High Society

HIGH SOCIETY a trivial periodical for the serious sort

TROUBLE VOLUME 3, ISSUE 9

EDITOR’S NOTE We have all been in trouble. In this edition of High Society, our students have opened up about some of the hardest, scariest, and confusing times in their life. Both fictional and personal, these pieces are like a mirror, showing the reflection of all of us, and humankind. Hopefully, you can take away something from these reflections, and uncover something about yourself you had never seen before.

HS // NOVEMBER 2013

HIGHVolume SOCIETY 3, Issue 9 Interested in being published in High Society? Please e-mail all questions and comments to Juliette Kenn de Balinthazy at jkenndebalinthazy15@choate.edu, and all submissions to choatehighsociety@gmail.com.

All submissions are reviewed anonymously.

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Juliette Kenn de Balinthazy, Editor in Chief jkenndebalinthazy15@choate.edu

2013-2014

EDITORIAL BOARD Taha Anwar ‘14, Managing Editor Andrea Wang ‘15, Artistic Director Faculty Advisor: Elizabeth Walbridge

CONTENTS 2 Editor’s Note 14 High Society: What is Love?

What Comes With Probation Anonymous Untitled Anonymous The Good Old Days Anonymous Police Anonymous 1,094 Rules Esul Burton ‘16 Ignorance Anonymous The Cheerleader Hannah Lemmons ‘16 If Only Alex Ejimofor ‘16 Trouble Catherine Ward ‘15

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4 5 6 8 10 11 12 13 13

3

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WHAT COMES WITH PROBATION

4

I HAD NEVER THOUGHT OF KILLING MYSELF UNTIL I FOUND OUT THAT I WAS ON PROBATION. I have always been a pretty chill person (I realize the first sentence says otherwise), never one of those dramatic teens who worry and overreact to everything, never once even thought of hurting myself. But sitting on the floor of the bathroom crying myself practically blind, I found the bathtub filling up in front of me awfully inviting. It was an escape from having to face the disappointed and stunned looks on my parents’ and teachers’ faces, an end to the embarrassment of having to answer demoralizing questions from Mr. Stanley, my teachers, and my classmates.

Most of all, it was a quick and easy way to say goodbye to the future that was now seemingly lost forever; a way to not have to read the hordes of rejection letters that were inevitably already on their way. Goodbye Harvard. Goodbye, Yale.

At least this way, they wouldn’t even get the chance to reject me. At least this way, the choice would be mine.

Everything around me was coming crashing down. I wasn’t a bad kid. Hell, I had never even had a Sunday D. Until that very moment, I hadn’t even really been worried about college at all. Now I had to be. I had to be scared.

It’s incredible how much our actions define who we are. I didn’t realize it until that moment, when it was too late. One mistake can ruin your reputation with everyone; parents, teachers, and peers.

That’s all it takes for people to look at you differently. We are nothing but what others view us to be. You can be the nicest, most hardworking, most inspirational person there could be, but if everyone around you thinks you’re a dick, then you

“

are a dick. It is the sad and unfortunate truth about life. It is what I was thinking about that night in the bathroom. I didn’t want to die because I wanted attention.

I wanted to die, because I was scared of waking up every morning to look at myself in the mirror and feel disappointed.

I wasn’t so much scared about the Probation as I was about what came along with it socially and how everyone would see me after the fact. That is the real punishment; losing respect from others, people whom you really care about, and yourself. I didn’t want to go on in a life and in a school where I had to prove myself to literally every single person, and still have people that would doubt me, no matter how hard I worked to change their perception of who I was. I never realized beforehand how freaking lucky I was to have that guaranteed respect from those around me at Choate. I didn’t realize how valuable and fragile that it really was until I broke it. Always value it and hold onto it. I hope you never have to realize how hard it is to regain it after it is gone.

Before Probation, I would always hear about kids who got in trouble and shake my head in disgust. Sometimes, I would naively stay away from them as if they had some sort of disease that I would catch.

Most of all, after I found out, I genuinely believed that I was better than them. The sickening and disappointing truth was that I knew that there would be kids who would immediately do the same for me if they found out. And a tiny part of me was afraid that they might be right. What if I was now worse than every one else?

What then? Am I now a lesser person and individual? Throughout most of my Junior year I had to battle this idea and convince

However, don’t mistake my eventual success with courage; it was fear of failure that drove me on, and a fear of failure that still drives me.

myself that I wasn’t, only because I was afraid to come to the realization that I was.

I know that there are kids here who honestly don’t care how they are viewed or whether or not the community respects them. I know that they tell people that they got into trouble as to increase their social standing and seem more badass.

They welcome the perception that they receive with open arms at times. But that is not me. My problem is that I care too much about how people see me. I feel like I need people to respect me or else I have nothing. I can’t not care. I can’t be like some of the other people who get in trouble at Choate. I don’t agree with what they do, but then again, who am I to judge them. Instead of telling everyone what I did, I did the opposite. I put on a mask and pretended like nothing happened at all. I have told no one about my mistake who didn’t absolutely have to know, certainly no student here. While some of you may view me as fake, know that it is what I have to do to keep myself sane. If I have the choice of whether or not to have everyone know my mistakes, I will always choose not to. I’m sure that many of you would feel the same way.

The reason that I didn’t drown myself that night in the bathroom was for one reason only: I didn’t want to be remembered by my one mistake. If I killed myself right after I had gotten on Probation, that’s all people would talk about and take away from my life. He was the kid who messed up and couldn’t handle it. I needed people to remember me for something other than as a coward. I used that burning desire to paint over my wrong to get my act together. There wasn’t an alternative. In my mind, I could either rise up and regain the respect that I had lost, or I could slip further down in which case, death would be far less embarrassing.

Picking myself up from that bathroom and walking out was the hardest thing that I have ever had to do. But after that, I felt like I could take anything on and could rise higher than I ever had before, so I did. However, don’t mistake my eventual success with courage. It was fear of failure that drove me on and a fear of failure that still drives me.

untitled This poem serves as my reflection on my mistake.

It was the mistake that changed everything for me.

Hues of blue and shades of peace White ceiling and red graphs Reminiscence of yesterday, requiem for today.

Where the wind blows- no one knows, Where am I- at the start, says my heart.

Drips of sweet, and lots of sweat, have brought me back.

A broken heart and deranged path led me there.

Seconds of ecstasy became hours of pain.

All my senses numbed, all my shame drowned.

Explanations and excuses are at the tip of my tongue Grief and mourn blanket my heart Shock and shock- prevail Echoes of disbelief reverberate with denial.

The clock is ticking and the breeze is chilling, The beeping seems constant, the eyes seem so threatening A 16-year-old boy who went astray, Well I’ve woken up now and no, never gonna sleep again.

HS // NOVEMBER 2013

After getting on Probation, I took risks that I never I would have, risks that eventually paid off and now define me as a person in a positive manner. I took advantage of every opportunity available to me and rose to leadership in whatever activity I took part in. I now have a sense of urgency and a demand for success in every aspect of my life. I didn’t have this “fire in the belly” before Probation, but I know now that it is going to stay with me forever. I needed Probation to get me to this point, and now that I am here, I’m only looking forward.

People here look at me now as if I am hot shit because of some of my material accomplishments. In my mind, I am still nothing. If I allow myself the satisfaction of stopping for even a minute to appreciate anything that I’ve done, I will stop striving to do better and will get the feeling that I have done enough. The second I get that feeling, I know I will spiral right back out of control. That’s why I can never take my foot off the gas pedal. In my heart, I know that nothing I can do will ever cover up my mistake and that nothing I do will ever make it go away, despite how much I want it to. That isn’t going to stop me from trying or using it as motivation though.

Getting on Probation taught me a lot of things that I wouldn’t have been able to learn any other way. First, no one here is “better” than another person despite what many people think. If you think of yourself as better than someone else here, stop. You’re not. Second, Mr. Stanley and the administration genuinely care about us, despite the bad rep that they get. All they want is for us to succeed here and become great people. They’re just the ones who have the unfortunate task of looking out for the reputation of our school. And finally, Choate is an incredible place to live and learn. I was always one of those kids who complained, like all the time. about this place. It wasn’t until I genuinely believed that I’d lost it forever that I truly realized how much I cared and loved the school and everything that came with it.

I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else and I can now see that I never want to have to lose it. I hope it doesn’t take Probation to get you to realize that.

5

we would work on our algebra homework together beside the plastic slide, as that was the only class the four of us shared, or played football like the good old days. One day, things were different. As our exposure to more adult themes surfaced, our proclivity to experiment did as well. It was a brisk day in late October, around my birthday to be exact, and my best friend out of the three brought a green glass bottle filled with hops and bubbles. After a particularly poor science test to end the day, I thought I could indulge in a little luxury, and so we passed the bottle between the four of us. I sat on a swing and giggled, feeling so adult and manly, despite the nonexistent alcohol content. What a little fucker I was.

The playground was in the middle of the neighborhood, so nobody assumed any shenanigans were taking place there. Of course, my friends and I were extra careful anyways, just in case some snooping old witch or a self-proclaimed neighborhood watch was within the area. No kids came to play anymore, which was perfectly fine with

HS // NOVEMBER 2013

Wahen I was young, my father would always take me to a playground down the street from my home. My three friends were always there, playing tag and jumping across the monkey bars. Sometimes, we would play touch football beside the swings and our parents would get mad if we tackled someone too hard. Usually if that occurred, the child in question who was thrust upon the ground would squirm and cry for a bit, and a chill of fear would wash over whoever inflicted the hit. It was okay though; he would usually get up, smile, and the fear of punishment would wash away like sand along a beach.

Eventually we would grow too tired, the sun would fall over the horizon, or a few parents would have errands to run, and our band of musketeers would be disbanded for the evening. However, we all looked forward to returning the next day for more antics and excitement among the cold metal bars and plastic, static-shock inducing slides.

Later, as my adolescence was in the upswing, our tradition of playtime became a daily routine of socialization. Sometimes

Sally Mann, Candy Cigarette, 1989

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TH

GOOD

DA us. The slide made the perfect hiding spot to pass cigarettes around, and I even tried my first joint underneath the shade of a brilliant oak tree behind the swing set. One day, however, I was not greeted by the sarcastic smirks of my friends but the tired faces of my parents, both of whom looked as if the sky was falling in upon their little heads. In fact, the clouds were quite dark and heavy, gearing to rain. At first, my parents asked politely for me to come home, as there were chores to be done. When I didn’t comply, the pair asked more sternly, and then burst into tears when I denied their request again. I’ll be honest, their sadness touched me inside, but I wasn’t going to deal with their guilt bullshit.

As their tears hit the wet mulch beneath their feet, I walked past them and ran to my best friend’s house. His parents weren’t home; apparently they were on vacation in Transnistria or something.

He let me stay the night, and we listened to his small collection of vinyl records.

When I got up to flip to side two of Wish You Were Here, I noticed that it had rained after all.

The next day, the clouds had all but cleared up, but a new feature tainted our playground sanctuary. A layer of brick had been erected around the mulch, possibly to prevent the small shards of wood to drift away from the central play area. Initially, I didn’t think

HE

D OLD

AYS

“Do you see him anywhere?” my father asked. His voice was a bit muffled, but was strong enough to reverberate over the wall.

I began to bang against the wall, yelling and screaming. My friends did the same beside me. Surely they heard us, but after a few seconds, my mother replied, “Doesn’t look like it.” Then, their footsteps slowly drifted away, and they were lost to us once more. I turned around and slunk down against the bricks as a long sigh escaped my lips.

Sometimes I miss being outside the wall and the people I got to interact with, but then I recall that everyone was an asshole. My friends are the ones who really matter to me, and that’s how it’ll continue. Yet, as I put my ear against the bricks occasionally, I can still hear that kid who helped me up after I tripped over the beginnings of the wall. Sometimes I imagine him growing up to be nothing like me, but still happy and loved. I know I’m more content with myself inside the prison I have built around me, but sometimes I even want to go back to my childhood, back to the good old days, back to where there wasn’t any wall at all.

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too much of it. That was essentially the first improvement the town had made since we started playing there over ten years prior, and I was glad the mayor was finally addressing internal improvements to the city’s public parks.

Still, nobody would come to play, so my friends and I enjoyed perfect isolation.

The next day, the layer of brick had grown another layer and another the day after. The bricks first became a nuisance about a week later, after I had tripped and fallen onto the ground in a spectacular heap. My baggie of cocaine fell out of my backpack. Looking up, I noticed that for the first time in forever, a group of young kids were playing on our playground. They were playing football behind the swings. When I fell, one of them ran over to me and helped me up.

“Wow mister, are you okay?” he asked, holding my baggie to my face.

Quickly, I snatched it from his tiny grasp and nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine.” I didn’t see any parents around, which I found kind of odd. They must have run off to grab something from home, probably some cooking magazine to read or something. I swear they would have thrown hellfire around if they saw what fell out of my backpack. After this encounter, the young boy ran back to his friends and continued his game of football. They left before my own friends arrived, thankfully.

One day, the bricks grew tall enough that it required effort to climb over them.

Carefully, I threw my backpack over the top and hoisted myself over the edge into the playground area. After the acid trip my friends and I experienced, we didn’t really have the energy to climb back over, so we slept inside the tubes connecting one metal bit from another. The next morning, however, the wall was suddenly ten feet higher on all four sides, removing our only exit. I didn’t mind, though; the playground was pretty cozy. Yet, I still missed going to the convenience store and buying a pack of smokes every once in a while. Plus, as our tenure within the wall continued, our reserves of illicit drugs grew smaller.

Eventually, on our final nickel bags of mary jane, we grew tired of living inside the bricks. We banged and banged against the barricade, hoping someone on the outside would call for help. I soon heard familiar voices on the other side, and after a small time, the voices grew clear: my parents had come to the playground.

7

T

he beam of yellow from the police officer’s flashlight burned my eyes. He and his fellow officers stood imposingly across from my friends and I. Loaded weapons in their belts were holstered to their sides and gleaming badges glinted in the moonlight on their uniforms. The patriotic lights from the top of the police car reflected dancing shadows onto the wall of the church.

“Evening, kids,” began the one officer.

“Evening, officer,” we all replied hesitantly.

“So, what are y’all you doing out on the street this late at night?” he asked. ‘Why the hell was I out on the street this late at night?’ I thought to myself.

I was in seventh grade. I was sleeping over at my friend’s house with another one of our friends. We had asked some kids down the street if they wanted to play a game of sneaks with us. For those of you who have never played sneaks before, it’s the best game ever. Basically, sneaks is a combination of hide and seek and tag in the dark.

So, we were playing sneaks around the neighborhood. It was a decent spring evening and we were all in shorts and t-shirts with the occasional sweatshirt.

At one point, we just decided to take a walk down the street and hang out. This is when the trouble started.

My friends and I were walking down a dark street, chatting and giggling lively, when a gunshot rang out. It was normal for gunshots to go off because the neighborhood was close to a skeet shooting range, and hunters were always trekking in the woods in the area. But a gunshot this close with that sound could have never been made by one of those men. We all looked at each other, faces drained of color and began running towards a church that was nearby. When we reached the back of the church, we all skidded to a stop, breathing heavy and fast. We tried to calm ourselves down. Eventually, we sat down and started up our chitchat again. A village cop car rolled by. We thought nothing of it until a few minutes later when two cops cars pulled up on our left side, lights flashing. Two cops got out and walked over to us.

“So what are y’all doing out on the street this late at night?” asked the officer. His question rang in my head. Answers and images began jumbling through my brain. ‘I’m not a delinquent!’ I wanted to shout.

We all blurted out that we were just playing sneaks around the neighborhood.

“Okay, so did you hear the gunshot that went off on the street over there?” he said.

We were all puzzled. “What street is that?” we half-whispered. My hands began to shake. I felt I couldn’t speak.

“A few streets down past here,” he said, obviously becoming agitated with us.

“Oh, ya!” we replied. As children typically do, we had forgotten everything that had just happened. “We heard and we ran!” said my one friend. “We ran away from that street!” said another. “We ran so fast! It was

HS // NOVEMBER 2013

Pol

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so scary!” answered one kid. Another cop car pulled up. My heart was in my throat. My stomach churned.

“Okay, okay,” said the officer nodding. “So how old are you?” he asked us. We all answered with our ages.

“So, do you know there’s a curfew around here?” he asked.

“No,” we responded. I looked down, ashamed.

The police were now questioning me, the goodietwo-shoes who was never trouble, a model student, and member of student council. My face burned red. Looking around, I realized we all looked a little like delinquents. Short summer shorts and t-shirts.

Sweatshirts. Clothes not in mint condition. To the cops, we smelled like trouble.

“Curfew’s 11 o’clock,” he said stoically. I realized the current time was way past eleven.

“Oh,” we all replied separately, hurriedly apologizing for our stupidity.

The officer took down the name of the friend whose house some of us were staying at and then told us to head home. The whole experience felt like it went by slower than molasses in January. Time was slower than normal. After the cop told us we could go home, we all sprinted faster than lightening to our respective houses. The cop drove by as we were running, to make sure we were truly going home.

He didn’t have to; we were so scared and moving so fast, it’s amazing we didn’t trip over ourselves in our hysteria.

Of course when I went home the next day, I had to tell my mom. She reacted calmly, considering how awful I thought it was. I guess she thought my own shame was enough punishment for myself. She reminded me that it was a miracle the cops let us go. If we had been a few miles down the street within the city cops’ jurisdiction, they would have made us sit on the side of the street until our parents came to claim us. I did

think this was funny. More over I was thoroughly embarrassed that my father had said this out loud to my friends. He had mentioned something about this to me earlier at home and we talked about it and I brushed it off, but I didn’t intend him to go and tell my friends.

When you think about it, I really had not gotten “in trouble”, but my friends and I had been under the suspicion of the village cops for doing something mischievous. I had not even done anything; I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, guilty by association with the street, a street I had only been walking down. Besides learning to never be out past curfew, this experience really brought to life for me what it meant to be under someone’s suspicion. The only suspicion I had ever been under is my mother’s for not making my bed. To be questioned by the cops was a whole new ball game.

At Choate, anyone can be guilty by association. If you’re friends with someone who has done something unforgiveable, some people will assume you are like that person too. Rumors will start that you were also there at the execution of the unforgiveable act. If one of your friends got drunk and you weren’t but you brought them to the health center, people automatically assume that you were drunk too. They don’t assume you were being a good person and trying to save your friend. Some teachers might assume that because you made a mistake and forgot to footnote something, you were intending to cheat when all that happened was you hit the delete button by accident. Don’t we all deserve to be protected under the presumption of innocence? Aren’t we all innocent until proven guilty? How can a teacher take you directly to the judicial committee without first confronting you knowing you’re a good person and that you just hit the delete button on accident? Why do they get to decide that you have undoubtedly done something wrong? Maybe it was a mistake! Shouldn’t facts and logic prevail over inklings, feelings, and rumors? It can happen to anyone. Anyone can be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Anyone can be walking down the street when something bad happens; this doesn’t mean you did something wrong.

lice

HS // NOVEMBER 2013

not tell my father what happened, but I didn’t have to.

The next night after our police run in, the same two friends who I had just spent the night with decided to spend the night at my house. We were on our way to see a movie and my dad was driving the car.

We were all sitting in the back seat.

“So, I heard you guys had a fun night last night,” he said looking in the rearview mirror. Our hearts stopped beating. I thought I had died. Did he know?

“What?” we all said innocently.

“I was in the grocery store today and I ran into one of the village cops. He said he saw you last night,” my dad said looking at me. My dad was smiling. My dad knew everyone in town because he was a public figure. Because everyone knew my dad, most people when they met me knew I was his daughter. Obviously, he and this cop thought it was pretty funny that we had gotten in trouble. I did not

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1,094 RULES

HS // NOVEMBER 2013

By Esul Burton ‘16

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In the first 18 years of his life, Mark Quinn managed to break 1,094 rules. One thousand and ninety four different rules.

The first rule he ever broke was when his mom told him not to eat dessert until after he had finished his dinner but Mark did anyway because he was three at the time and just wanted his chocolate fudge brownie. The first time he broke a school rule was when he was seven and he jumped out of the emergency exit on the school bus because Toby Green had bet him ten bucks. He ended up getting ten dollars, a three-day suspension, a broken leg, and a kiss on the cheek from Katy Davidson, the prettiest girl in third grade.

By the time he broke his 1,094th rule, everyone knew about Mark.

The adults thought he was a run of the mill slacker, the kind of guy all the mothers kept their daughters away from, the kind of guy all the dads glared at because they thought he needed a haircut. But we knew better. We knew Mark was smart, we knew he was funny, and we knew he was kind-hearted. But above everything else, we wanted to be Mark. His deeds were urban legends; they filled every lunchroom conversation, every hallway walk-and-talk, every note passed in class.

Jacquelyn Finicky, the yearbook editor, knows the story of how Mark brought a pocket knife to school in seventh grade so he could carve the name of his crush (it was either Sarah Nettles or Sarah Holt, no one knows for sure) on the big tree outside the cafeteria. She says Mrs. Bernard, the elderly administrative secretary, caught Mark while he was in the middle of carving the “R” but didn’t get in trouble because Mrs. Bernard thought it was “cute”. Charlie Romero, who had homeroom with Mark, claims that Mark didn’t even get past his locker when Ms. Wang, the Chinese teacher, found him in the hallway with the knife.

Lauren Dobbs, who fucked Mark that one time in 10th grade, tells the tale of how Mark dyed Principal Martinez’s dog, Pepper, pink (supposedly for breast cancer awareness

month but we think that’s a load of bull) and Principal Martinez thought Roger Evans had done it. Michael Brown, who sits alone at the peanut-allergy table, says the dog was green, while Dave Lombardi, who lives next door to Lauren, swears Pepper’s fur was dyed the exact same shade as Mrs. Dobbs’ platinum hair.

And then there was that one time during a school assembly when Mr. Dockery was promoting the economics club. Mark went up to the stage and mooned him because Mr. Dockery, who had lost most of his eyesight and his soul, told Nikki Johnson that she looked like a whale earlier that week.

But the 1,094th rule that Mark broke was something that no one really talked about, mostly out of respect but a little out of awe. It was what made us love him more; it was what showed he was more than a bored underachiever. Everyone remembers the day clearly. It was after practice, midway through the football season, when everyone was walking back to the locker room, and Joe Franklin had tripped Martin Schwartz and called him a fag. Mark, who was 20 yards away, heard him, walked slowly across the field and punched Joe Franklin in the jaw. Harry Samuels, the linebacker, said by the time Principal Martinez arrived, Joe and Mark were at each other’s throats and Joe’s two front teeth were lying on the ground, blood staining the xgrass. Joe got off easy because 1) Joe’s face looked like it gone through a shredder, 2) Joe was rich and 3) Joseph Franklin, Sr., Joe’s father, was a lawyer. Mark, whose face was just as badly bruised, got suspended for two weeks.

We all saw Mark walk out of the principal’s office and slam his hands against his locker, over, and over, and over, until he got tired and just leaned against the cold metal, his hands on his temples, his back silently quivering. That’s when we stopped seeing Mark as Mark Quinn, the football star, or Mark Quinn, the rebel, but Mark Quinn, the senior who was worried about his future, who just wanted to get into college but now knew he would probably never get into Stanford be-

And during last period, after all the papers were handed out and Lucy Zhang had left the room in tears because she had gotten another C, Mrs. Whitehall stopped Mark right before he was about to leave and told him that some rules should be ignored. Mark shuffled his feet, replied “I think I know that better than anybody, Mrs. Whitehall,” in a voice a little quieter than usual, and walked out the door, smiling slightly underneath his fading purple bruises.

IGNORANCE

my emotions are too big for me to comprehend. I call home and I cry and I apologize and I cry because the only people I know who understand me better than I understand myself are the people who made me this way.

“You are not a bad person,” my parents say to me. But I know that I am. I know that they think they understand but they don’t because they don’t know that I am disgusted with the person I have become. I knew it was only a matter of time before I fell, before I hit rock bottom. This mistake needed to happen, because I needed to see how I embodied everything I ever disliked in the world. I am a bad person and I know that I deserved to make this mistake because bad things do not happen to good people. My parents do not know that this is not my first mistake. They will go on thinking I’m a good person and that is fine because ignorance is bliss. All that matters is that I know I am a bad person because I know that bad things do not happen to good people.

The pain is unbearable: the tears, the raw throat, the constant swollen eyes, and the burning unutterable shame. I hear people speak and whisper and I know what they are saying because I know that it is about me. The whispering surrounds me. It haunts me. I hear them talk and I hear them judge and I hear them question but I know they don’t know a thing about what it is like to walk with the weight of the world on you’re broken back, to cry in mourning for the life you once led, or to regret that you will never be whole again. They don’t know and ignorance is bliss. But I know what it is like and I will never forget.

I shouldn’t have let my mistake define me because the moment I did, I broke.

HS // NOVEMBER 2013

“We all make mistakes,” they say. What a stupid justification.

They try to comfort me, they try to assure me it will be okay, but I know they are wrong. I know that everything will not be okay because I’ve destroyed everything I’ve ever worked for. It was a mistake. It was one night. It was only a mistake. I had forgotten the rules and I had forgotten to respect myself and to respect my school over all else. One bad decision and my life is not my own anymore; it is no longer in my control.

Spiraling, surrounded by a black hole of nothingness, I lose myself and I lose my future. All I see is darkness and it blinds me. When I look at my brothers I know they have not made any mistakes, none that actually matter, none like mine. Tell me how I’m supposed to look into my parent’s eyes. Tell me how I’m supposed to cope with the disappointment and pain I’ve caused for myself as well as for others. You can mock me and you can despise me, but I promise that you will never be able to hurt me anymore than I’ve already hurt myself. My stomach tightens. I cringe but I am powerless to stop the constant ache.

Sickness overwhelms me, and all I know is that I am disgusted with myself. I am a failure and I hate myself every minute for it.

“You need to move on with your life,” the therapist tells me.

But I know I can’t, I know that he is wrong because the longer I stay focused on my mistake, the more sure I become that it will never happen again. I know I will never forgive myself because I will always remember and I will always regret. All I can think about is escaping from who I am and from what I did. Not the twisted escape through drugs or blades - that holds no appeal to me - but mental escape from persecution and judgment.

So I become inanimate, unattached, emotionless. I smile and I go to class and I do my work. I feel nothing because I am nothing. I am not depressed. I do not know what I am because

Anonymous

cause he punched a kid in the face. And maybe we understood Mark a little better, realized that he wasn’t any different than us, stopped defining him by the things he did, and for the first time, saw him as a person, instead of a god.

So on the Monday that Mark returned to school, three weeks after the incident, we all came up to him, told him that it wasn’t fair, that Joe Franklin was a dick, and invited him to eat lunch with us, instead of having him eat by himself in his car because no one had ever been brave enough to approach him before.

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THECHEERLEADER CHEERLEADER THE By Lemmons‘16

By Hannah Hannah Lemmons

S

HS // NOVEMBER 2013

he wasn’t a rule breaker. She didn’t get detention, or make enemies, or “stir up trouble”. She’d never been in a fight, never stolen, never vandalized – you know, the things that the “bad” kids do. The things that the “troubled” kids do. In fact, she was the very opposite. She was the cheerleader, the head of the yearbook committee, the sweet straight-A student. She was not the girl that parents tell their kids to stay away from; she was the one who set the example, raised the bar for her peers. So it was all the more surprising when they found out she had been expelled, ousted by the administration. “Why? Why did she do it?” they asked, prattling on about their personal theories as they walked through the halls.

Everyone had their own version of the story about the good-girl-gone-bad, almost trying to top each other with outlandish tales filled with star-crossed lovers, betrayal, deceit, revenge, and jealousy. Some people swore it was an accident–”I saw it, “they said, “with my own two eyes!” Some passed it off as a momentary lapse in judgment–”she told me herself that she regretted it as soon as she had done it,” they promised. And everyone else forgot about it after they heard about those three kids that got suspended for skinny-dipping in the lake.

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They never found out the real story. They never discovered that this cheerleader had more than one side. Even though she wasn’t the type to break the rules, didn’t mean that

she wasn’t a “troubled” kid. She was troubled by her need for success, her desire for validation, her crave for perfection; because it made the other side of her, the side that wanted to be trouble, all too clear in her mind. No one knew that she felt like she had to put on a costume of flawlessness every day, because she thought her teachers, parents, and friends would think she was nothing unless she had straight A’s, was captain of the squad, was the object of that soccer player’s or that football player’s affection. No one realized that she felt as though she had to hide what she thought was her true self, the side of her that wanted to be weird and troubled because she was so sick of everyone boxing her into a stereotype that she didn’t make the choice to be a part of. She wasn’t a so-called “bad kid” or “troublemaker” because she didn’t allow herself to break the rules and make mistakes. It’s not because she didn’t want to – believe her, she did – but because she was scared of what people would think of the imperfect cheerleader. And she was downright terrified of exactly how far that unrestrained side of her would go to escape what others had forced her to become. No one understood how hard she was trying to resist her innate urge to not only stir up trouble, but also to smash, break, burn, and destroy. She was going insane, trapped inside herself, and someone was in the wrong place at the wrong time when this built-up madness chose to present itself.

No one ever knew just how troubled she was.

IF ONLY Alex Ejimofor ‘16

It was just a few seconds, but it changed everything. She was going to hate me forever. All it took was a ball and stupidity. She had looked at me, and I searched for tears. Those tears, maybe could have allowed me to somehow comfort her and make it all right. But they weren’t there. All that was there was anger and something else I didn’t realize at the time. In her eyes were just disgust. A cold, and pure look of disgust. Disgust for how stupid I had been. If I had known, I probably wouldn’t have done it. I still can’t understand what truly went through my mind, but whatever it may be, I’m not proud of it. I replay it, over and over in my head, trying to find something that makes me feel less guilty. No success. Why was I so stupid?

Even now, it still haunts me. However, all I can do is work past it. At every chance, I slowly try to mend what the ball had shattered into millions of pieces. I try to make amends, to be more rational. Think before you speak? That’s what we are always told as children, but why don’t they also add that you should think before you do something that could potential ruin something important? Sadly, trouble doesn’t alert you that it is coming, it just does, and it is left to you to fix it. You make a mistake, only you can fix it. I learnt this the hard way, and all because of a stupid ball. The possibility of a strong friendship, shattered before me in less than ten seconds. Do you want to make the same mistake?

TROUBLE Catherine Ward ‘15

It was something about your stubble That I found so attractive And mom found so repulsive And she told me he’s nothing but, Trouble

I was reduced to rubble We drank the Kool-Aid of passion Forgot love came in rations And in the end we were double the Trouble.

HS // NOVEMBER 2013

And you burst my safety bubble We got so close, so quick Burned so bright we wrecked the wick And then I felt it in my gut, Trouble

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HS // NOVEMBER 2013

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SUBMIT TO

HIGH SOCIETY

In 2012, “What is Love� was the most searched phrase on Google.

Since the beginning of time, scientists, musicians, psychotherapists, writers, spiritual leaders, philosophers, have attempted to define the much-pondered word. Love is the alpha word of all words. Love is every emotion, every action, every word, and every feeling.

Do you have a story about love? What does love feel like?

What do you think love is?

HS // NOVEMBER 2013

All submissions are reviewed anonymously. choatehighsociety@gmail.com

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highly quotables If trouble comes when you least expect it, then maybe the thing to do is to always expect it.

Cormac McCarthy A society that gets rid of all its troublemakers goes downhill.

Robert A. Heinlein Don’t compromise yourself - you’re all you have.

John Grisham

HS // NOVEMBER 2013

I still don’t have all the answers. I’m more interested in what I can do next than what I did last.

Charlie Sheen

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I don’t go looking for trouble. Trouble usually finds me. J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban