The Fight that Changed Me

Changing up my everyday schedule, the first month or so into my junior year of high school at Burlington Central, led me to make a huge decision that morning.  Driving my neighbor Kevin and my brother Austin to school, walking into the east doors not realizing what was about to happen.  Little did I know I would have blood all over my hands from breaking up a terrible fight that I had witnessed.

                              

The summer of 2008 is when all the drama began.  My neighbors Alyssa and Kevin had been really close friends.  Eventually the two started talking to different groups of people and had started to drift apart.  Alyssa began talking to a “bad” group of kids and eventually started dating the wrong guy.  Soon enough it came down to the point where she had run away from home because of the kids she was hanging around with and the guy she was dating.  Her parents in no way agreed to the guy she was seeing.  He was nothing but trash.

A week or so had passed and school was just about to begin.  Alyssa eventually came back home where her parents then decided to send her away to a correction school where she could fix her problems.  Here, she was unable to contact anyone but her family unless she was given permission.  Alyssa’s parents had updated her old friend, Kevin about everything that had been going on the past few months and he was upset to hear about her.  The kids in my neighborhood were all really close.  Kevin was like a brother to me.  Her parents had asked Kevin to talk to Alyssa to see if he could help her, or try to knock some sense into her.  Once her boyfriend found out Kevin had been talking to Alyssa, he was furious.  Around this time was when Alyssa’s boyfriend’s best friend Dennis started to come into the picture.  Dennis was nothing but bad news to everyone.  Dennis in a nutshell was a 6 foot 3 inch bulky man who had a bad record to his name.  He was someone I was genuinely afraid of.

I remember walking into school going a different way than usual with Kevin and my brother Austin.  I had stopped midway down the hall to talk to my cousin.  A few short seconds later I saw Kevin talking to his friends while unloading his backpack into his locker.  Kevin was nothing but innocent.  All he was trying to do was help Alyssa get her life back on track.  Coming through the door was Dennis, heading down the hallway with a few others by his side.  The minute I saw him walk towards Kevin I knew right then something bad would happen.  I stood still and waited for what seemed like hours.  All of the sudden Dennis had confronted Kevin and swung his fist at Kevin’s face which knocked him to the ground.  I immediately screamed Kevin’s name, ran over and grabbed him before he could swing back.  I put my hand to the back of Kevin’s head where blood had been shooting out to slow down the bleeding.  I remember the fear in Kevin’s eyes the minutes he saw me.  Dennis then backed off because I had decided to get in the middle of it.  I looked at Dennis and remember the look he had given me.  I remember being so scared, asking him to not hit me. 

Walking to the nurse’s office looking back at the trail of blood that was lingering on the concrete floor and Dennis walking himself slowly to the office made me want to puke.  My hands and shirt were covered in blood.  The ambulance was called shortly after to take Kevin to the hospital.  I was cleaned up and sent off shaking to my first period class.  Eventually I was excused and sent home for the day because I was so shaken from what had happened.

Being at home that day made me think about a lot.  What if I hadn’t walked through that door that day?  What if I wasn’t there to stop the fight?  Could it have been worse if I wasn’t there?  Many different thoughts were rushing through my head.  A few hours later I heard the news on Kevin.  He had ten staples in his head from hitting the locker so hard, a broken nose that needed surgery, and an eye that was swollen shut.  It was very hard for me to look Kevin in the face because short flashes of what had just occurred ran through my head.  I was thankful that he was okay, and Dennis was expelled for two years.  Not only was he expelled, but also was sent away to get help.  Because he was 17 at the time, the charges were less than they could have been.  He wasn’t heard of for awhile besides the court dates that Kevin’s family would attend.  Due to Dennis’s past, his time sent away had increased not only because of the fight.

Two years have passed a week ago on Kevin’s last year of high school.  He was excused the first week, when Dennis had arrived.  Because the situation was such a big deal, Kevin and his family decided it would be best for him to transfer to a new school.  He is now attending another high school his senior year being unhappy because of another person, while Dennis is back at school.  I personally feel that this was unfair to Kevin.  Dennis should not have been allowed back into that school after such a huge innocent that had occurred.  He ruined Kevin’s last year of high school.

The fight between Kevin and Denis took a huge toll on me.  I have learned to watch my back more, and to keep the people who mean the most to me close.  I could have let the fight go on, but because I stood up for my close neighbor I decided to get involved and help him.  I truly feel that if I had not walked through that door that day, his injuries could have been a lot worse.

“We all have big changes in our lives that are more or less a second chance.”
-Harrison Ford