Let's Not Meet Again

Be Careful Who You Friend

Back in the late 90's when I was finishing up elementary school I befriended a new kid named Matt. He was a bit of a strange kid. Sat in chairs like he was a frog and talked to himself at times. As well as did other weird things.

Fast forward to October of 2001. We were in the 7th grade and my birthday that year fell on a Friday. My parents told me I could invite a few friends over to hang out and spend the night. My sister was told she could invite our two female neighbor friends who were sisters to come over as well. So that she could have some female company.

At first I'd invited two other friends and hadn't planned on Matt being there. He'd acted badly the last time he'd been to my house and we weren't getting along that great. If I hadn't felt sorry for him for how few friends he had, we wouldn't have been friends at the time.

I'd told the other two I'd invited not to say anything about the get together while Matt was around. Matt had only me and my one other friend Danny as friends. Everyone else just put up with him.

Anyway Matt found out about the party in the morning the day before the party. Seventh graders sit on bleachers in the gym on one side of the gym, and the eighth graders sat on the other side. My friend Danny kept trying to get me to talk about the party while we were waiting for the bell to ring to go to first period.

I tried getting Danny to shut up about the party as I didn't want Matt to hear about it. Matt wound up sneaking up on us and heard about the party. He managed to whine is way into me inviting him to the party. But I told him if he came he was going to have to follow the rules.

When we said it was time to turn off the super Nintendo and do something else, it was time to turn it off. He agreed and that was that.

The night of the party came and our guests arrived. For a while things went fine. We played video games and ate snacks and just enjoyed ourselves. Things went down hill fast after the first movie we'd watched had ended.

Matt had brought over the first scream movie on VHS. We watched the movie and Matt insisted on watching the music video at the end of the movie. We watched it and I go to take it out of the VHS player, so that we could watch another movie and relax before going to sleep.

Matt insisted on watching the music video again and pressed himself against the VCR, pressing several buttons at once. The player stopped working and I forced him away from the machine so I could see if I could fix it. He was a skinny little thing so it wasn't hard to do.

My back was turned at the time and my sister and Matt get into a shouting match a few feet away from where I was working on the VCR, standing close almost nose to nose. Matt ends up tackling her to the ground and straddling her hips, while restraining her arms above her head and pinning her wrists to the ground.

I turned my head when I heard them go down, and when I saw this I saw red. My two other friends grabbed me from behind and tried to restrain me. But I was stronger and ended up just dragging them along. My one friends Jason lets go of me and gets between me and Matt and my sister.

Before I could do anything Jason kicked Matt off my sister. Matt just lays on the ground and howls the most animalistic howl I'd ever heard a human make. He gets up and runs into the kitchen and grabs the biggest knife we have out of the holder. Presses the tip against his shirt over his heart and starts howling he's going to kill himself.

My youngest neighbor was around 11 I think at the time I can't remember her exact age. But she was a mouthy little thing and wasn't afraid to speak her mind. She walks into the kitchen and stands about six feet from Matt. Telling him to kill himself if he was going to. Scared he was going to stab her I run into the kitchen and throw her over my shoulder, before running back into the den.

The kitchen was next to the den so I stood in the doorway and tried calming him down but noting worked. He walked out the front door and stood on the front porch doing who knows what for about three minutes. He walks back into the house and into the kitchen, before grabbing the phone hanging on the wall and calling his parents.

We listened in as he told his mommy and daddy that we were being mean to him, and begged them to come get him. Now I'm not being mean he really did call them mommy and daddy.

As soon as he was off the phone he stopped his crying and walked into the den. He packed up his stuff and glared at us before flipping us off and walking out to the garage to wait for his parents to come pick him up. You'd think the story would be over at this point but it's not.

The next week at school he'd walk past the part of the bleachers where me and Danny were sitting, look up at us and does the throat slitting signal with his finger. We tried telling the principle who stood in the gym in the morning with a teacher. She made him sit in the office in the mornings for about a week. But then he was right back to coming into the gym.

The day after Halloween he walked up to me in the hallway. He told me that he'd come into my house the night before, and gotten things he'd left behind. That if he wanted to he now knew how to get in and could kill me in my sleep.

Now I'd been in the den the night before at the time he'd claimed he'd come in the door that was right by the den. I also knew he'd never left anything behind because I'd looked the day after the party. But still knowing then how unstable he was I wasn't willing to take any chances.

He was still doing the throat slit thing as well as threatening us in the hallways as we passed him, but made sure to say it low enough that only we could hear him. Mainly about how he was going to kill us in our sleep when we least expected it. We'd tried going to the principle and complain a couple more times before he'd claimed he'd gotten in my house. She'd just done like the first time the other two times we complained. Had him sit in her office for about a week. But after that he'd be right back in the gym in the mornings.

One morning when I was getting out of my mom's car, my sister who was in high school and getting dropped off next goes. "Oh my God he's flipping us off." I look and there was Matt close to where the door was to go into the gym. Glaring at us and flipping us off.

At this point me and Danny had complained several times to the principle and assistant principle about his behavior. But they seemed to feel sorry for him and just told us to ignore him.

I told Danny about him flipping us off when I got into the gym. We'd been talking about it for a few days, and decided to go to the resource officer on our lunch break. We met with him and set up to have a meeting with him and Matt during the next period.

When the time came and Danny and I walked into the resource officer's office, Matt was already there glaring at us. Matt tried to deny flipping me and my mom and sister off. But the officer told him there was a camera outside hidden close to where we were dropped off.

He told him he had footage of him doing it. As well as if he didn't leave us alone he'd step in and made sure the school system did something about him. He looked ready to cry but agreed to leave us alone. He then took a note to get back to class.

Danny and I thanked him for doing what no one else at the school was willing to do. The officer told us no problem, and to let him know if Matt bothered us again. Luckily he never bothered us again the rest of the time we were at that middle school.

Me, Danny, and Jason all got sent to a different high school than Matt. I don't know if Matt ever got the help he so desperately needed. Or if he ever snapped again and hurt or killed someone. I don't think I want to try and find out.

Matt where ever you are, lets not meet again ever.