How the Public School System Stole Petey Guzman’s Life

High school sucks. I mean, really sucks. I love how everyone always looks at teenagers and says shit like, “Oh, kids don’t know how good they have it. Those are the best years of your life.” Really? Then your life must really suck as an adult if you’re saying that. Not that you really give a shit, but I’m gonna start telling this story with some background from both my freshman and sophomore years. I’m not through my junior year yet, but you gotta be clear on the last two years in order to understand where I’m at right now—and why I would probably consider the start of this year as the official “beginning of the end.” The first thing you gotta know about is Ms. Moore. She was my freshman English teacher. When I walked in to her class the first day two years ago, I thought she was kinda nuts—a little too much caffeine for a woman in her forties. I mean, really, the woman never sat still. It was somewhat exhausting watching her flutter about the room. But as much as I liked to rip on her, I can safely say she was my favorite teacher—not only freshman year, but ever. She used to make us write these journals—I know, typical English teacher, right? But these were different. We could write about anything—how we hated her class, how much reading books sucked, if we hated our parents, which college football teams should make the playoffs, whatever. I thought it was kinda weird at the time, but I figured it wasn’t that hard to write some shit about myself once a week for a freebie test grade. I’m kinda a slacker anyway, so I could use all the help I could get—especially if it was an easy A. At the end of the first marking period freshman year, I actually submitted thirteen entries to Ms. Moore. I surprised even myself that I had done the assignment—and actually more than was required. A week after I turned in my notebook, we were working on some activity when Ms. Moore asked me to come up to her desk for a moment. She smiled, and handed back my ratty-looking journal—evidence I had actually used the thing. “Petey,” she said so softly I had to strain my ears, “this was outstanding. I loved reading your entries. You have a lot to say, and you have an important story to tell. I want you to keep writing—every day, if you can. And know that if you ever want to talk about the things you’ve been writing, I’m here for you.” I didn’t really say anything, except to kinda nod and take back my notebook. I went back to my desk and started thumbing through the pages to see if she had written anything. I was shocked to see that the pages were covered in pink gel-type ink (the kind that smears if you don’t give it enough time to dry). This woman had put comments all throughout the pages—not just like, circlings of misspellings…I’m talking advice, questions, exclamations, etc. It was like an interactive back-and-forth exchange. You would’ve thought that our communication had been a text message conversation. I couldn’t believe she had spent what looked like a lot of time writing back to me. I mean, did she write this much for everyone? I would’ve assumed so since she always went on and on about how much she loved us. But if that was the case, I could say with certainty that this woman definitely didn’t have a life. Regardless, it intrigued me enough to keep writing—and to try to meet the challenge she had given me to write every day. I didn’t always have time to, but I probably averaged like three or four times a week. Because of the back-and-forth nature of the journals, there was always something to write about. I was never lacking material. Sometimes several pages would get sucked up just responding to one of the many questions Ms. Moore had asked me in a previous entry. Her questions often served as future writing prompts for me to offer my response. Eventually, I started to stop by and see Ms. Moore. We’d chat about my entries, her feedback, and class. She always seemed to drop whatever she was doing and just listen. It was kinda weird—almost like she was a therapist or something. But it felt good that someone cared. With my mom always picking up shifts at the store, and the fact that I pretty much never spoke to my stepdad, Ms. Moore was like having a second parent—a second mom. She always gave great advice—but only if I asked. She was careful about offering advice that I didn’t ask for. Since Ms. Moore said she would accept journals even after freshman year, I popped in to see her on the first day of my sophomore year, hoping to turn in new entries. I was a little surprised that she seemed pretty distracted. I mean, I’m not kidding when I say the woman always used to literally stop what she was doing and give me her full attention. I guess I had grown a bit spoiled about that. But it seemed an unlikely coincidence that just as I was getting ready to start digging a little deeper and disclosing more of my life to her, she wasn’t all there. I thought maybe she was just having an off day. I wish I had known then what I know now—cuz little did I know that the disappointment I felt that day was only going to increase as the year went on.