A tip for those still in highschool:
Don't spend the highlights of your highschool experience with people that will dampen those memories. Please select the people in your life carefully, more so than I did, so that you can look back on those memories and smile. Differentiate who stuck with you through the hard times, who values your honesty, who tells you what you need to hear rather than what you want to hear, who brings you closer to Christ, who is loyal to you no matter what, who never talks shit about you, who believes in self improvement, who sees how much you care and appreciates you for it, who has their priorities straight, who reminds you what you're worth even when you forget... and who is all talk.
Coming from someone who is deathly afraid of being alone, it is always better to be on your own than to be surrounded by liars and manipulators and fake "I love you"s.
Because you are who you hang out with. Everything you hate about them is what you will become. And even after you come to your senses, discover your worth and emerge from the waves of half truths you were trapped under, because of the time already spent with them, their stench will remain.
And it will drive you mad.
Pray for discernment, my friends. There are few wounds in life as painful as betrayal.
