Sex, lies, & video, in a small town….my daughter’s own words on her high school years…

Final English assignment ….Senior Speech 2020

“Thank you so much to the teachers who worked so hard with her. Sadly though, the overall memory of her highschool years will always be of a place where the abusers win, and her senior year was stolen from her. Maybe someday teenage girls who don’t play sports, will be as important as star athletes, but I guess this wasn’t the year.”- My Mother

Hello from a young girl that is about to accomplish another milestone. She does so, even after facing an in-numerable amount of obstacles. She has already experienced the harsh reality of the cruel real world, which she was neither protected from nor prepared for.

All seniors feel as if they were robbed by the CoronaVirus, but I was already robbed of my senior year long before the virus came around. You may find it petty, but in all honesty when I found out that the schools were closing and now no one would be participating in a typical graduation, or that a certain lacrosse player just lost his senior year sport, my initial thought was “ well, well isn’t karma a bitch”. Now relax, I am fully aware of the seriousness of Covid 19, it was just a small voice inside me.

Fun fact, I’m named after a diva doll, the only black one, because I’m mixed. Little me spent her elementary years in a tiny red 3 room schoolhouse. She left that behind for a much larger High School where opportunities seemed plentiful. She envisioned moving on to the big school with the intention of success and fulfillment. She expected to make everlasting bonds, as well as memories that would stick with her forever. The latter goal was undeniably reached.

I’m just another girl whose high school experience initially portrayed itself much the same as a movie, except the fact it was abruptly cut. So welcome to the biggest plot twist, the immaculate pile of lies, betrayal and robbery. This is what I wish I could have warned little me about…That the systems of school, and law enforcement are absolutely fuc*ked. Set up to protect the privileged leaving people like me to fend for ourselves. Overall life is just a sequence of lessons set up to be learned, some destined for straight failure and filled with pain.

Faint signs along the way foreshadowing which path you will go down. Nothing is promised. You can have crystal clear instructions and be full of hope, and it can still all come tumbling down in a blink of an eye. You don’t know it yet little me, but you’re already broken.

Well I’m supposed to be imagining I’m an adult looking back at my high school career asking myself the 3 most pertinent lessons I have learned, however the thing is, throughout the majority of my life it felt as if I already wasn’t a kid due to the fact I was already dealing with such adult things in my life. So I guess maybe overall I learned that you’re incredibly lucky if you can recall three lessons you learned, off the top of your head, without it reopening a barely healing wound.

Honestly the idea of perfection, a picture perfect family, a quintessential highschool experience, supportive relationships, etc, is all total bullsh*t. It’s all fake, everyone struggles with battles, but some are bigger than others. I learned that at a young age. I thought my home life was much like everyone else’s, and then came the day I learned that wasn’t the case.

My father was not only living a whole double life, secretly he was a complete monster, well child molester, same thing.

He devastated our family. He wasn’t faithful, he wasn’t sober, he wasn’t close to being the man we thought he was at all on so many levels. The worst thing he did…my own father sexually molested my sister while she was growing up. When the abuse she experienced stopped, to survive mentally her psy-che subconsciously forced her to suppress the memories until one day she broke. There was a battle inside her to face the fear he instilled in her and eventually she spoke and began to rebuild herself. Sadly, though not particularly surprising, the local Police Department decided not to formally press charges. Due to the fact that after he was initially questioned he retained a lawyer and refused a lie detector test, and the age of the case, the soon to be retiring detective stated it “wasn’t a winnable case”. Sad considering my sister was able to give detailed accounts and create a timeline correlating with documented travel that took my mother out of the household.

This man, who we shall now only consider my sperm donor, also ironically works at a nearby High School. In recent years he has been under investigation for selling drugs to students. The police apparently couldn’t prove this, but even without having a relationship with him, being a teenager from a neighboring town, it didn’t take long for me to hear about not just the fact that he was indeed selling them drugs, but how he would let them smoke in the school, smoke with them, and I think you can use your imagination on what else may be happening with high school girls. Everyone loved “the Janitor” because he was so “cool“. I used to always have people saying “you must love having such a chill dad”, but really they were just part of fueling a monster with the status they gave him.

As a matter of fact, before we learned the worst of what he had done, and I did still see him, it was having such a “cool” dad, that led to me having over 300 people at the house party I had, with his encouragement, during his spring break visitation time. That being one of the rare times the local police department attempted to do anything. However, even though he was the one found in the yard drinking with minors at the time the police arrived, rather than him, they arrested my stepmother with the Social Host Law. Eventually they dropped the charges on her and recharged him. He pled guilty but of course by then it was old news and didn’t make the paper or channel 12 news the way it did originally. So he was still getting away with everything.

As one truth after the next revealed itself, the girl whose dad was her absolute best friend, who she thought would do anything for her, ended up being her first heartbreak. He was the one who hurt the ones closest to her and inflicted indescribable emotional pain, as well as deep mental damage.

Trying to put that behind me, heading into 8th grade, is when I gave my damaged heart to someone new. This is when my highschool romance began.

There was this goofy looking boy, that I was taller than, who seemed to really like me. As time passed and the cliques began to form, we fell into different groups and went our separate ways, just to end up reuniting sophomore year (oh how cute). He was the class clown and everybody liked him. His house quickly became the hangout spot. One night a group of us,10th graders who hung out there got ready and went to what was probably our first house party. Typical talk of ”he likes you, she likes you” and “just kiss”, well….you can see where that goes! Next thing you know we are dating and everyone’s favorite couple (being one of the only sophomore couples).

As we got older and began doing more mature things, his house continued to be the party house. We had a lot of freedom there. I was living the highschool dream of the girlfriend of the party host. Back then it felt like everyone wanted to be my friend. I was with “friends” every weekend, Snapchat was never dry or boring, for a second things looked perfect.

Perfection is an illusion though. I was in a relationship where I was made to feel I had to deny being a mixed race. My liberal views being put down and more conservative ones pushed on me. Not wanting to lose everything…the fun, the friends, my highschool sweetheart..I squashed down any feelings of uncomfortableness and went along with the illusion.

Eventually I couldn’t do it anymore and I broke up with him. It was a difficult decision to have finally made and unfortunately I still thought you needed a boy to be happy, to make you feel confident, to reassure you you’re pretty.

That need is what led me to the boy who would literally change my whole life. He was my shoulder to cry on during my heart break. He would scoop me up, take me out to eat, drive me to and from work. He made me feel as if his whole job was to nurture me and protect me from the harsh words being thrown around about my name. Though later it would be him who would almost completely destroy it, and me.

Like I said nothing is perfect, even when it seems like it. Things with him began to change very quickly, he declared “I have been waiting for you”, but really he was just waiting to use me. This star lacrosse boy, the faceoff king (too good to be punished) thought it would be fun to record the private things we would do. He did this completely without consent and me completely unaware.

He recorded every inch of my body while I layed in my bed, eyes closed and passed out. He referred to those videos as “good luck charms “ and showed them to his teammates on the Lacrosse team that included boys from three local schools.

On the bus to games, on the field, in the bathroom…I imagined they were looking at them everywhere. I found out about this because my neighbor, a member of the team, began to feel guilty knowing how I had been violated and he told me. He agreed to speak to the police and gave a statement to what he had seen, but for some reason that wasn’t enough to bring charges.

People began to make comments as I would walk through the halls. I would hear the nastiest things said about me and my body. Humiliated isn’t even the word. I lost all my friends while trying to demand justice for this. They all said things like “you’re just creating unnecessary drama”.

So even the boy that you thought was “waiting to treat you right”, the boy on the lacrosse team that you actually thought cared about you, is just another heartbreak. A lack of human decency doesn’t even begin to describe what’s wrong with him. If he does this in highschool and gets away with it, can’t wait to see what he does in college.

We all think highschool is this magical place where everyone matures and learns right from wrong, in reality it’s where tensions build and problems magnify.

As a matter of fact, that wasn’t the only sexual crime that happened to me. In my sophomore year myself and another young girl the grade below me were touched by a sub. While we all thought he was just a funny old guy that kept spoons in his pocket, he was really a child predator, and this wasn’t his first altercation.

Recognizing that things had taken an inappropriate turn, we ran to the principal’s office. Both our parents, and the police were called by the school. Big surprise …nothing ever came of it. Another crime. Another report. No charges filed. See a pattern here?

There is without question an underlying problem with local systems, both school and police. As far as at the school level, maybe they should be teaching less 2+2 and more how to be a functioning decent human being in today’s society.

The school system is just setting up a class pyramid, placing people in these ranks. Depending where you are in the ranks determines what’s ok for you to do. In my school, if you are an asset to a sport, you rank pretty high. Even if the path is set for you to go through 9th 10th 11th & 12th grade and grow as you do, how are you supposed to grow when the water is only being given to one side of the garden?

How are you supposed to speak the truth when it feels like you can’t even breath because you’re being told it will be taken care of, just remain quiet, don’t create drama…

The school did absolutely fuc*ing nothing in regard to the crime committed against me. No one even talked to the coach, they didn’t even punish the lacrosse team for viewing, let alone him for showing.

You’re told when you’re scared or a crime was committed against you, to call the police for aid. Why? The local Police Department doesn’t protect the young women of this community. They protected a man accused of molesting his stepdaughter. They protected a substitute teacher accused of inappropriately touching young female students. They protected the lacrosse star accused of videotaping a young girl without her knowledge. They didn’t protect the other student who was touched. They didn’t protect my sister. And they didn’t protect me.

Maybe if my mom had been able to afford a good lawyer, or if my last name was one you saw on street signs, I wouldn’t be told to “keep this quiet” or that “it’s your taste in boys”. Maybe the whole team of boys that would holler at me in the hallways saying things about my body would have been punished.

I wish I could ask little me what she thinks trust is, and remember a time I could feel it, because now I have a hard time believing it’s a real thing. I have a fear instilled in me that any boy I let close will try and succeed to destroy me again. I can’t trust myself to find the strength to survive this again.

June 8 th 2020 marked one year since I learned of the crimes committed against me, the pain just the same as the day the words came out of neighbor’s mouth, on the same day I had to get ready for my sister’s bridal shower. I had no choice other than to put my muzzle on tighter and use a smile as a mask.

I trusted a boy thinking he had some legitimate love for me, and he violated me. Then my seeking justice led to me losing people I thought were my friends. People I thought would be my friends for life, and my kids would call Aunt and Uncle.

That boy stole that, my high school experience, and so much more from me.

The people I had opened up to, and shared my pain with, became the same people trying to silence me.

I trusted my school to aid my wound and follow through with their statement of nurturing individuals, but I wasn’t nurtured. I was thrown out of the nest because I wasn’t strong enough.

I trusted the Police force, who claim to protect and serve, and instead I witnessed the idea of justice made into a mockery.

My pain and frustration was watered down by the very people who promised to support me. I was made to feel like a dumb, reckless teenager, with bad taste in boys.

What does trust even mean…Well the dictionary definition of trust is “a firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something”. You’re supposed to trust people that love and care for you. In my young life, I was shown you can’t even trust the man that created you. Why would I ever have thought I could trust highschool boys? So what point is this paragraph trying to prove? It’s proof that you honestly don’t know who you can trust, especially in highschool. Especially when they see you as no one special and you have no power.

When I read my school’s Mission Statement, I truly question if they know what any of those things even mean. They mention a welcoming environment? All I see is them fostering cliques, and people’s statuses determined by what sports they play.

They claim it’s a safe environment, but how so if people are being sexally assaulted or being bullied so bad they go home and cry, praying they don’t have to wake up tomorrow and repeat the hell that school is.

Diversity? I was called a “n*ger” in English class. There’s your diversity.

I don’t trust this school, and I don’t believe their mission statement. This school gave me “passion” alright, passion to end my life.

One of the main lessons I learned going through the hellish journey that was my high school years, is that preparation is a false concept. You can say you’re ready all you want, but you never truly know what you’re getting into. Absolutely every aspect in life can be derailed drastically without any warning signs. You can’t prepare yourself for the truly unknown.

The stage of life which is your “High School years” , is supposed to be where you find yourself. This is the time that prepares you for your next chapter in life, but tell me how you are supposed to prepare yourself for the next step when you get lost in this one.

The place I was supposed to have faith in to prepare me for the “real world”, only crushed me.

People try to say that the bullying, the breakups, and the failures are just building blocks. They say to not let those things stop you, let them make you stronger. Let these things lead you to be something absolutely spectacular, because you know…”there’s always a rainbow after the storm”. Well I think I must be color blind because no matter where I look, I don’t see a rainbow. All I see are gray skies, and a thunderstorm in my head, with heavy falling tears.

Overall when it comes to reminiscing about high school, the feelings of regret, failure, and pain tighten my chest. The future I had envisioned, going into High School with the intention of making memories that would stick with me forever, was just about the only thing that came true.

You can without question say that my memories of highschool will forever be with me. All those plot twists I never saw coming. From my dad leaving my life, and the anguish he caused my family. To letting one boy take away my voice, and another my body.

I will always remember walking those halls feeling shame from the eyes upon me. Feeling dirty, weak and exposed. Wondering why the systems don’t aid the weak but rather build up the stronger.

Always wondering why I couldn’t have been stronger.

So what was the final lesson learned from all this?

That I wish I had been smarter to stay in the shadows, because I would do absolutely anything to not have any attention on me anymore…good or bad. If I were to find a genie, I wouldn’t even want three wishes…I would only need one. I would wish from that moment forward I was absolutely unknown. Nobody to judge me, just forgotten.

And that’s what my years in highschool have taught me.

~Written by my youngest daughter.