My High School Sweetheart Was A Sick-Hearted Villain
By: Alisha Baxter
Tags: Life Lessons, Life, Sexual Assault, Relationships, Mental Health

I believe two kinds of people exist in the world — people who had a great time in high school and people who had some traumatic experiences during high school.

I belong to the latter.

All the hormones at that age make it unlikely to experience anything less than an emotional roller coaster. Life before high-school seems like butterflies and rainbows. Coolness and the strife for acceptance by peers are the biggest priorities in the survival guide to being a teenager.

It is the period of many firsts — crushes, relationships, dates, friendships, fights, failures, victories, and for the unfortunate, some abuse.

What happens in high school stays in high school. NOT!

Every experience at that age is vital and stays with you for life. Good or bad.

Good Girl Gone Rogue

I was a wallflower. Not too popular, not active in sports or any other activities, not a part of any club either. I was just an average, nerdy, obedient kid who did not have big dreams.

It was in grade 9 that I was first asked out by a senior and did not know how to process it. I also did not know if I should talk about it to my parents because having a boyfriend was a loud NO for my strict brown parents. Breaking their rules or distractions from academics was terrifying for me.

They still believed in corporal punishment and would get creative with whatever was at arm’s reach — ruler, slippers, hairbrush, ladle. Afraid of beatings, I stayed away from boys and locked away any feelings or crushes. A good set of friends made me feel content.

A year of my average life went by, and I was now in grade 10. “This is the most important academic year of your life.”, they said. Only if I got a dollar, for every time I heard this in my life.

Academics got more challenging, and my schedule got tighter. In the middle of the year, my friends started boycotting me because they heard rumors that I got around with countless boys.

“But I don’t even know all the boys from this rumor.”, I scoffed in disappointment. I thought that we were going to be best friends forever.

There was nobody I could talk to or cry to about this — definitely not my parents. I lost the one thing I had going on for me. Going to school felt like a prison sentence, and my loneliness made me realize they weren’t good friends.

Not so scared of suffering at home anymore, I started bunking classes, failing tests, and talking back at home — a little rebel without a cause. I wasn’t going to be miss-goody-two-shoes anymore, breaking bad doing whatever felt wrong but still stayed far-off from my male contemporaries.

For Better and For Worse

Two Important Events that Changed my Life

Siri, a classmate who I barely spoke to in one and a half years, moved to my neighborhood. We started hanging out to play badminton and eventually started copying each other’s homework and talking about school and boys. Before we knew it, she became an essential part of my life.

As different as the north and south poles, yet so similar. What brought us close was our mutual lack of friends. I thought I was an introvert until I met her. She was a bigger wallflower. We continued being shy and awkward together.

It was also around this time that our teacher Miss Starlet announced that Jayden, a boy from my class, had a congenitally defective heart and underwent surgery for it.

“Treat him well, and don’t bully him.”, she said.

Jayden was one of the popular kids at school. He had the bad boy vibes and was somewhat of a bully himself, which for some reason, attracts girls. In retrospect, he was just a noticeably short boy, awfully pretentious and mean. However, I was not immune to it back then.

My feelings for him grew stronger when he asked me out one day. Not accustomed to getting male attention, I immediately fell for him, and we started dating in secret.

In secret because firstly, I did not want my parents to find out, and secondly, he did not want anybody from school to know (probably a red flag that I was too blind to notice then).The only person who knew about this relationship besides the two of us was Siri. We never went on dates or did anything together in public.

He devised a plan to spend time together after school hours when nobody could see us. I would tell my parents that I was with the tutor after school and stayed back, and Jayden would ask me to meet him in a classroom where all he wanted to do was make out. He taught me how to kiss by shoving his tongue down my throat.

Inexperienced to such pleasures and sensations, I agreed to this daily make out routine. However, we never spoke about anything. Every day, I would go back to Siri to give her the details — deets, as she called them.

One day, while winding up our little session, Jayden said to me, with a devilish smile on his face, “My parents won’t be home tomorrow. Wanna come?”. How could I say no to those deep brown eyes?

Overwhelmed with joy and anxiety, I ran to Siri to give her the news. She immediately gave me a piece of her mind for being so vulnerable to poor treatment. Yet, she agreed to go with me.

Black-Letter Day

I woke up with mixed feelings but mostly frightened. That day in school got over in a haze. Despite me feeling the heebie-jeebies, Jayden refused to acknowledge my existence as usual. My low self-worth made me ignorant of such suspicious behavior.

After school, Siri and I anxiously walked over to Jayden’s house. Both his parents, doctors, were always out on duty, and his building was infamous because of his gang.

I rang the doorbell with my heart in my mouth, standing like nuns waiting to enter hell. The door swung by, and there he was. An instant sense of ease took over as he invited us inside.

It only lasted for a couple of minutes.

All the guys from school that our parents warned us about were there. We were like the Red Riding Hood in the Big Bad Wolf’s den. Everyone stopped playing PlayStation, or eating pizza, to catcall and tease Jayden. My anxiety doubled, making me super uncomfortable. One glance at Siri and I realized she was too. Jayden took us to the couch and gave us sodas. The introvert meters in us were probably erratic.

“Would you mind if I steal her for a while?” he asked Siri while holding my hand. She hesitantly shook her head. I checked with her again.

“Siri, are you sure you’ll be OK?”

“Yes. I’ll be fine. You be careful.”

Reluctantly, I left her on the couch, unguarded, while Jayden took me into his bedroom.

He shut the door, held me by my waist, and began French kissing me. Only this time, I wasn’t feeling it. I tried to push him away by saying that I should check up on Siri. He reassured that everything was fine and gently took me to his bed.

He started unbuttoning my blouse, pushed aside my bra strap, and cupped my breasts. All sorts of alarms were going off in my head. Afraid that he might realize I’m not cool enough for him, I pretended to remain calm. Although, my limbs felt numb like somebody had tied me down.

Is this supposed to feel sexy? I was shaking.

Finally, I felt relaxed when he stopped fondling my breasts. Then promptly, he started pulling up my skirt and running his hands on my inner thighs.

THAT’S IT!

I quickly gathered all my strength, and pushed him away as far as possible, adjusted my bra and blouse while I ran to Siri. Poor Siri, she looked as traumatized as me in between those hungry jackals.

I could tell she was also glad to leave.

Series of Escalating Misery

The next day in school was excruciating on so many levels because neither did I tell anyone what happened there, not even Siri, nor could I stop thinking about it.

Despite feeling violated, I dreaded to end things with Jayden. That day, instead of meeting with him after school, I went home.

Little did I know that another catastrophe was waiting to happen.

My mom was patiently waiting for me with a stick and welcomed me home with an ambush. Jayden’s neighbor, a stay-at-home mom (let’s call her Karen, for obvious reasons), saw us run out of his house with a partially buttoned blouse and babbled everything to my mother.

Side Note:- Let me tell you something about jobless, middle-aged women, who like putting their noses where they don’t belong. They have the surveillance capacities of the CIA and all the time in their hands, which makes them the most dangerous undercover agents.

Misconduct and brown parents are the perfect recipe for an enormous fuss.

Even though my father whipped me with his belt as punishment, what hurt me more was that they forbid me from meeting Siri until final exams because they thought she was a bad influence. We still found ways to hang out but swore to never talk about that day ever again.

The following days in school were worse. Guess who wasn’t ashamed to address me in public anymore. Yes, the same sick rascal who didn’t even have a fully functional heart, to begin with -Jayden!

Slut-Shaming

He started openly slut-shaming me, and I found out that he approached me in the first place because he heard the same rumors as my first group of friends. Clearly, he only showed interest in me because he thought I was an easy target, and he was not wrong. My gullibility led me to an incident that deeply affected my life.

School rumors spread like wildfire, and most often, it comes around to you after each person has added their zest to the story. The whispers about me were — “ She charmed her way into his bedroom, seduced him to have sex, got pregnant, wrongfully accused him of rape, and got an abortion.”

WOW! What soap opera were they writing for? Am I right?

Like a game of Chinese whispers, there were many versions of the gossip, none in my favor. I was bullied by some, patronized by others, but branded by all as the school floozy. Siri was my solitary cheerleader through it all and shielded me from skepticism.

My Rainbow After the Storm

Twelve years have passed since this conflict, I have gathered a lot of happy memories along the road, yet the wound feels fresh. I wish I could tell my parents about the day that still haunts me, but I decided I shouldn’t remind them about the shame I caused them.

Things could’ve gotten far worse that day, and that’s what frightens me the most. Even though I wasn’t harmed physically, high school heavily damaged me on an emotional level.

It was only recently that Siri and I finally opened up about that day. We cried a little because the trauma sneaked back on us, but laughed more at the blown up “scandal” and how stupid we were back then.

High school was, without a doubt, disastrous for me, but I gained the one thing I will never let go — Siri. She is still my most reliable friend, confidant, and trusted pal to this date, and will be forever.

And Jayden? He’s still a short, arrogant, snobby teenager stuck in an adult’s body, who hasn’t had a life after high school.