~Bjorn Tellefsen, Class of 2024

The Unstable Life of Juan Aguilar

Juan Aguilar was an amazing student, loved by teachers and students alike he was one of the most popular kids in the whole school. His social life was outstanding, he had many friends and had a smaller group of friends that he was really close with. On top of that he was a star athlete playing point guard on the varsity basketball team as well as being captain. Not Juan, but his family was very wealthy, his mom was a successful supermodel and his dad owned and ran a hedge fund. His family had countless homes around the world.

Juan’s life continued to be amazing until half way through his junior year of highschool when his dads hedge fund fell into some legal trouble and his dad started to become an alcoholic to cope with the problems and stress of opposing the United States government in court. You see, his dad’s hedge fund was in trouble because they had been caught using insider trading and there was plenty of evidence saying that they were committing a lot of fraud. So now it’s just a matter of his dad’s sentencing, how much money they would lose, how much jail time he’d get.

After months, to be more specific eleven months, Juan’s father lost all of his money, he was dirt broke and in debt because his hedge fund was shut down and sued by the United States government causing them to lose all of their money. Juan’s mom was also broke because her husband, Juan’s dad, had convinced her to invest all her money into his hedge fund. His dad wasn’t sentenced to any jail time, but both his mom and dad were deported back to columbia. You see, they’re both migrants with improper citizenship status. The reason this wasn’t a problem before though was because they threw money at the problem hiring dozens of lawyers and the case was still occurring, but since they had no more money they couldn’t afford their lawyers any more, so the case was dropped and they were deported. Luckily though, Juan was able to stay in America and finish his education.

Juan was soon put into foster care and was selected to go to a foster home in a completely different state, Nebraska compared to California where Juan used to live. Even though Juan hated Nebraska, the change created by moving was enough to help him keep his mind off of things. Although his life in a foster home was very different to his old rich, luxurious life he was able to adjust quickly. He made a few friends at school and one really good friend at his foster home. Juan was doing his best to do well in school and finish highschool with decent grades and for the most part he was successful.

Juan slowly started to become popular again at his new school. All the teachers liked him because he was kind, respectful and a good intellect, they also felt bad about him being in a foster home. The other students at school were harder for Juan to get along with, they all thought of him as an outsider because he was new in a very small town and since everyone already knew everyone there was no one like him, no one without friends. Soon though Juan fell in with a good group of kids who he ended up becoming good friends with and because he finally had friends people knew more about him and adored his charming and charismatic personality. Slowly but surely Juan became popular again.

One day though, one of Juan’s closest friends asked him how he had lost his family and how he had become a foster child. Thinking he could trust and confide in his new friend Jack, Juan told him everything. The good, the bad and the ugly, Juan was wrong about Jack though, he couldn’t trust him. Jack soon told kids at school and since it was such a small town it didn’t take long for word to spread and for Juan to be the talk of the town having everyone know about him and his story. He became an outcast, liked by no one and because of this became depressed. His grades dropped and he lost hope, until one day one kid from his school he had never met started talking to him. Anthony soon became Juan’s only friend and even though his life wasn’t the same as it was before he told Jack his secret, he was no longer depressed and bounced back academically.

Juan finished his senior year with straight A’s, but no ambition to go to college. So talking with the guidance counselor he decided he wanted to be a real estate agent, so he got his license and soon started selling houses left and right. He moved to Maryland and met a girl named Ava and they soon fell in love. A year later Juan proposed and she said yes. They were two newlyweds going on a honeymoon and came back from the honeymoon a group of three, Ava was pregnant with a boy. When he was born they named him Philipe after Juan’s dad and they were living an amazing life together, all three of them. Juan slowly started to become a well respected and successful real estate agent.

One day on his way to a clients house Juan was in a car crash and required emergency surgery. Luckily to Ava and Philipe’s luck he made a full recovery, but was in a lot of pain from his surgery so he started taking painkillers. While on the painkillers Juan found out that his dad was dead and he fell into a depression again. He became addicted to painkillers and started trying other drugs, cocaine, heroin and meth. He slowly became addicted to all four and ended up overdosing a month and a half after he found out his dad was dead.

My name’s Philipe Aguilar II, my dad’s name is Juan and my moms is Ava and this is the tragic story of my father.