Let me start off by saying: it's amazing how your surrounding world can change, and it's even more appalling when the people you grew up with change drastically with it.

I recently came across an article on my Facebook page from my local newspaper. Typically, I scroll on past because, let's be real, we don't need that kind of negativity in our lives. However, the cover photo of a mugshot captivated my interest.

This man looks all to familiar.

That wasn't even the scary part. What was even scarier was how I felt when it was indeed people I knew. People I had classes with. People I sat next to on the bus when we went on field trips in middle school. People I collaborated with on projects to survive English class. They were indeed people I that were on my "thank you" list that I graduated high school.

There's another scary part to this. I know, I know, what could get scarier than this? Their charges. Why they both have $50,000 and $100,000 bail. They kidnapped and sexually assaulted a female.

This hit home for me. If we maintained our relations, this could've been me. It could've been any girl in our graduating class. How disgusting is it that I went to school with these people?

I sat next to a rapist.

This isn't the only occurrence of an incident like this. A little over a year ago, another classmate of mine got into some trouble. We bonded through ROTC and had each other's backs.

But he got convicted for murder. Murder.

I was friends with a murderer.

Despite this, there's many of my friends and classmates off in college, getting married, having children, and starting beautiful lives of their own. I love seeing posts like that because it makes me so proud of where I came from, and that I grew up with people intelligent enough to stay out of trouble.

Then things like this happen. And my heart breaks a little bit. Each one of these people I mentioned above were great people. I will always remember discreetly laughing during inspections in ROTC. I will always remember sitting next to him on the way back from the IMAX movie. I will always remember watching him doing a back flip on our graduation stage. Unfortunately, I will have to remember this too.

It's funny how people can change...