The Fall

Six

The sophomores ruined it for us.

For some reason, they felt the need to give positive end-of-year reviews to the Freshman Emotional Development Program (or ED, as everyone besides the teachers called it.) Allegedly, it was supposed to help us the way we spoke and acted towards each other— our emotional intelligence, I guess. The problem was, there are only so many ways a person can be a jerk. So instead of working on becoming better people through teamwork and critical thinking, the program devolved into conversation after conversation about our "stress levels," or what we could do to decrease them.

This took up half a lunch period, every single day.

The one nice thing about it was the upperclassmen who led ED. There were two in every class, a guy and a girl. Travis, our boy, was incredibly annoying (when he bothered to show up, that is) so most days we just had Jasmin: a pretty, African-American junior with artfully wild, shoulder-length curls and a penchant for bright pink lipstick. She was everything I wanted to be: confident, splashy, and untouchable with the way she was able to make everyone around her smile, yet still stand up for herself in her own way.

As we waited for the most pointless waste of half a lunch period to begin, one of the freshmen whispered something in Jasmin's ear. I could tell it was unsavory from the way she reacted, sighing dramatically and rolling her eyes. But there was something else there, a crack in the patented Jasmin Walker armor of perfection.

"Could you please not remind me of that? Ryder and I haven't been dating for over a year now and I would really just like to forget about the whole thing. Okay?" she said to the freshman, who snorted and leaned back in his chair.

He had blond hair and cold, harsh blue eyes, with a relatively large build for a freshman. As I listened to their conversation, I felt incredibly, inexplicably intimidated like my blood turned to ice.

"But you can't, can you? Sweetheart, we aren't going to let you forget."

Jasmin's tormentor was a classic teenage boy, with a uniquely Appalachian twist. All boys in West Virginia looked the same, with their Aryan faces and uniforms of camouflage shirts, jeans, or occasionally track pants and rayon shorts if they were feeling adventurous. This little bastard was no different, and his complete normalcy combined with seeing someone eI considered a friend be hurt punched me in the gut in a strangely personal way.

It was then that I realized the kid was new. I had never seen him at ED before today, and only vague glimpses everywhere else. He must have been a drifter, I guessed from looking at him; during classes groups of boys would roam the halls like they owned them, armed with fake passes and brute force. It was almost a subculture. The drifters were behind most of the semi-infamous things that went on around here— the Bathroom Incident, the great Cheeto heist of 2010, that thing with the used condom last year, I could go on.

The drifters, plain and simple, were us.

In between the chaos, the bell had rung but nobody was paying any attention. All eyes were on Jasmin and her opponent in their war of words, and even the counselor that came in on Tuesdays was silent.

"Do you know Ryder or something?" Jasmin asked, becoming increasingly irritated. "Is that why you're so obsessed with things that happened almost two years ago and have no bearing on any aspect of who I am now?"

"You know what?" she continued, her voice cracking slightly. "Just go out in the hall. I'm a leader. I'm not required to deal with this."

--Kacey, educationally.