A seemingly silver lining from my horrific secondary school experience

I’ve always wanted to attend a boarding school for my secondary education because at that time, it was the cool thing to do. At the year when I finished my primary education, going to boarding school was a reigning trend. Almost every big boy and girl in my street had been enrolled in one. I am talking about the Kings/Queens College, Federal Girls Colleges, etc.

However, my parents opted for Lagos State Model College, Badagry. It was a school that had a beautiful scenery. The teaching was topnotch, but I had the nagging problem of bullying from my seniors. The experience was horrible as I was sent on errands, put on punishment and the most annoying, fetching heavy buckets of water for them.

The torture was severe that I developed chest pain in JSS 3. My parents took the issue seriously, and I was transferred to Command Secondary School Lagos in SS1. I was quite happy to be resuming to the school. As usual, people were attracted to the new girl and this brought some animosity even from my seniors. To make the matter worse, I started having more male friends than females. Once, some senior girls gathered to beat me up outside the school but luckily, my hostel mistress, Mrs Adeyemi who was driving by intervened and saved me. If she didn’t show up, I can only imagine what would have happened. The girls were beating me because I was the new “yellow girl” that was taking men’s attention from them. It seems like a joke to me now, but it was a big problem then, and my parents had to step in after that incident.

My mum was really angry about the incident. She said she couldn’t keep me in a school where I am being harassed, but my dad prevailed on her. His own line of thought was that I would be out in few years, and there was no point changing schools again. However, the girls were suspended for four weeks and that ended the episode.

Moving on, when it was time to assign posts to my set, a close friend of mine was chosen as the new social prefect. He invited me to a party just to celebrate. I accepted and attended. At the party, he was literally forcing himself on me but I managed to escape. When we resumed to school, the story on everyone lips was that I had lost my virginity to Wale, the social prefect.

Unknown to me, he had broadcasted a false information to many of our school mates. I became the girl he slept with and he bragged about it to his friends. No amount of explanation made a difference. I tried to tell people nothing happened, but he was popular and the harm was done already. Some of my mates were not ready to believe me at all. I became a butt of people’s jokes and this often made me cry. I had to suffer the shame till we passed out.

Now, am in my third year at the university and recently returned to Lagos for a break, and there he was at my house, Wale officially seeking the permission of my parents to be my boyfriend. My parents were nice to him, and we all chatted for while. I got to know he has just graduated from a prestigious private university in the country, and he’s currently working at his dad’s company pending when he goes for youths service.

In all sincerity, he has grown into a perfect gentleman, so charming and caring. I can see from my mum’s countenance that she approves. We’ve gone on several dates and he has apologised severally and continues to apologise for the ‘saga’ in school, but I can’t get past it. To everyone around me, he seems like a good catch, my future would be secure with him, considering that his parents are very rich. He is handsome and really knows how to take care of a woman. I’m almost falling in love with him, but I can’t forget the jests, the shame and pain he made me go through in school.