It takes a long time for a person to build trust. Would you trust me enough to agree with this statement?

What if I told you that it takes only seconds to destroy that trust that you have spent God knows how long to create. Well, it’s true. I’ve experienced the rapid destruction of trust first hand, and I’m going to tell you my story in hopes that you won’t make the same mistake as I did. Don’t mess with trust; it’s a very powerful companion to have.

Throughout my short life, people have always thought me to be a very trustworthy person. My friends and family could always depend on me to keep a good secret out of other people’s ears, I was always trusted to be a good baby sitter, and I’m trusted to housesit while my mom visits relatives in California. It took me years to build this trust; obtained simply by being a good person, an honest person, a trustworthy person. It’s actually not that hard of a task, you just have to be a good truth teller, or someone that is really good at lying. The only challenge is the time factor, as I’ve explained earlier it takes a long time to get someone to trust you.
I guess you could say that I had always been sort of a goody-good. I was always the kid with excellent grades. My teachers had respect for me. I didn’t drink, I didn’t smoke cigarettes, and I certainly wasn’t the type to do drugs. I was living above the influence as all those anti-drug commercials would say. I was me, and I didn’t feel the need to change.
It was my freshman year at Nooksack Valley High School, it was 2006. It was a new school, and there were new opportunities to be discovered. No one had warned me about the drastic amount of change though. Not only did I go from having 3 teachers to 8, but all my friends were different.
High school wasn’t like the movies say it is. There aren’t really the “cliques.” Well, not as much anyway. Sure you had your “preppies”, but they weren’t smart like preps are supposed to be. They were a mix of the jocks, the cheerleaders, and the athletic nerds. There was also the “geeks.” These were the huge fans of Halo, of Guitar Hero, of pretty much anything related to video games and Metallica (I think they only liked this band because they felt it made them look more like bad kids, but this was not true. Anyone who changes themselves to try and fit in is definitely not a bad kid.)
When I got to high school I quickly found myself being juggled between the groups. Some of my old friends were now considered the emos (emotional people), some the hicks, and others quickly got accepted into the caste system of the high school. My then best friend was now friends with most seniors and everyone in between (being because his brother had already set-up a good name for them.) Then there I was, looking for some niche to fit in like every other freshman before me.
That’s when I saw the golden opportunity. To be “cool” that is. I found that in order to achieve this respect, I would need to be someone that was pretty much the opposite of someone you think would get respect. I needed to drink, I needed to smoke, and I needed to do drugs. I thought “Wow, how easy! This is all I will need to become cool.” But boy was I wrong, and boy did it ever come with consequences.
It all started in the fall. My grades began slipping, and my behavior had changed. I was hanging out with new people, new “friends.” They smoked, they drank, and most of them did drugs
On the night of the last football game, I got invited to a party. I thought about it, and said, “Sure why not?” It’s not like I had anything interesting to do that night. And besides, I felt like I might as well get my first party out of the way.
That was not the first night in which I had tried alcohol. It was more like the 4th time or so, the most memorable time before that being when we had gone to California one summer to visit my grandma.
One night after she got home from work, she sat down with her plate of Doritos and cheddar cheese, along with a tall can of Budweiser. This was her nightly routine after work. She had almost finished her Budweiser when she noticed my eyes gazing away at the tall red and white can. “Would you like to try some?” She asked. Without giving much thought to the fact that I was only a 6th grader.
I said, “Sure,” Neglecting the fact that beer was most certainly poisonous, and that my mother would no doubt be furious with me if she found out.
I hesitated for a moment, remembering that I had no idea what this would taste like. I first took a whiff of the cool vapors coming from lid; the smell to this day is still indescribable. Then, I pressed the cold can to my dried lips and let a miniscule amount of the liquid find its way passed my teeth to my tongue. The taste was horrible, and I quickly found myself wondering how anyone could enjoy the taste of alcohol. I soon had a slight head ache, and my face began to burn a little. As if someone was breathing on my cheek.
I questioned my grandmother, asking her “How can you like that stuff?”
She quickly answered back, “You just get used to it.”
Jump back to my first party, my first night getting drunk, my first night puking my guts out, (along with 30 Altoids,) all over my favorite jeans and my friend’s sister’s recliner.
While I gained new “friends,” I lost my real ones. They were noticing my changes, and they weren’t happy. They were okay with the drinking and such (because they did it too), but let’s face it, I was pretty much turning into a jerk.
Jump to November 2006. I was pretty deep into the transformations by now, and it was fun. Well, for me at least. My “best friend” and I were hanging out in my living room thinking of what to do. It was another one of those boring Monday afternoons. It had been a long day at school, and we wanted something fun to do. Then, I had a “brilliant” idea. “Why not steal some cash from my mom’s stash?” I thought. I asked my buddy what he thought, and being the greedy little jerk with not a care in the world he said, “Heck yea dude.”
So I reached into the back of the wooden drawer. Sure enough, there it was. I was actually quite surprised that that little white envelope was still duct-taped to the roof of the drawer. It was actually a pretty ingenious hiding space my mom had thought of, or should I say, it had been.
Inside the slightly wrinkled and taped-up envelope were crisp bills. They were not dollar bills, not five dollar bills, not even twenty dollar bills; these were $50 and $100 bills. Never in my life had I held this much money in my hands. Now I knew why there was so much greed in the world, cold hard cash just felt too good when laid out across the palm of your hand.
So, without much thought or hesitation, I decided to take two of the $100 bills.
Then I had another brilliant idea, “Why not go to the mall with all this glorious money?” It’s not like my mom would know that I left for a little while, she being in California at the time and all. So we started walking to the bus stop.
We reached the bus stop in almost no time at all. I looked at the bus schedule and realized we still had about 20 minutes to kill. I looked at the coffee shop right next door “Master’s Blend” the sign read. I was feeling a little parched, and we did have the cash. Plus I figured it would be a good time to try out the new coffee shop.
I purchased the most expensive coffee on the menu, in the biggest size. I also paid for an extra 6 shots of caffeine for my coffee and two for my friend’s. Along with the coffees I also bought us each a giant cookie.
As we stood at the bus stop, patiently awaiting the arrival of our transportation, I actually began thinking to myself, “What was I doing?” My mind went entirely blank for a moment, and then I noticed the little white and green bus making its way down Main Street.
“Dude, our ride is here!” My friend exclaimed excitedly. He was sort-of shouting, due to the fact that I couldn’t here him over my spacing out.
The bus ride felt as if it took years, if not decades. And the smells on the bus, no one ever tells you about the “Public” smells featured on public transportation. Like a mixture of very heavily used ashtrays, and one of those reststop restrooms. It was my first time using public transportation, and hopefully my last.
Once at the Bellis Fair Mall, I felt a sort-of sign of relief. I had made it this far already, what’s the worst that could happen?
We were at the mall for only about a half-hour before I realized I had almost blew through all the cash. I know what you’re thinking, “That fast?” It’s actually not too hard; the trick is just to buy anything that catches your eye. And for a 14-year-old, almost everything seems to do that.
It only took me a half-hour, but we managed to stay entertained at the mall for 3 hours. I think I was just afraid to go home, I was afraid there would most definitely be punishment waiting for me there.
It was 6:00 PM. The bus had finally arrived back to the bus stop on Main Street in Everson. My friend said goodbye, and off I was back to my house. About 10 minutes later I arrived at my neighborhood. I began walking towards our rickety old wooden green gate when I realized that my mom had come home. “Uh oh.” I thought, as I quickly changed my direction, heading towards my back yard instead. I was planning to use “my” entrance, which was the back door of our house which is directly connected to my room. Seeing as if I were to walk through my living room, my mom was bound to notice the large black and red Hot Topic bag grasped in my hand. She would without a doubt ask me something along the lines of, “You went shopping? Where’d you get the money?”
Sure enough these were the exact words she asked me when I got home. Yes, my back door plan would have worked perfectly, if my door hadn’t of been locked. So I had to face the dreaded scenario I had not prepared myself for.
So I walked down our small cement driveway towards our crappy green gate. I say “crappy” because we have made “repairs” to it like 16 times. I said hello to my dogs, like a gentleman, and proceeded to the front door. Right when I walked in, before I had even brought both of my feet into the house me mom asked me, “Where have you been?”
I told her, “I was hanging out at the mall with Steven.” And quickly, before she could ask me why I had the bag I quickly gave an answer to that. “In case you’re wondering why I have this Hot Topic bag, it’s because I worked at Steven’s grandma’s house today. We got done early so Steven decided to ask his mom for a ride to the mall.”
She said “Oh.” I could tell she knew something was up.
The next morning was pretty quiet. The only word my mom spoke to me that morning was when I was walking out the door. She said, “Goodbye.”
I could definitely tell that something was up. I wondered to myself, “How could she know? I didn’t sound that suspicious, did I?” I proceeded to wonder throughout the school day, and managed to arrive at an answer during science. I hadn’t provided a good alibi. The mistake I had made was telling her that Steven’s mom had given us a ride to the mall. She knew that this could not have been true, because she knew that Steven’s mother went to work on Monday. She had caught the mistake, and she was going to prove that I didn’t get the money from working.
For the rest of the day I couldn’t concentrate on anything other than the punishment I was going to receive for this. I had never gotten grounded before, so I was not prepared for a real punishment. Honestly, I was quite frightened.
After school, I decided get off of my bus when it reached the Middle School. I had made plans to buy my friends pizza. Not really an act of generosity as it wasn’t my money, and I just didn’t want to go home yet so I was buying myself some free time. But sure enough my mom was driving down the road and she stopped. “Get in the car, now!” She yelled through the window.
I had no choice, I had to get in. I said goodbye to my friends, and I told them I was sorry for making them waste their time by getting off at the middle school.
My mom had managed to figure everything out. She had noticed that I said Steven’s mom had given us a ride, when she was really at work. (She even called Steven’s mom and asked her to back-up that fact.) My mom had also known that I took her money. She had checked her drawer and counted the bills. I hadn’t noticed that she had been keeping very detailed tabs on how much money was left by writing the deposits and withdrawals on the envelope.
I was royally screwed. Not only did I receive a “grounding,” and a lecture about stealing, but she also told me that I was going to see a therapist. Apparently she had found my stash. This stash included 3 cans of MGD, 1 small bottle of Crown Royal, an emptied bottle of wine (fancy), and a bottle of vodka. All this made her think that I was depressed, which was not the case. But I guess that is what the therapy was for. I guess my mom was scared that I would end up like my sister. (She attempted suicide in the girl’s bathroom at my school. But, luckily, she was cut down from the noose by a teacher.)
I got out of the therapy after only two sessions, convincing my therapist that I was cured. There was no way a shrink was going to be able to crack my noggin open, and besides, there’s was nothing that the guy needed to know. It’s not like I was depressed or anything. (Interesting Fact: I’ve heard that the Irish are not susceptible to psychotherapy.)
But apparently now I’m cured, and I learned many valuable lessons from my freshman year. To this day I don’t think my mom fully trusts me, I’m not sure if she ever will. Don’t mess with someone’s trust in you, it will come back and bite you in the butt.