Ed Narrative draft

I remember the summer before my freshman year like it was yesterday. I remember all the fun I had, but I also remember how scared I was to go to high school. That was the year they started busing people to different schools. Instead of going to school near my house, I was bused several miles away from my house. I remember thinking that it was going to be very different than junior high. A lot of my friends went to other schools, so I wasn’t really going to know anyone in high school.

            That first day was so scary. It was so much bigger of a school that I was really overwhelmed. I didn’t know how I was going to make to all of my classes on time. The worst part about it was not knowing anyone and not having anyone to talk to about how scary it all was. I made it to all of my classes and notice that there were a lot of really nice people in my classes, so I was hopeful that I would find and make some new friends.

            That first week I noticed that there was this one girl in a lot of my classes. Her name was Kristen, and in a couple of classes we got put together for projects and we totally hit it off. She was fun and silly but could be very serious too. We both opened up to each other right away. We started doing everything at school together. We took breaks together, ate lunch together and worked on projects together. Then we started doing things outside of school together.

            Her and her family invited me on a trip to Ocean Shores and that was where our friendship grew to more than just being friends at school. We told each other everything about our lives and there wasn’t anything we wouldn’t do together. After the trip our friendship just kept growing and growing. She was the best friend I ever had.

            We made it through our freshman year and we were really excited about our sophomore year because we were going to have more classes together. We had 6 different classes and 5 of our classes were together. The one class that I had and she didn’t was orchestra. She didn’t play a musical instrument. But she thought it was great that I did and loved to hear me play. I played the flute at the time and I was wanting to play the oboe but didn’t have the ability to play it because my mom couldn’t afford lessons. Kristen kept telling me that I should teach myself how to play the oboe. I kept saying yes, sometime I will do that. All along thinking that I could never teach myself something, but she seemed to think that I could do it.

            Kristen was a very messed up child. She was adopted and had a really hard time with that. But she would talk to me when things got hard and she needed to talk about it. She was a wonderful person. She always put other people first, before herself. We had so much fun together all the time. Something else that was great about our friendship was that we never had fights. We always got along. I thought that was amazing. We never even had little fights, nothing at all. We got along all the time and we couldn’t be apart.

            We were getting through our sophomore year together and having a lot of fun while doing it. We still did everything together. We even got our driver’s license together. We did homework together and anything else we could think of doing. We went everywhere together, if I wasn’t driving she was. We even helped each other with our boyfriend problems. That’s another thing that didn’t happen with us. Boys didn’t get in the way of our friendship. Usually boys come between friends, but not with us.

            Everything was going great. The world was ours to take. But then one Saturday morning I got a call from Kristen’s mom. She asked me if my parents were home and told me to sit down. Right there I knew it wasn’t good at all. Then she went on to tell me that Kristen had shot herself the night before at her boyfriend’s house. I told her mom that she had to be lying to me that just couldn’t be true. But it was true and I couldn’t make her come back to life.

            I thought my whole world was going to end. I wanted it to end. She was my best friend. What was I going to do without her. I just wanted her back in my life. When this happened I stopped going to school for a very long time for several reasons. Mainly because I missed Kristen and I couldn’t be where we were always at. Plus, kids are very mean. They would come up to me and ask me how big of a whole did she put in herself when she shot herself. They would tell me to just get on with my life and forget about her. But I couldn’t do that. We had way too much to just forget about her.

            So, a couple of my really good teachers got in touch with me about school and told me that if I didn’t come back I was going to fail 10^th grade. That hit me hard and made me realize that I better get back to school. I didn’t want to fail. Kristen wouldn’t have wanted that for me. She would have wanted me to do good and finish school. So, I did. I went back to school and kids were still mean to me about her death. I couldn’t believe how rude kids were. But I just ignored them and went on with my life.

            I also decided to do what Kristen always wanted me to do and teach myself how to play the oboe. When I wasn’t at school or doing my homework I was working on teaching myself the oboe. I had a lot of fun doing it and before I knew it I was great at it. Good enough to take first chair. I was amazed at how easy it was once I started doing it. I know Kristen was looking down on me and telling me that I was doing a great job and that I sounded great. She was probably also telling me, I told you so. I told you, you could do it. And she was right, I could do it.

            So, everyone should cherish those friendships from high school that are great because you never know when they are going to end. I am almost 40 years old and have never had another friend like Kristen. I don’t know if I ever will. Sometimes I think she still watches over me. It was because of Kristen that I went back to school and finished the 10^th grade.