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For those that know me, you'd know that I am a huge nerd. I love reading books, and I love digesting a TV show or movie series. Ever since I was in high school, I wanted to read as many books as I possibly could. Currently, I have around 300 books in my personal library, and the most books I've ever read at the same time was eight.

But, I wasn't always this way.

Back in 9th grade, I was horrible with my Language Arts / English classes. (I actually have quite a few stories concerning this topic, but we'll save those for later.) To give you an example of how bad it was in high school, when I took my English graduation test back in 10th grade, I got the lowest score possible that's in the passing range.

My 9th grade English class was one of the worst. I still remember my professor's name to this day. Mr. West. This guy was crazy; I don't mean crazy as in doing reckless stuff. He never yelled, but he would always find a way to just belittle you and make you feel like shit. A lot of Mr. West's assignments were very tough and very unforgiving.

For example, one of his assignments was to pick a book from the library, read it all in less than two weeks and give a book report by telling the class the entire plot. First off, that seemed against the whole spirit of books, because what if I wanted to read something someone else was reading? Now the whole plot is ruined for me. I remember for that assignment, I chose to read Maze Runner, and another girl in my class read Lipstick Apology, which the title alone piqued my interest. But because she shared the whole plot, reading it seems pointless now.

Now, one thing that most of you will probably not know, but I have massive fucking stage fright. I cannot -- I repeat, cannot -- get in front of a group of people and talk about anything. I know some of you will probably be saying, "Well, Toni, why not just imagine the crowd in their underwear? That eases tension, right?" First off, no it doesn't. You still have 20 pairs of eyeballs on you, and that's not comforting in the least. I dreaded giving out any sort of presentation all throughout K-12; anytime they gave an assignment where I had to present something, I couldn't do it. My heart would beat faster, my body was petrified, and I would sweat profusely. It wasn't just a simple fear, no matter what anyone else says, this was a living night terror.

So, during my 9th grade English class, I struggled because of the outrageous assignments. (There was legitimately one time where he made us read a five page article, then write a five paragraph informative paper about it. In less than 40 minutes.) But, because I had at least a D in his class, I wasn't too worried.

One day, we started a unit on theater stories. And everyone knows that there is one play, that school will always make you read before you graduate: Romeo & Juliet.

Mr. West did things in a very peculiar way, but try to stay with me: Every day, someone in the class volunteered to be "the Director". This person would then choose the roles that everyone would read during the class period. It would then reset when the class period ended. But we didn't just read the play, Mr. West made us act it out as well. So if two characters were walking across the stage, he made the students playing those roles walk around the room.

Of course, with this structure, I did everything I could to avoid being the one to read. Every time "the Director" would pick his people, I would put my head down, not look anyone in the eye. I would just pretend to be invisible. And every day that I wasn't picked, it was like Christmas, my birthday, and Easter all rolled into one. I breathed a big sigh of relief because it meant I could make it through the day.

I didn't know very many people in my English 9 class. If you guys remember Matt from the story of my first kiss, he was in this class. And there was another boy whom we're going to call Isaac. Now, Isaac was a jock, but he wasn't a stereotypical jock; he was strong and tall, but he got good grades, got along with everybody, and was just very outgoing in general. Isaac was one of those people in my class that I talked to a decent amount. We weren't super close, but I'd say he fit right in between acquaintance and good friend.

One day, Isaac was chosen to be "the Director". This was his first time doing so, and I felt a bit relieved. Because we were on good terms, I figured I'd ask him not to pick me, and I wouldn't have to worry about a single thing. I go up to Isaac and I ask him, "Hey, could you please not choose me to read? I don't feel okay talking in front of the class, it really scares me."

And Isaac, being a good homie, said, "Oh! Don't worry, man; I got your back!"

And I thought, Cool. I was going to have a good period; a crisis averted for another day.

The class period starts, and once everyone is settled down, Mr. West tells Isaac to choose the students to be reading the roles today. The first thing he says is, "Hmm... Toni, how about you read for the role of Romeo?"

My heart dropped. Dropped more than the bowling ball that was dropped off the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

I couldn't hear anything else; the only thing that was on my mind was: Oh my god, I have to read. I can't do this. Fuck, fuck, FUCK!!!

When I heard my name, I gave an assortment of facial expressions to Isaac, ranging from "Oh my god, please change your mind, I'm begging you!" to "I can't believe you did this, what the fuck is wrong with you?!" I felt betrayed, angry, upset, terrorized, frozen. Too much was hitting me all at once. I'm surprised I didn't have a full-on anxiety attack right then and there.

The class went on as if nothing major happened. I kept my eyes down; I couldn't look anyone else in the eyes. When they started reading from the point where we left off, I felt like I was strapped onto a pair of train tracks with speeding bullet trains coming at me from both sides. If I read, I'm going to mess something up and I'll never live it down, but if I don't read, I could get in serious trouble.

I did not know what to do!

Eventually, the story got to reading my part. And it started to get quiet as my line was next. (Here come the trains.) I looked at my line; it wasn't a very big part, but I was shaking in my seat. There were 20 other kids looking my way, wondering when I was going to speak. It was very difficult, looking back, to believe that this took place in only a matter of seconds.

Nothing happened for at least ten seconds. Then Mr. West said, "Mr. McAlister?" I didn't look up. I couldn't. It felt like someone was gripping around my throat and choking me. If I said even a word, then there would be no other excuse to not read. I tried to stay invisible as much as I could. Why -- Why -- couldn't I have been blessed with invisibility?

"Mr. McAlister?" Mr. West said more sternly.

That made me even more afraid. This guy was very strict and very crazy, so there was no telling what this man was going to do if I continued to say nothing. My heart was pounding out of its chest, and I just wanted more than anything for this to be over with.

Then, a miracle happens. Mr. West decided to recast the role of Romeo since it was clear I was not going to say anything. For a few seconds, it felt like the heavens were calling down to me, saying that I've been through enough pressure for one day, and they were giving me a break.

I heard someone get up from their desk, and I didn't think much of it. To me, it was more than likely another case of the other students acting out the script. Things were very good for a glorious five to ten seconds until I saw Mr. West in front of my desk. He handed me a piece of paper then went back to his desk.

The paper said: Toni McAlister to In-School Suspension [today] @ 3:00 P.M.

My heart stopped for the second time that day. In-School Suspension was a fancy way of saying, "Detention." I was given detention because I was afraid to read in front of the class.

The first thing I felt was fear. My mom was going to find out about this. She already thought that I was a terrible kid since around the same time, I was going through depression. Worse, if my dad ever found out, he would have even more of an excuse to yell at me and beat me when I got home.

The rest of the class I didn't pay any attention to. My only thoughts were about how I was going to get out of this without getting beat any further.

Isaac came up to me at the end of that class period. And guess what he said to me? "I'm so sorry, I didn't know that was going to happen. I thought that by having you read, it would help your fear."

I'm not going to lie, I was pissed. This guy said he wasn't going to pick me to read, and then he does it. It would be different if I didn't ask him that beforehand, because that would be entirely on me. But this guy said too my face that he wouldn't choose me, and then he did.

I said nothing to this guy. I shoulder checked him, brushed past him then left without saying a word. I'm not going to pretend to be okay with someone who went back on their words that quickly.

Now, I was supposed to serve detention that same day. The In-School Suspension room was in a building of the school called "The Hub", where all of the major offices were. I get there shortly before three o'clock. And let me tell you how horrible this was: very. The detention instructor was Ms. Fink; she was elderly, and she was very, very mean. She was the one that guarded the hallways to make sure no one was out during class. I remember hearing once that she got the job specifically so that she could torture the students. She was short, but she had a way of belittling people, just like Mr. West.

When you go into the In-School Suspension room, it's a classroom, pretty much. There were around 20 kids in there, myself included. We were told to not talk, and to sit there for an hour until Ms. Fink let us go. During that hour, we were supposed to be working; we were not allowed on our phones, we couldn't talk, we couldn't sit and stare at the wall. If we were caught doing anything other than doing schoolwork, then Fink would hold everybody inside for another 15 minutes. Needless to say, it was miserable.

At the time, I didn't have any homework to do for any of my classes since I tend to get all of it done while I'm in class. So, I was one of the kids that didn't have anything to do, but I damned sure wasn't going to stay longer than an hour if I had anything to say about it. So I came up with a strategy: Everyone in my English 9 class was given their own copy of Romeo & Juliet to keep since it was covered by our school fees. I took that out, opened it up to a random page, and I just pretended to read that. To really sell the image of me reading, I made sure to turn the page every three and a half minutes (since I had my watch back then).

And it worked! Fink walked around the classroom. I remember she came up to me asking what I was reading. Of course, I showed her the Romeo & Juliet play, she said some stuff that I didn't really hear because I didn't care, then I went back to... "reading".

I managed to keep the act up for the entire hour, and I was let go around 4:00. Now, since school lets out at 2:45 and it's a half-hour walk home, I knew that my parents were going to be wondering where I was. Sure enough, there were several text messages on my phone from my mother. During the entire walk home, I wracked my brain around, trying to think of some way, somehow I could explain my hour-long absence.

And then it finally hit me.

When I arrived back home, my mother was outside in the backyard. She saw me coming in and she immediately turned to me and asked, "Where on earth have you been?"

At that point, I had my story ready to explain. "My friends invited me to play cards after school, so I figured I'd hang out with them for a little while. Sorry for not telling you, I'll let you know in the future."

Mom took one look at me and said, "... okay." She bought the story, hook, line, and sinker. She never brought it up again after that; she told my dad what happened. Of course, he was pissed that I didn't say anything prior to it, but I didn't get into any real trouble from them because of my detention.

For the next three years, I would sometimes see Isaac passing by in the hallways at school. Everytime he tried to say hello to me, I completely ignored him. I know, it seems petty and cold to do that, but if you're not going to have my back, then there's no need to pretend that we were friends. After I graduated, I never saw Isaac ever again. Honestly, I have no idea how I would respond if I saw him today since this incident was over seven years ago.

Hope you guys enjoyed this story. If you did, let me know how you felt about it. Have you ever been betrayed so quickly by someone you thought was a friend? If you want, go ahead and share this story around. The moral of this story is: pick your friends wisely, because you never know if they'll take your fears either seriously or jokingly. And you definitely don't want the latter.

That was my diary entry. Until next time, have a good day.

Toni Q. McAlister

April 4th, 2021