There was a time that a high school senior’s spring break was filled with laying in the sun, relaxing by the pool and enjoying his or her spring break to the fullest, on a beach. But for me that was quiet the opposite. I was a 17-year-old kid who was from a small town in Massachusetts and never had or even thought about leaving the state, especially for spring break. Spring break is when my little high school popularity thrived. I went to a pretty big private school that was placed right on the outskirts of Boston. I didn’t really like my school. Actually, I hated it. But I forced my self to make friends just so I wouldn’t be that one kid that was new senior year that nobody knew. My family moved a lot. I was use to a new school new me kind of deal, where the fake friends come early in the year, but the real friends are the ones at the end of the year. I was tired of doing this whole act for the past 5 years. So, to my credit, I decided to go to a private school so the moving would end the long list of high schools that followed my transcript.
You see, I live the life during spring break. I have the private school 2 week long break. My two favorite high schools that I’ve been too have the same spring break except they only have one week long breaks. So during that 2-week long break, I bounce around from friend group to friend group, living the cold Massachusetts spring break dream.
As I am sitting in my last period class, my mind floods with daydreams of how my next two weeks are going to play out, I start to look at the differences in friend groups. The way they dress, who I actually like, who can benefit me the most, the different types of fun they have. It all seems so different. The public school fun is what the private school kids think as dumb or stupid yet the private school fun is viewed as boring and nerdy by the public school kids. But truly I know where my fun is. Public school.
As the last bell rings and I fly out of the school, my thumbs start to go to work. Texting, calling, facebooking, tweeting, whatever I had to do to talk and get some plans formulated is what I did. Plans start to form. Phone keeps vibrating. Friends keep calling. Phone keeps vibrating. This is what a kid on a Friday wants to have. A phone filled with options, and your choice at them all. My spring break had officially started.
Later that night I find my self back to where my high school career had started, the first public school I went to, Jordan High. My friends who I actually thought were my best friends, Ryan and Olivia. I decided to start my spring break with them because I hadn’t seen them in a while. But most importantly, Ryan and Olivia were the type of kids that your mom never wants you to hang around. For some reason trouble always found them, it found them and every other person they hung around with every weekend. This was the start to what could have been the greatest night ever. Depending on who you asked.
As I pull into Ryan’s driveway the first thing I see, staring right at me, a black cat. I usually don’t really notice or think twice about these types of situation but the cat froze me. The orange reflection of the car lights hitting the cat eyes, the bright white car lights bouncing off the cats sleek thin black fur sent chills down my spine. Not actually seeing the pupils of the cat looking at you but knowing the cat is staring right at you is a terrifying view. I get out of the car and the cat slowly creeps away while keeping its eyes locked onto me. I walked into the house and see Ryan and Olivia, standing in front of the refrigerator, like deer in headlights, absolutely frazzled. I walked over and a police officer meets me in the doorway. He shakes my hand, a little too hard, I felt my face start to make a face of pain but I quickly sucked it up and tried not to show any sign of weakness. He asked me to stand by the counter. I walked over, passing Olivia and Ryan I gave them a glance, as if to ask what happened. They answered with shock and disbelief written on their faces. As the officer steps back in, he asks me my name, shockingly he has heard of me before. He starts to ramble about how his son and I go to the same high school and that we should hang out because his son is knew as well. I politely agreed, acting cool, calm and collected trying to keep the conversation going just to buy some brownie points. Car lights run through the windows of the kitchen, bouncing off every piece of silverware that was out. Ryan mumbles under his breathe, “That’s my mom.” The officer walks to the door. The car door slams shut, heels rapidly hitting the pavement but come to a soft stop right before the door. Then, all hell breaks loose. “ARE YOU SERIOUS, GET OFF MY PROPERTY!” Ryan’s mom had lost it on this officer. None of us ever found out what happened or why the officer was at Ryan’s house, but whatever it was, the woman was not happy. Olivia, Ryan and I race to get into the car. I swan dove into the back seat of Ryan’s little mustang convertible while Olivia crawls into the front and starts to mocks me because she had the front seat. Whatever. We finally pull out and begin our journey. The plan had gotten ridiculous, party after party, house after house picking up friends at each party. We had been to 3 different parties before 10:30.
The night was still young for me; the daydreams in my head were still on repeat. Project X has given every high school kid the dream of what a party should be I was not going to go home until this dream was fulfilled. We make a short pit stop at Olivia’s house on our way to another kid’s house; she forgot her phone charger, stupid. The house was on the outside of a roundabout, one way in one way out, we parked right before the roundabout started. We all ran in, got some food talked to the parents for a little and ran out. Ryan was to my right and Olivia on the other side of him. As we walked out, a police officer rolled in. No lights on, no noise just crept in. He stopped right in front of us, blocked us in. I was talking to Ryan and did not even notice the car, but Olivia stopped walking, as if she saw a ghost. Ryan hits my arm, I look at him, and he is looking straight ahead. The police officer hops out of his car and yells “Get on the Ground, Now!!” As if that wasn’t scary enough, this big grizzly bear of a dog is barking out of the window. Car door window was rolled down, and this Germany Sheppard looked at me as if I was a piece of steak. This was not a joke. I quickly pull up my tight jeans to make an effort to get onto the ground. But before I could even start to put my knee down on the ground, the police officer screams “Come Out, I see you behind that tree!” And to my luck, that big grizzly bear that they called a dog launched it’s self out of the car and straight at me. Ryan and Olivia make a dash to Ryan’s car as the officer makes a run at this “person behind the tree.” While I am stuck, frozen, looking at this “Dog” run full speed at me and take off in the air for me. I quickly move out of the way of the flying dog, and make a run for the car. But the dog quickly recovers and comes at me again. I stop short to try and dodge the dog but he jumps up and bites me. The dog’s teeth were locked over my left arm. As I battle with it to try and shake it off of me I hear some one yell in German. The dog quickly lets go and gives a walk of shame back to the car. Head down, slowly moving, tail between his legs kind of walk. He hops back into the car and lies down in the back. The officer runs over and asked it I was ok. I said, “Yeah I am fine” as the tough guy that I am. He says get home safely and runs back towards the house next to Olivia’s. I run to the car, but didn’t have the energy to swan dive back into the back so I rolled in and Ryan peels off the street before I even got my seat belt on.
We were in total shock of what just happened. The whole ride I could feel something dripping down my arm, my shirt getting damper and the arm of my sweatshirt start to get heavier. I wasn’t sure it was sweat from the swan dive or blood from the gorilla of a dog that attacked me. We stopped at a little gas station that was still running to see what the damage was too my arm. I slowly take off my sweatshirt and slowly peel off my shirt and lift up my arm to show Ryan and Olivia. The bite was on a part of my arm that I can’t see, right on the inside of your arm right next to your armpit. There mouths dropped, instantly. U shaped of teeth holes was throbbing on the inside of my arm. Blood dripping from every single tooth hole. Camera lights start to flash in my eyes, as a photo shoot seems to have started focusing on my arm and Ryan and Olivia were the photographers.
I don’t really remember much after that about that night. I remember going home, and not telling my mom about what happened. But I could not hide it for long. My mom came into check on me early the next morning when she saw my sheets covered in blood. She quickly shook me to get me up to find where the blood was coming from. So I told her what happened. As you could imagine she was not a happy mother. She wasn’t mad at me, I did nothing wrong, she was mad at the fact that I didn’t tell her when I came home and that the police officer didn’t do anything about it. My mom goes into my closet and starts throwing clothes at me yelling at me to get dressed “We are going to the police station.” She yelled while speed walking out of my room. I franticly get dressed and rush to the car, trying to keep up with her. As we arrived at the police station and I timidly get out of the car my mom in the mist of her frantic venting says to me “Oh yeah, your not going out the rest of your break.” Time stopped for a moment in my head as my world had just came crashing down. My spring break was over. I was at a police station, still bleeding from the bite and stuck in cold little Massachusetts. The worst spring break I had ever had.