Author’s Note: Some names and identifying details in this story have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals involved. In some cases, symbolic names are used to reflect the role a person came to represent in my life.

Saint Didacus required us to wear uniforms and keep our shirts tucked in while at school. We wore burgundy polo shirts with gray shorts or pants. Once a week—if I remember correctly, every Friday—we also left the classroom to attend church.

It was completely different from Thomas Jefferson. The freedom I had been used to felt limited. By freedom, I mean simple things like being able to dress normally and feel like a kid rather than a robot programmed to sit quietly and take notes for seven hours a day.

I didn’t have much of a say in any of it. I was a kid. I couldn’t simply get up, leave, and drive myself back to John Muir Middle School in Burbank. I was stuck.

Then I met a kid I’ll call The Serpent.

That was not his real name. It is the name I chose for him in this story because, looking back, meeting him marked the beginning of temptation and a path that would eventually lead me into choices I deeply regret.

The Serpent had transferred from Mary Immaculate in Pacoima, and that is where things began to change.

We lived on a cul-de-sac in Sylmar, and one of our neighbors, who lived about four houses down and attended Mary Immaculate, told me that a new kid at my school had been expelled from her school before transferring to Saint Didacus.

It didn’t take long for me to figure out who she was talking about.

Eventually, The Serpent and I became friends.

Looking back, I wish I had never met him. Becoming friends with The Serpent was one of the worst decisions I made during that period of my life because he was the first person to introduce me to marijuana.

I began smoking marijuana in the sixth grade.