A true high school story starts with the panic and anxiety that flows through us as soon as we hear a loud noise. It's the way our senses heighten as the adrenaline floods through our veins. Our thoughts quickly turn to the terrifying possibility of what could loom large in the hallways. A true high school story is the one that robs us of our innocence and taints our sense of security, staying with us like a deep, deep, scar. It's the way our eyes dart accusingly at every stranger's face, at every abrupt movement, and at every unexpected noise, making us feel on guard all the time.

You can tell a true high school story by the way the hallways are filled with kids who have only one Airpod in, so that can can listen to music, but, they can also hear what conversations are taking place around them, and keeping alert and praying to God they don't hear any unwanted sounds, or having both Airpods in but having the music all the way down to volume 1 or no sound at all, or the way they speed walk, or the way they walk with their heads up to confirm their surroundings. You can tell a true high school story by the way we’re equipped on what to do during a lockdown drill. The way our bodies instinctively get up and move to the corner of the room, how we sit there, in the dark, in silence, sitting side by side on the floor, staring at each others faces, holding our breath as if preparing for the day the speakers say “This is NOT a drill” instead of “The lock down drill is now over, students may proceed to their classes.” 

A true high school story isn't picking the seat that's closest to the cold air conditioning so that you can cool down after gym class, or the one in the corner where you can go on your phone or take a nap without the teacher noticing. Instead, a true high school story is about walking in on the first day and picking the seat that'll have the easiest escape. It's picking the seat which will give you direct access to jump out the window in case of an emergency, or the one where you can run out of the classroom with nothing coming in between. It's picking the seat where you can see clearly out the window, see who's going in and out, and the one where you can see down the hallway, see who's walking, see who they're talking to, see what they're wearing and what they are carrying. 

But a true high school story never ends. The fear and anxiety we grow accustomed to never goes away, nor does the discomfort when we see someone we don't know or hear something we don't like. A true high school story isn't about learning, or socializing, or about the competitive Friday night football games during the last days of summer, or the dances, or the parties, or the crushes at all. A true high school story is about the underlying fear and trauma that injects itself into our bloodstream on the first day of kindergarten. And like a deep, deep scar, it never leaves.