I did it! | Teen Ink

I did it!

May 17, 2023
By Nakiyah, Nashville, Tennessee
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Nakiyah, Nashville, Tennessee
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Author's note:

my story was inspired by the movie Megan 

Hi, my name is Jaleah and today is July 23, 2021. You're about to hear about the worst day of my life. The worst day of my life as a child. I will soon be saying my final goodbyes to my best friend. Kingston has been my best friend since we were in diapers and now, he is gone. The only person who understood me. My walking diary. I’m so scared and lost without him. What am I supposed to do without him? I just don’t understand why.  
As we walk into the funeral, my stomach is crumbling. I can't face this horrible tragedy; it is so unreal. While walking to the casket I freeze. How am I going to face this trauma? I am so young I can’t do this. As I approach the casket, I just break down crying and screaming “why? Why would you leave me? You're too young to be laying in this casket in front of me. Why did you give up on me like this? It was supposed to be us forever.” My mom wants me to sit down, but I can’t. He seems to be lonely there alone. I can’t let him feel alone.  
I eventually took a seat with my mom and Kingston's mom Brittany. She and my mom have been best friends since elementary school. They may bump heads every now and then, but they ride or die for each other. And their kids at the most. We are all devastated by this. He was a good person. Never hurt anyone and always put a smile on everyone’s face in his presence. I am so hurt; I just want to go home now. I can't take this no more. I just want him back please.  
Now we're on the way to bury him. This is when it will all be true and final. No go backs just final goodbyes. I will never be the same after this day. I am trying to stay strong for him though. He wouldn’t want me to cry, but how can I not. I feel like I must start over, and I have never had to start over alone. I always start over with Kingston. I never did anything without him. My mom says, “Hey love, do you want me to hold you?” I didn’t want to cry anymore, and I knew that hold was going to make me cry even harder.  I proceeded to say, “yes mama please.” I needed her and I know she needed me. He was like the second child that she didn’t give birth to.  
As we pulled up to the burial she proceeded to let go and that is how I knew it was time. I just wanted to go home at this point. This is getting too real. I wish I could wake up out of this dream. Why is it so true? Why did this have to happen to us? Why didn’t God wait a little longer? Maybe a heads up would have helped. These are all the thoughts going through my head as I walk beside his casket. I constantly whisper, “I am so sorry Kinston.” The Eulogist says the prayer over the casket while they are lowering it into the ground. I whispered, “goodbye bestie” and continued to walk off. I couldn’t watch them bury him. This hurts so bad.  
In two weeks, I start my freshman year of high school. I have never gone to school without Kingston. Now I have no choice but to. I am going to an entirely different school, alone. How am I supposed to continue my life and Kingston couldn’t. It doesn’t feel right or fair, but I know that’s what he would have wanted. He wouldn’t have wanted me stuck in one stage of life because he is gone. He would tell me “Your bigger than that. You don’t let anyone stop the show in your life.” He never allowed me to fall behind or lose myself. No matter what may have happened ten minutes ago, keep going. I learned that from him.  My life is so questionable now.  

“Goodmorning sunshine” says dad while waking me up for my first day of school. “Goodmorning dad” I replied with in a mopping mood. I don’t know what to expect today. I don’t expect to have fun though. It's definitely going to be an interesting day for me. I have to make new friends, meet new teachers, learn how to get around school, and maybe more unexpected things. I am not looking forward to this at all. I just want to go back to sleep personally. I can't believe things have to be like this. I feel like an only child, even though I have always been an only child.  
As I got ready, I decided to listen to music to keep up with the time and give myself energy. I’m very drowsy this morning and I had to fix it somehow. I continue to read all my inspirational notes to think positively before walking out of this house. Having to do this may sound like too much, but I enjoy it. I love showing my love to myself. I deserve every bit of it. Call me a try hard, call me extra, whatever. I love what I do and how I do it. It keeps me pushing through the day.  
“Come eat before we leave Jaleah!” shouts mom. “Yes ma’am, coming now!” I proceed to finish touching up my hair before going down. My mom cooked my favorite breakfast, French toast sticks with bacon and eggs. My eggs must be scrambled. As I began to fix my food, I could feel the vibe in the room was a little weird. Everyone didn’t know rather to be worried or excited about me going to high school. I understand they care, but geez give me a break with the worrying. I continue my day and eat my breakfast. I am trying to keep my eye on the price. I can't fold today, no crying. I will be fine as long as I keep my positive attitude and mind set. It's hard though when everyone in the room is being so cautious and weird waiting on my daily breakdown. Like if I am being normal, so can they. It is a big day, and I can’t be a baby about it. I am going to ignore it all in the best way possible for me.  
As mom drops me off at school she proceeds to say “have a good day love bug. Call me if you need me. I love you!” I responded “okay, I love you and be safe.” As I walk into the school, I put my air pods in and take deep breaths. “This is going to go with a breeze no worries. Today will be a great day.” I think to myself. I was hoping to find at least one friend within my first week of school. Yes, I understand talking to myself is weird, but who else can I talk to? It actually helps me stay away from the therapy options.  
I walk in English class, and everyone is staring. I ignore it through and proceed to fight the urge to say or do anything dumb. Even though why stare? We are all new freshmen. I go and sit down at the first available seat I see. I didn’t want to be standing for too long. I gave everyone enough to look at. I was one of the few first to come to class. I sit and wait to see if anyone would be willing to sit beside me. Sadly, no one did. Sitting alone means your weird or crazy. I’m not either one of them, no one will know that though because I am as normal as it gets.  
How does everyone already have friends? I feel like the only one without a friend within’ this entire school building. I am not going to let this ruin my day. If someone wants to be myself, we will be friends eventually. I don’t need to rush it anyways. I want a good friend. Someone that always means well. I want to stay out of the drama all four years. I don’t need to worry about boys at all. Boys cause girl drama sometimes as well.  
At this point, I have made it through half the day. I have been to three classes, all good. I sat alone in all of them, but that is the least of my concerns. It's about to be my lunch time. I have third lunch every day. Obviously at this point in time I have made any new friends, so I had no idea where to sit for lunch. I honestly didn’t even want to go in there. At times like this I would panic and call my mom just to sit on the phone with me. I am not going to do it this time though. I must grow out of that. I packed my own lunch, so I just had to find somewhere to sit. I don’t want to sit somewhere and get embarrassed. People are mean in high school, so I continue to walk around and look for a seat. There was an empty table in the back no one was sitting at. Perfect spot for me. 
I already know what you may be thinking. Why haven’t I made new friends? Why won’t I just introduce myself to someone and become their friend. It's not that simple. I don’t know who the bullies are and who get bullied I don’t know anything about these people. Teenagers find it cool to be mean and bully people. I refuse to become a victim nor become one. I love my sweetness; it keeps me out of trouble. All and all though I am scared to make approach a complete stranger. Kingston was always the one who spoke to anyone and invited people to be our friends. I never had to actually do it on my own.  
Being in the situation I am currently in with friends is rare for my class. Everyone already has longtime friends with them at school. They already have clicks and a preferred friendship type. There is rarely anyone my age who has zero friends. I know it sounds bad, but it’s not my fault. So, I guess my plan is to stay alone until someone is willing to be a friend truly. Nothing sneaky, crazy, or stupid.  
Anyway, my favorite class is next. How do I have a favorite already. Well, it sounded fun, and it was my number one pick for my classes. I applied for it to try something new. They say we build things during this class period. It’s also a four-year class. I am so excited. As I walk into the class, I hear people whispering watching me walk in. I don’t understand what’s so different between me and everyone else. I ignored the upper classmen and went to sit at an empty table AGAIN. I’m not sure if they are talking about me or just among one another, so I didn’t think too much about it. I brushed it off and continued. This is my final block and I liked what I heard about the class. I can’t wait to get started.  

Mom picks me up from school asking so many questions that involved the same response. I never understood why parents are more excited about school than the kids. “How was your day? Was it fun? Did you like it? Talk to me girl, come on.” “It was okay. Not much of what I expected, but I enjoyed it enough.” I responded. “What do you mean enough?” mom asked. “Only people like me would understand” I responded as I proceeded to sigh. “How does that make you feel honey?” my mom asked. I ended the conversation with “I will be fine mom, I always am.”. Now that’s too deep and I didn’t like it. I don’t talk about my feelings to anyone but my diary. Which includes you. This is my diary if you're reading this.  
Today is Friday in the second week of school. School has been a bit of a breeze so far. I made a friend name kylie, and she is really nice. We have almost all classes together, so that brought us together. She seen me in our robotic class and asked me to be my partner. Oh yeah, we started our project for this year. We have to do research first before the hands-on things. Me and Kylie agreed to build a robotic human. Someone who does everything a human does just no blood flow in the body. I am EXTREMELY EXCITED about this. It’s like we are about to make another friend from our creations. I love that Kylie is a nerd like me. I like that she doesn’t judge me on anything and that we have the same interest. If I am being honest though, I am afraid I am going to lose her too. I can’t tell anyone else that. She is fun though and I enjoy being around her.  

We have done so much research on our project that we are more than positive that it will work. It has to work, or we fail. I think. Our project cost a lot of money though, so we decided to do a fundraiser. We have a meeting with the student body today about how to host a fundraiser for the school. Hopefully all goes well. We really want to do this project. We worked so hard on the research or project must be perfect. I am overly excited I wish you knew.  
We talked with our teacher first and he thinks it’s an amazing idea to have a fundraiser to fund our entire project. It’s better for us and the school. Along with the class as well. “You guys may have the best organization with your project.” says Mr. Fisher. “We really want this to become the best.” 
As we walk to meet the student body, we are both nervous wrecks. “What if they disagree with this and say no” says Kylie. “Then we try again until the approve of us.” I replied. “And if they don’t?” questioned Kylie. “They will. They will get tired of seeing and hearing our suggestions and approve of it.” 
“Hello, what can we help you all with today?” student 1 asked. “We would like to do a fundraiser.” I replied. “Please state your name, what subject this is for, and grade please.” student 4 added on. “Kylie and Jaleah 9th grade and it is for our robotic class.” The meeting goes on for an hour. It went well though. They approved and sent it to the people above. Now we have to wait, but still organize our fundraiser for when the adults approve officially. I knew it was going to go good thank God.  

Today is the big day, it is fundraiser day! We are having a fish fry with bouncey houses, slip and slide games, and huge board games. I hope today is very successful, we have put so much into this. Everything is set up and ready to go. We open the mini park at 3pm. “It looks so good out here ladies!” said our principle. “Thank you!” we replied. “Let’s get this fundraiser started Jaleah.” said Kylie as she gave me a high five. “Let’s do this!” I replied.  
Two hours into the fundraiser and we are so close to our goal. We didn’t expect this fundraiser to be this successful. Our parents are beyond proud of us. We are so amazed with what we did and loved it so much. If I had to rate it, I would give it a 10/10. It was such a success and we reached over our goal. We are beyond gratefule for this opportunity as freshmen in high school. Not many get to do what we did nor was it as successful as ours. We loved all the support we got from our community.  



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