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Tests Aren’t the Only Things with Difficult Choices

Luis Herrera

    Today was like any other Wednesday I had at high school; I started off in first period then went on to second, everything was going fine until before class was over when my friend Arthur asked me the same question from earlier this week.
    “So Sam you want to skip out on third period Thursday and go hang out with the seniors, it’ll be fun?”
    You see I’m not really all that “popular” in school; I’m pretty much a straight A student. Can you see my dilemma right now, “perfect student asked to hang with the popular kids”? But that’s the thing, I don’t want to. I’ve heard some pretty convincing rumors about what the seniors do after skipping class and to be honest I’m scared to be getting involved with drugs, sex, and alcohol, especially at sixteen. Having to choose what to do after high school is hard enough, but having to choose between school and my best friend since third grade is harder. I couldn’t decide, but I had to tell him something for now.
    “Sorry Arthur I still haven’t made up my mind yet, I still need to think about it, you understand right?” he stuttered for a moment and responded.
    “Yeah, yeah of course I understand, it’s the first time you’ve been asked this to do something like this so it’s going to be a bit harder to decide what to do. How about this, tomorrow just meet me and the seniors in the back of the student parking lot before third period starts, they said once the bell rings to start class they’ll be leaving so just show up before then and we’ll head out, sounds cool?”
    I faked a smile and nodded “yeah man sounds alright with me.” The bell rang to dismiss class and as I headed to the door, right before Arthur left the room he turned around and winked “see you tomorrow Sam.” then he left for his next class.
    I couldn’t think of anything else for the rest of the day, I just couldn’t make a decision, so I did what anyone would do. I slept on it and whatever I thought of first in the morning I went with that. After a long and frustrating night’s sleep I woke up the next morning and finally made my decision. I knew that after going through with it I would have made probably one of the most difficult choices in my life.
    After getting to school I played it cool. I saw Arthur in second period and told him I’ll meet him in the parking lot, after class was over I went to the bathroom and had to collect my thoughts before going on with it. I headed out to the parking lot and went in search of everyone, I saw the group of seniors along with a few juniors and sophomores, and almost all of them were smoking and showing off the “stuff” they brought as I walked up Arthur saw me and yelled with excitement
    “Sam you showed up! Come on let’s get going-”
    I cut him off before he finished speaking “I’m not going.”
    “Then why are you here?” he responded in confusion.
    I spoke, “Arthur I had some time to think about this over the past several days and I had an incredibly difficult time coming up with a decision” I paused to catch my breath. “I couldn’t decide whether to risk grades just to have fun or to risk losing my best friend because my grades were more important, but I realized last night that a real friend wouldn’t put me in that type of situation.”
    “Sam I’m sorry I didn’t know-”
    I cut him off again “I’m not done talking Arthur! After all this time to think I’ve made my decision.”
    Arthur spoke nervously “Well what’s your decision Sammy?”
    I looked at him with a straight face “I’m sorry Arthur, but if you’re going to be living this type of life then we can’t be friends anymore.”
    “What the hell are you talking about?” he said in an angry and confused tone “After almost ten years of being best friends, just because I want to do stuff you don’t, were not friends anymore?”
    “Good bye Arthur.” I said quietly as I turned around.
    As I headed back inside I heard Arthur yelling at me, cursing and screaming my name. I wanted to look back, but I didn’t, there was nothing left to look back to.

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