Ring, Ring… “Hello” a warm voice announced. “Mom, its Aidan. Please come and get me.” I cried. “Honey, I am on my way! Go to the office right now!” Mom replies in a worried tone. The phone disconnected and I made my way to the Vice Principal’s office with tears in my eyes. I managed to give Judy, the schools security guard, a smile as I approached the office door. She had a worried look on her face, but didn’t say anything, and smiled at me in return. This was just like any other day for me at Riverbank High School. I would call my mother on my cell phone in the bathroom sobbing because someone had thrown a rock at my head, or I was afraid someone would beat me up and end up killing me for being myself.

During my freshmen year at High School it was hard for me to find anyone to hang out with. All of my friends from Junior High either moved on or didn’t want anything to do with me.

I had no friends, no one to eat lunch with and no one to talk to during brunch. I could feel a warm sensation travel down my spine when the lunch bell rang. My stomach would ache because I was on my own. Later that year, I made a couple of friends; they were two wonderful girls- Amelia Perkins, and Marissa Jolley. My brother knew both of them, so it was easy for me to become good friends with them. At first, I hung out with Amelia a lot more than I did with Marissa. Amelia and I would hang out during lunch and during first and second periods. We would have laughing contests during Mrs. Trout’s Agriculture Biology class, and make silly comments about people. We would do pretty much everything together, but that didn’t stop the name calling, and the threats that were made.

During the middle of that year, I started to hang out with Marissa a lot more than Amelia, because her attitude towards me suddenly changed. I suspected it was because she hung out with a new group of people. I knew the people didn’t like me because I was gay. A girl that hung out with that group, who didn’t like Amelia, told me that Amelia would say rude comments behind my back and make fun of me like the other guys. I knew that girl wasn’t lying because she started to hang out with us, because she didn’t want anything to do with Amelia’s group of friends anymore.




Later that week, I decided to confront Amelia for going behind my back and making fun of me. She would deny everything and play the victim. She would twist what I said, and act like I was attacking her for no apparent reason. This made me aggravated and disgusted because deep down inside I knew it was true. I decided that I didn’t want anything to do with her, and I stopped talking to her. I had severe depression during this time, yet students still managed to keep up with the name calling and threat making.

Before I knew it, second semester had rolled in both the name calling and threat making got even worse. Besides suffering from severe depression, my grades were slipping it was hard for me to concentrate during class because students threw papers at me, they called me “f*****” as well as other profanities. Fifth period was the worst period for me. My locker was assigned next to a guy that never really said anything to me, until one day he decided to call me a whole bunch of names, as well as push and smack me around. I wanted to fight back but I told myself not to. If I were to push him back, especially tell him to leave me alone, I knew I would have ended up in the hospital. Fifth period was the period that I hated most because all of the students that were harassing me were in this same period. I decided to fight back but not physically, even though my parents encouraged me to fight back if someone got physical with me.

I knew this wasn’t the right way to fight back, so I went to the VP’s office instead I filed a complaint. The next day the student was escorted off campus by security. I could see the hate in his eyes as he glared at me. Never again did that guy ever say a word to me nor lay a hand on me. I was proud of myself for standing my ground and doing what was right.

Second semester was coming to an end, and the harassment still continued. One day I was walking down the hall and something hit the back of my head. I looked to the ground and a sandwich was laying there; all I could hear was laughter. I just looked up and started walking towards the gym. I felt embarrassed and angry. Many times I would come home and go straight to the bathroom and fall to the ground crying. Most of the time suicidal thoughts went through my head when I had these breakdowns. I was so drained, tired, weak, and depressed from the bullying. I wanted to end everything, the pain, and the mean cold-blooded comments; I wanted to die. I managed to make it to the end of the year and I promised myself that I would never go back to living that life of hell. That’s when a friend told me about Connecting Waters Charter School and how I should go into home-schooling. A few weeks before school ended my transcripts had already been sent and I was expecting a call, in August, from Connecting Waters. The last bell of the school year rang, and I said my goodbyes to a special friend; who is now my true best friend Marissa.

Marissa was a warm hearted girl; she was always there for me through thick and thin and I knew I could count on her. We hugged for ten minutes straight, and said our final goodbyes. We promised to hang out during the summer, but I still was suffering from severe depression and I failed to keep that promise to her.

As I write this paper, I get the chills from the memories that haunt me, but at the same time these experiences have had a tremendous impact on my life. I have come to learn that I am a responsible and strong person. Responsible, for not retaliating to those cold-blooded comments and strong, for sticking in there for so long when I could barely function day by day.