The Wrong Thing to Do
“Let’s go!”, Jimmy said. “Yeah! We are gonna do this!” And then we made one of the biggest mistakes of our lives.
Four months ago, I went home after an exhausting Friday at Kinder High School. It was almost 7 p.m. when my parents called me to dinner. They were waiting on me with my favorite food, a delicious pasta with cheese sauce. I ate like my stomach was a bottomless pit, and I was ready to go sleep when I finished . Then my parents started to talk, and after two long hours I was shocked. I tried to argue with them, but I could not do anything. We were going to move to Detroit the following week.
I went to bed that night and I could not sleep. I thought the whole night. What would I, from a small town in Louisiana, do in a giant city like Detroit? I did not have an answer. I was afraid – – afraid of what I was going to find there.
The week passed and we arrived in Detroit. While my dad was driving to our new house, I looked at the city by the window, and I hated it. Detroit was a dirty old city, with many old buildings, destroyed and abandoned, with a lot of poverty. People were living on the streets,under the bridges and marquees, asking for food and money at all of the traffic signs. “We are almost there,” my dad said, and we left the highway and entered in a quiet neighborhood called Delray.
Delray was a middle class neighborhood surrounded by industrial warehouses on the outskirts of Detroit. It was not so beautiful, but was better than the rest of the city. After driving a few more blocks, we arrived at our new home. It was a white wood house with a beautiful garden just a few block away from my new school. It was very pretty, but was nothing compared to my old house in Kinder. After seeing my room, the second largest in the house – – we had just two – – my dad walked with me to my new school, Cristo Rey High School. It was a huge high school, with almost two thousand students, and it was beautiful. I loved it; everything was modern and new. In that moment, I thought I could be very happy there, but I was wrong.
I went to school on Monday with high expectations. My first classes of the day were great, but then came lunch. I did not have anyone to sit with, and I felt alone. It was hard for me, as I was a very shy boy, and I did not make friends easily. After this sad time, I went back to my last classes and then went home. This routine continued for 3 weeks, until a terrible Friday in January.
I was going home after another day alone at my school. I turned a corner and bumped into someone. His name was Brad, a strange guy from my school that no one knew anything about. I apologized, but he kept looking at me. Then he pushed me and I fell to the ground. Afraid, I just ran. When I arrived home, I ran to my bedroom and locked the door. My parents knew that something was wrong, and they tried to ask me, but I did not answer. That guy scared me, and I was afraid of what he would do to me.
The weekend passed, and I had forgotten what had happened that day. I went to school normally, and I did not see Brad. At lunchtime, I met two guys, Jimmy and Gabe. Jimmy was a funny guy; he was always telling us new jokes. Gabe was shy like me, and he loved to read; everywhere he went, he carried a book with him. I started to hang out with them, and I was finally feeling like I was adapting to my new school.
After a couple weeks of having fun with them, Brad showed up at the school. He did not talk with me, but he was always staring at me. I went home that day, alone as always, and I was scared to find Brad on the way. I turned the corner, and there he was! He was waiting for me, waiting to take revenge with me. He pushed me, but on that day I could not get away. He hit me. He picked me up and pushed me again, this time into a bush full of thorns. He left me there. He did this to me every week, and I tried to change my route, but he always found me. He knew where I lived.
That moment I knew that I needed to do something. I could not let him do that to me, and I knew that I needed to ask for help. I thought about my parents, but I was ashamed. I did not want to tell them, even though it was the right thing to do. So I decided to tell my friends. Jimmy and Gabe were shocked about this’;they did not know that I went through this every single day. “Let’s hit him! Let’s hurt him more than he already did with you!” Jimmy said. “Yes!” Gabe agreed. But I did not know if we could do that, if we could beat him. Even though I did not know if we could make it, I agreed to. We were going to do it.
After the class we met in front of the school. “Let’s go!”, Jimmy said. “Yeah, we are gonna do this!”, and we started to walk. We were confident, even though he was bigger than us, we were a group of three and we could beat him. We turned the corner, and there he was, waiting for me. But on that day I had company. I had someone to help me. He was surprised, but he thought he could beat us, and he was wrong. We three ran up to him, and while he tried to hit one of us, the other two were hitting him more. We were winning, until we heard something strange. It was a siren. The cops were there.
In that time I thought I was fucked, and I was right. The cops took us all to the police department, and my parents were there. I was ashamed. They looked at me with disappointment. I did not wanted to do this to them. That was one of the reasons that I did not tell them before. But I should have told them. That was the right thing to do.
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Leaving
I was looking through the window and a lot of feelings came to my mind. Happiness, fear, sadness and joy played with me. It would be a special day for me, and certainly one of the most difficult of my entire life.
On the way to the airport everything looked normal. I was trying to relax, not thinking about the moment, just living my last moments with them. Everyone else was doing the same. My mom listened to music and reminded me of all the funny moments of my childhood; my dad drove quietly as always, and my brother and I were playing Uno in the back of the car. In that moment I thought, who will miss me more? My mom, dad or brother? None of them. It was my girlfriend. Of course my parents and my little brother would miss me a lot, but she would be more forlorn.
It was a hard time for her. Her dad had just lost his job and was always fighting with her. It was the end of her last school year and she needed to do the college entrance exams that are almost impossible for Brazilian students, and I wouldn’t be there to calm her and help her as I did in the past year.
We arrived in the airport and no one was there yet, just me and my family. I was very nervous, my hands were shaking and sweating. I was like that because it would be all my myself in the next 24 hours. I would travel around the world, to places that I’ve never been, alone. What if I get lost in the airport? What if I miss the flight? — these were just some of the questions I had on my mind, but I didn’t ask anyone. I wanted to look calm and prepared, to tranquilize my parents and everyone else.
A few minutes later my girlfriend and her family arrived at the airport. All of my other friends would not come; they had classes on that afternoon and couldn’t miss them. But my girlfriend missed. She was there, helping me through all that, making me smile and laugh, making me happy. She looked very good that time, wasn’t sad or anything, even though it would be our last time together for the year.
So after checking in and eating a little snack, it was time to go – time to say goodbye. In that moment everyone saw that I would miss them. I didn’t want to say bye; all day I had been talking about something else to forget that. But I needed to do it. I needed to say goodbye to all the people I love, that I wouldn’t see for the next 365 days. So I did it. No one cried; everyone tried to look tough, but all the hugs that I gave them were as long as I could, as strong as I could, to never forget it. I thought it would be easy, and after all the hugs I hadn’t cried. But then it was time to walk through the door. The door that would separate us, and will bring us together after one year. That moment, that moment was the hardest one. I couldn’t see them anymore, and I realized that I would be alone after that. I wouldn’t have anyone to help me. So I started crying. Crying like a baby that misses his mom, misses his family.