It was a glorious day. School was almost over with the exception of sixth period. The sun was shining, birds singing in my mind. For me it had been a great day so far since nothing had gone wrong.
Lunchtime became the best part of the day since I got to spend the 45 minutes with my boyfriend, of four months at the time. I was relieved to see his smiling face after the long time I spent in my Modern World History class with my teacher Mrs. K. Lunch seemed to be going well, the usual me, my boyfriend and I hanging with the greatest group of people, my bomb friends.
But something felt wrong because my boyfriend hardly said a word, which was strange. My friends then suggested we go to the field where we could play football. As I was about to grab my stuff, my boyfriend grabbed me telling me we needed to talk. I knew this wasn’t going to be good because no guy ever says, “we need to talk” without something being wrong.[pullquote_right] I knew this wasn’t going to be good because no guy ever says, “we need to talk” without something being wrong.[/pullquote_right] And sure enough something was.
As we were walking to find somewhere to talk, he started to clear his throat. Finally, once we found a place where we were alone, he started to explain to me that he was pretty sure I was going to get mad at him for what he did. I tried to reassure him that nothing could get me that mad at him, so he began to tell me what happened.
All I could remember was having a dumbfounded blank face the whole time. He told me the story of him having another girlfriend for about two weeks while he was with me. He tried to make it sound better by saying it was a month ago and that he was sincerely sorry.
The sound of relief came when the bell rang. I tried to rush off to class as fast as I could, hoping he didn’t notice that I was crying but he did. He held me in his arms trying to hold on me to me so I could hear him out, but all I could think was, “I can’t believe you lied to me, I wonder if anything you’ve said is true!”
Finally, my friend “Annette” came and found me crying in my boyfriend’s arms. She grabbed me and dragged me to sixth period. I sat there in class, hoping the day would end. After school, I rushed home and cried most of the day wishing he hadn’t told me, wishing I had been kept in the dark about the whole incident.
The next couple of days it was as if he and I were strangers. Then, a week later he came up to me asking for my forgiveness and if there were any way we could work things out. All I told him was that in time, I would forgive him, “but not today.” I eventually forgave him and we got back together, but the thought of him with another person will always be in the back of my head. I know it was right to forgive because having hate doesn’t get anyone anywhere.
In 2006, over 25 youth began participating in weekly after-school writing workshops where they congregated in the hallway of a two-story building in West Fresno and learned the essentials of creating media and telling their stories. The group evolved over the next five years and is now proudly recognized as The kNOw Youth Media.
Through our program, we create opportunities for our youth participants, who in turn create long-term positive change in their communities. Our approach weaves youth development and youth media innovation to produce our biannual youth publication, multimedia projects, and community forums.
The kNOw began as a project of New America Media, which was the country’s first and largest national collaboration and advocate of 2000 ethnic news organizations. In 2018 The kNOw became a project of Youth Leadership Institute.
