To Tattle or Not to Tattle
I’m not a teacher, but I did confide a secret to my own teacher. Before I tell this story, I’d like to say that everyone—literally everyone—said I did the right thing by coming forward with this information. Still, at the end of it all I didn’t really feel like I actually did the right thing at all, and I still don’t. In any case, here it all goes.
When I was in 11th grade, I had just come off of being diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, and my best friend at the time was in my math class. For his part, he had epilepsy and severe seizures, so we both missed a lot of school. I had also heard a rumor that his father wasn’t very responsible and another reason he didn’t show up was because his dad couldn’t get him out of bed in the morning for the bus.
Anyway, one day this friend invited me to go bowling. When his dad picked me up, his car smelled of cigarettes and it had junk stacked high in it. After we went bowling, I went to his house and saw that there was junk everywhere, literally everywhere. The whole house also had an overwhelming odor of cat urine and cigarettes.
After my mom and I left, we both had never wanted to take showers so bad in our lives. My mom even contemplated calling CPS. Pretty soon afterward, I told my teacher all about what I saw and he got my friend moved in with his grandparents. For a bit, it really did seem like it might have been the right decision, but that didn’t last long.
The reason I feel like I didn’t do the right thing here is that 2 years later, I reached back out to him and we started hanging out again. This time, I met his grandparents. At the beginning, we were like family, and I even had a good friendship with my friend’s dad. Then later, the grandparents had a change of heart. They never let me see my friend again, or his dad for that matter. Then it got worse.
Turns out, the grandparents were really neglecting my friend. He almost died because his grandparents refused to take care of his epilepsy or take care of him in general. He’s okay now because the cops intervened, but when I found all this out, I had instant regret for telling on his dad. All this because I complained about a bad smell. I feel like I ruined my friend’s life, and it still haunts me to this day.