Jack Kelly

A true high school story starts when someone says something, that can be true or not true, it never really matters, and that person tells someone else who tells another person. Eventually, the story gets all mixed up and the whole grade finds out and nobody knows what to believe anymore. Some people believe one thing and other groups of people believe another story. Nobody ever has all the facts. Rumors spread like wildfire around the school, people say things all the time without hesitation, or thinking about what the outcome of their actions could be. If it doesn’t concern them, all they think about is nothing, they think since it doesn’t concern them, why would they think twice before opening their mouth. 

A true high school story is never all sunshine and rainbows. It does not support, nor help you, nor make you smile. The people who spread rumors are the ones usually trying to get the attention off themselves and onto someone else, forget everyone else, as long as nobody is talking about you anymore, who cares, right? While that one person is home and upset, thinking why is this happening, you think of a solution, it’s to spread another fake rumor about someone else, and that’s how the cycle starts all over again, by one person not thinking about their actions. 

If a high school story seems happy, do not believe it. All it takes is for one fake friend, for one person who you thought you could trust, to plunge a sharp pointy knife in your back, all it takes is for one text message, one post on Snapchat for what will seem like the rest of your life, to be ruined. 

A true high school story starts when a rumor spreads about what someone wore to school or to a concert or to the mall or to dinner or to the movies or to the restaurant. It starts when another person has one mean thing to say and thinks that they have the right or feel the need to say something about someone or something that does not concern them in any way. Someone goes and tells another person, that time it was the truth, then that person goes and bends the truth while telling their best friend about what they heard. That process goes on and on until what really happened is not even in the conversation anymore, the truth is bent so much, the only person who knows what happened is that one person, but nobody knows what to believe anymore, it can even get that one person to believe something that’s not true actually happened. It eventually goes on to the girl getting hurt, she is upset crying in the bathroom at school or she is in her room at home all the time, too scared to go out anymore because of what the people at school did to her. They created a name for her, “The girl who can’t dress properly.” That girl thinks the only thing she can do is to spread more rumors, true or not, about the same people who spread a rumor about her. This is a sad and never ending cycle of what really goes on in high school. 

A true high school story really only comes to and end during summer, when people have three months to make more mistakes for people to talk about in September, some will be more talked about than others, some will not even be mentioned if you’re lucky, and some will be the thing everybody talks about, from September all the way until June, when summer starts again. 

You might think, “Oh no I would never do something like that,” or “I would never spread a rumor about someone,” but the sad truth is we all would, no matter who gets in our way and no matter who gets hurt in the process. 

A true high school story is facing the sad fact that high school students are ruthless and will stop at nothing to get what they want.