and Zoe. We’d share fries, make fun of the freshman who made out in the corner, sneak Sour Patch Kids in from the gas station. Here, everyone’s friend groups were already locked in from freshman year. All the tables have bags draped over the extra seats even when no one’s sitting there. I worked up the nerve to sit at a table with three girls from my bio class on the second day. They were all talking about a camping trip they’d gone on over the summer, and when I sat down they just went dead quiet. One checked her phone, said she had to go to the library, then the other two left too. I sat there alone with my sad soggy turkey sandwich for the rest of the period. I ate lunch in the bathroom stall for the next two weeks after that. Don’t judge, it was the only place I didn’t feel like every single person was staring at the new girl.
It’s not like it’s all bad, to be honest. The art room here has way better supplies than Westside ever did, and the cafeteria sells those chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream sandwiches that are way better than the weird generic ones we had back home. I hang out with a girl named Sam sometimes after school, we get matcha lattes at the shop down the street from my house. She’s nice. But she’s got her own group of friends she’s known since middle school, and I’m always the plus one when someone cancels. We don’t have that thing where you can sit in silence and it doesn’t feel weird, you know? I can’t text her at 2 a.m. and ramble about how stupid my mom is and she’ll just show up at my window with a bag of chips, like Lila used to.
I think the worst part was missing all the stupid small stuff that no one tells you matters. We’d planned this senior prank at Westside, back when I was still going to be there: we were gonna sneak in after school and release a dozen feeder goldfish in the teacher’s lounge, and put post-it notes with dumb memes on every locker. Lila ended up doing it without me, sent me a video, and I laughed but I cried a little after, too. My junior year homecoming here, I got invited last minute by Sam because her friend bailed, I bought an $80 dress I couldn’t afford, went, and ended up leaning against the wall by the punch bowl for an hour scrolling through Lila’s Instagram stories. She was at the Westside homecoming, surrounded by all our old friends, they were blasting that terrible 2010s Taylor Swift song we all used to scream in Lila’s mom’s minivan on the way to the beach. I left before the dance even ended, took the city bus home, ate a whole frozen pizza by myself in my room that still had half-empty moving boxes in the closet.
Adults love to tell you that change is good, that new experiences build character, that I should be grateful I got a better education here. My GPA is half a point higher than it would’ve been at Westside, I got into the state university I wanted to go to, so technically it worked out, right? But what’s the point of a better GPA if you spend three years feeling like a ghost in your own life? No one talks about how when you’re 16, your whole world isn’t the classes you take or the college you get into. It’s the people who know that you hate pickles on your burger, that you get anxious before presentations, that you sing off key in the car and don’t care who hears. I left all that behind for a higher test average, and it was stupid.
I still drive back to the old town once a month to get my favorite al pastor tacos from the food truck by the library. I always drive past Westside, and I see kids hanging out on the front steps after school, and my chest gets all tight. Lila and I still text, we still facetime once a week, but it’s not the same. You can’t make up three years of inside jokes and daily small moments over a screen. I’m going to her graduation party next month, and I’m excited, but I know I’ll be the one who doesn’t get all the references, who stands off to the side while everyone catches up.
I don’t have some big moral here. I’m not gonna say it taught me something amazing, or that everything happens for a reason. It didn’t. It was just a bad decision, made by a kid who didn’t know any better, and now I have to live with it. It wasn’t the end of the world, I guess. I’m fine. But it was still the worst decision I ever made, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop thinking that. (Word count: 1187)
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