Starting at a new school was both exciting and nerve racking at the same time, but I was ready.
I remember being worried that because this school was for “troubled” kids that it was going to be more drama than school. It wasn’t though. Well at least not at first. When you have a school that is mostly teenage girls (very few boys attended Hopevale back than it’s shut down now but before they closed up shop it had very much become co-ed from what I heard) and most of them live there things can get a little hectic.
I never fit in really any place so I didn’t expect to fit in here either. I hadn’t really made any friends and I was okay with it. I did however find teachers that I instantly clicked with. The first few weeks went smooth with little to know issues from me at all. I was slowly finding my place and getting to know people.
I still didn’t really have any friends so to speak. Most of these girls lived here so it wasn’t like we could hang out after school or talk on the phone or anything. During school hours though I had found a few people to sit and chat with.
I had quickly learned that a lot of these girls had pushed boundaries I didn’t dream of walking close to. They had been kicked out of school after school or arrested multiple times and me well I had been kicked out of school and gotten in to fights but I hadn’t been so out of control that I had gotten into legal troubles.
Okay that’s not completely true at this point my mother had put me on PINNS (person in need of supervision) but it really wasn’t a big deal. I had to meet with my PINNS officer once and a while, go to school, tell my mom where I was and keep my shit together in places that required it or deal with getting yelled at and threatened to be locked up.
At this point drugs were already an active part of my life and in the lives of the girls around me, so we had that much in common when it came to things we did that we shouldn’t be doing.
At this point though both academically and socially I was doing better than before which was a good thing. As all good things do though this too would soon come to an end as not only would I begin with my old tricks I would evolve into some new ones.
“Beginning is easy; continuing, hard. ” -Unknown
