Hanging out in the halls of high school

When I was younger and in high school, one of my favorite places to be was the hallways of school.  This goes for all four high schools I attended throughout my high school career.  The first high school I went to was a very expensive, private school.  I only had the money to go there because of the trust fund my grandma left me.  I don’t remember if this made me feel like I fit in, but that was where I went for my freshman and half of my sophomore year.  I have memories of walking throughout the halls in between classes, whether I new them or not, whether I was friends with them or not. 

That school had some interesting halls to walk through- whether they be adorned by artwork or religious statues.  Recently I had found a video on YouTube about this school- it was made to show what a good place it is to attend.  Watching it almost made me nervous, the first time, because I had to leave the place after having a mental breakdown in the middle of my sophomore year.  I remember right after it calling an old friend and telling her I was going to attend her school soon.  I remember calling my old friend from the first high school and apologizing that I couldn’t give her a ride home on that fateful day. 

Sometimes after school my old friend and I, at the first school, hung out in the halls until we could get picked up.  One occasion when I actually ran throughout the halls was during track practice- that being one of the most exhilarating exercise experiences I’ve ever had in my whole life.  Maggie and me, after one of the track practices that we both went to before quitting, went to Old Orchard and hung out.  I remember sitting in the food court with her, her foot casually on my leg, which was the type of thing we did to connect. 

Sometimes I would hang out after school for no reason but to take the activities bus home and to see what was going on around school in the meantime.  Some people had swim practice, some people had stuff going on- but I usually found someone to hang out with in the meantime.  I remember hanging out in front of the cafeteria and sitting on the floor with the girl who I was kind of friends with, who had curly blonde hair and who was extremely Polish.  The other girl and boy that was with us were standing up, and she was punching him in the stomach while he endured this gesture of hate.  This was the same girl who made me take the bus home with her, even though she lived nearby, just so that I would have to take the bus home and then miss the activities bus, so that I had to call my mom later at night and get yelled at.  Me and Brenda went to her house, which was in an expensive neighborhood, and we entered to see her younger sister hanging out in the kitchen.  Then we went to her bedroom, and before/after that I saw her closet, which only had a few items of clothing in it, thought they looked like they were from expensive store I still wasn’t used to at the time, like Abercrombie and Fitch.  Then she showed me her bedroom, which I loved; I remember loving it, but I don’t remember exactly what it looks like, but I do remember it having the type of walls and ceiling that were arching, like angles, throughout the room.  She showed me her grammar school yearbook, and what I remember exclusively was the picture of a boy that went to our high school, I think I remember him being in a basketball picture.  I remember his eyes being red, although I don’t remember if the picture was in black or white or in color, I think it may have been in black and white, but his eyes stuck out to me.  Maybe it was just something in me that associated red eyes to him, a kid I just met yet I felt kind of friends with him- be that genuine or not.  This particular instance, of the picture of a kid in black and white (I think) yet with red eyes (in association with my memory and my perception of him) sticks out, because there was something similar, a similar depiction of a kid who went to both the first high school I went to, in addition to the last.  He looked like the boy in Brenda’s yearbook- black curly hair, the red eye thing going on (I associate both of them with red eyes; red eyes usually depict hate, a depiction of hell, what lies underneath the surface), and like the other picture, he was standing in a line, amongst more rows, in a team picture- I think Paul, the first kid I was talking about was in a basketball team photo, and the other one in a wrestling team photo.  I remember going through the Tuft yearbook a million times, seeing the picture of the kid with the wrestling team; also, he was in a picture with the lacrosse team, and in this last picture his poise was very confident, if I remember correctly- his chest was sticking out, and he had a look in his eyes that I used to associate him with (but not anymore, as time has passed, and things have changed). My point being, in the wrestling photo of him, Brendan looked extremely like Paul.  It makes me wonder if something in me wants me to associate the two people as something similar. 

Anyways, that was one thing I did after school- to take the bus home with a girl just to get in trouble with my mom for missing the activities bus.  Sometimes stuff happened during school in the halls which was just as interesting.  I remember freshman year gym class, me and the girls in my class would wait outside to be let into the locker room.  I have a memory of one time two or three girls I hardly knew hanging out, after a sleepover they had had recently.  The one girl was sitting on top of another and one of the three gave a pair of boxers to another one in the three, mentioning something about their sleepover (like, “Here are your boxers from Saturday night,”) and at that moment I felt left out, because these girls had just met, and they had already had a sleepover, which is something people only do when they are at least partially acquainted with each other.  It just made me wake up and realize I, at that point in my high school career, didn’t have any friends like that, that I felt as close to as did those girls.