Along the Mighty Mississippi

Eighth grade was, not surprisingly, horrible. After my mother's divorce, we moved out of that small town and in with her new boyfriend, a great guy who would later prove to be truly my father.
The school was horrible. I had been lucky enough before that to never have been bullied, but my peers there were determined to make up for it. If it wasn't them, it was the teachers who seemed to think it harmless and perhaps funny.
I was failing and had no friends; I felt utterly alone.

Freshman year wasn't much better. I was one in a school of a couple thousand and wandered, half in fear and half in indifference, from class to class. The campus was large and laid out much like a college, I never did find places like the library or the theatre and never really knew what all the cafeteria offered. I found comfort in following a strict routine and keeping to myself.
It was during freshman year I came upon my first lifelong health issue. I found out I has chronic asthma, complete with more than several trips to the hospital for treatments. Asthma would put me in the back of a couple ambulances and cause me to pass out on difference occasions.