It's Friday night and you're at a bar, drinking away with your close friend, trying to ease your mind off your 9-5. Everything seems to be set on this one scene until you realize that you need to get to go home. All of your friends are, drunk, but you had less drinks then they did, you say to yourself, announcing that you will be driving everyone home for the night. You and your friends hop into the vehicle, with your alcohol-stained breaths, hitting the wrong. A new problem persists: you feel dizzy and confused, which would be unconventional for driving 4 people home, excluding yourself. You try to consolidate as much control as you can, until you see two teens, around 15-16, walking home from homecoming, presumably. By the time you notice these high-schoolers, it's already too late to fix the issue. You have lost control of the wheel and have violently rotated. You hear the screams of the two teens as you know that this will get you in trouble. Suddenly, a crash fills the atmosphere with people running out of their buildings to beam at the new tragedy. The two are on the floor, not moving anything, and covered in blood and glass. You have killed two minors all because you wouldn't bring a designated driver along or have been mindful of how many bottles you had. An indescribable mist fogs your mind. You think about how the other students at their high school will be affected, their parents, teachers, mentors, siblings, friends, and other loved ones. This is the end, you say to yourself. You're going to get arrested and spend 15 years in a prison cell for manslaughter. Your rights and freedom will be stripped from you due the 13th Amendment. Your parents are disappointed since the prison cycle is hard to break and the blood you have on our hands. You will not have the entitlement to vote anymore. Your name will be plastered on the news all throughout New York as the man who struck and killed two students from Rustin High School, so you will be considered as a terrible person in the eyes of many. The community around you is mourning for the teenagers with their memorials being next to the street you were driving on before the incident. Although you have only killed 2 people, you broke many others in the process around them, like a virus.

My best back-to-school tip for the 2022-23 school year is to check in with your counselor regularly. They will inform you about community service, credits, AP classes, standardized tests, and college preparation. I would not suggest waiting until your junior year or senior year since you would only have one or two years to prepare for college instead of all four will is a huge contributor to stress and panic in high school. - by @michellemboyedoe2026 on Instagram