There I was on the cold-hard ground against my rusted locker. It didn't feel right. That was the first time I went rogue in school.  A very long time since second grade when I really never could control my anger. I only did it because I stood up for my friends, and they didn’t deserve it. How did I get like this? Well, it goes all the way back to eighth grade.

It all started on a Friday afternoon in Ayersville Junior High School, and the traditional Washington D.C. trip was coming up that year. Students tried not to get suspended because if They did, then they were off of the D.C. trip, but we took the risk, expecting that we would succeed. It was Valentines’ Day that day, so there had to be a couple involved in this. There was a couple, we’ll call them Bob and Emma. One day Bob and Emma were one day just being a couple and hanging out with each other when all of the sudden, this guy(we’ll call him Adam for privacy reasons) Adam had been messing around with Bob’s girlfriend, who happened to not be ok with it. Bob had enough with Adam doing this all of the time, and that was where I came in.

Bob talked with one of my best friends in eighth grade at the time about it. His name for this will be Tony. Bob told Tony that they were planning to teach Adam a lesson by beating him up during recess. Being the good friend that he was, Tony told me about the beating, and I didn’t want to say “no” because this was my chance to broaden my horizons and collide with more new people whom I didn’t talk to much before. Being the type of kid I was in junior high, I agreed to take part in the fight.

We went to lunch and then recess when the fight would start. Our school schedule connected lunch time and recess time, so I couldn’t go to recess until I finished my lunch. I could stay at lunch the whole time and eat, which I did. I adored food in junior high. I always wanted to eat something, and I still do. That being said, I stayed at lunch a little bit to enjoy my food while being concerned about if I would make it to the fight, so I threw my tray in the trash and sprinted to recess.

Once at the doorway, I saw hordes of kids in the gym. Our junior high gym was small and it was winter time, so we couldn’t go outside that day. Anyway, I saw numbers of young teens, basketballs in the air going to the hoops, people running across the gym floor playing tag, the squeaking of shoes everywhere, and in the corner of my eye, I saw the boys yelling at Adam. I didn’t miss it! I approached them, and Bob took him by the arms and pulled him back, and Tony got a free hit across the face. Bob ended up throwing him to the wall. The guys and I high-fived and told him to not mess with Emma again. “We showed him!” one of Tony’s friends exclaimed.
As we walked out of the gym, seconds later, Adam came charging at Tony, stuck his hands out, made a huge sudden stop, and pushed him into the bleachers. “Tony, are you ok?” I shouted with no response from him.
The crowd stared at what they just witnessed. Adam stood there and watched it all unfold. I pumped my right fist in anger and grabbed Adam by his arms, used my foot to run into his, spun him in a three hundred and sixty degree angle, and  everyone heard in the hard gym floor a “KA-BLONK!” I stumbled Adam to the ground. I hustled back to the bleachers to see if Tony was ok. Seconds after, he said, “Thank you” as I carried him around my exhausted shoulder to our next class.

After the horrid fight, I knew Adam was out to get revenge, but I didn’t know when. Our next class, English, was finally over, and I walked the hallways hearing “Matt, you rock!” and “I have way more respect for you now!” It felt good, but I was still down. My last class of the day was history and I knew there was going to be trouble when Adam ended up a part of it and even worse, he sat right next to me.

While paying attention and learning about events from Mesopotamia, I heard a person close mumble, “You messed up, bro,” and my eyeballs raised in panic. The bell rang, and I headed to my untouched locker. As I was walking there, I felt a very high level of pain in the back of my head. I had been punched hard and flew into my locker with my bookbag loose around my back when I hit the ground. I was nearly knocked out. I turned around, and I saw Tony there for me as they staryed fighting near the end of the day. Unfortunately, they were fighting right in front of the principal’s office and were caught. The principal saw this happening, of course, and yelled across the hallway. “Tony and Adam, in my office now!” the principal exclaimed.

I never saw their faces for the rest of the day after they went to the office. The next day, I was headed to my locker and walked passed the office door frame on the way to it. As I passed by, Tony opened the door, took a few steps out,  and said only three words to me: “I got suspended.”

Later that day, I felt so guilty for Tony because I was the reason he was going to miss the Washington D.C. trip. Since all of this occurred, I nearly threw up with all of the guilt in my body. As I walked in the principal’s office to tell the secretary that I was going home, Tony was sitting there, so I sat down next to him, mumbling and weeping,  “I’m so sorry, Tony. It’s all my fault.”

“It’s OK, Matt. Have fun,” he whispered dramatically as I walked outside the school. I sadly went home because my best friend had been suspended for a week and would miss the Washington D.C. trip. I didn’t worry because Adam was kicked off the trip, too. Oh, and Tony ended up going to D.C. himself rather than with our grade on the bus. Adam and I are more civil now and learned how to handle each other; however, I will never forget that day of the fight.

“So that’s why you’re not sitting with him?” my current friend Caleb questionably interrupted.
“Yeah. That and I wanted to play cards,” I quickly responded.
“Alright,” Caleb added. “One more game, and then we’ll go see the Washington Monument”
I agreed, “Sounds good to me.”  I grabbed my Faygo soda; the doors opened, and we stepped off the bus. When we approached the gates, a not-so-far tour guide approached our group and exclaimed, “Welcome to Washington D.C.!”