Buzz, buzz. The sound of the buzzing from my phone woke me up from a peaceful sleep. I look and my phone shows a text in bold letters from my best friend Bea.
The text read, “HURRY UP and meet me at school!” Oh my god! I jump out of bed not realizing the time and how late it is. It is 7:20 and I have to be in school by 7:35. Wednesdays are not my mornings. My hair is messy, tangles made of curls that I do not have time to comb out, and I grab a pair of grey sweatpants and a baggy sweatshirt and run out the door. While speed walking to school, grey clouds form in the sky and it starts pouring freezing, cold rain. People always say Florida is the sunshine state, but it is like a ghost town walking in this small town here of Vista Point. The morning fog is so thick and mucky you can barely see the road ahead that you are walking on. I can only see a small streak of sunlight shining which forms a baby rainbow. It is so quiet you can hear the sound of a pin drop falling.
As I walk near the school entrance my friend Bea greets me. My boots are wet and my hands feel sticky from the yucky weather out. I am gasping for breath, drinking water from the water fountain fast, running up the stairs, almost tripping because I am trying to be early for homeroom.
“Hey girls!” this new girl Diana says to me and Bea.
“What’s up?” I said. I look over and see Bea giving her the evil eye, squinting, and looking at her like she knows what the new girl is about. Bea and I went to talk, away from Diana for a second.
“Are you ok, why are you looking at her like that?” I said.
“There is something about her that I don’t trust, I don’t know what it is though”, Bea says while shaking her index finger back and forth and looking at her. I am not one to judge a person by looking at them. I like to get to know them first; but this year of knowing Bea, I have learned she is usually a good judge of character and any one should listen to her with whom not to be friends with.
“Girls, pay attention please!” Mrs. Gardener says. This classroom is like Antarctica. It is so cold. If I had ice cream it would stay frozen. My eyes always start to close in this class while putting my head down on the desk for a nap but leaving my ears open to hear her teach. Not wanting to be in school today, I daze off in class staring at the picture Mrs. Gardener has on her desk of her little Pomeranian dog. I sit there reading posters and my eyes are fixed on the tall wall clock, hoping class will end soon. Ding. The bell rings. The day feels like it is dragging, so far, but I cannot wait to go to lunch as the smell of fresh pizza hits my nose. While walking to lunch, Diana runs up to me and Bea. As I take a seat to my table, I realize just a week of her being in this school that she has made friends with the snobby, hostile people. Maybe Bea is right about her.
Lunch is a blast. I, Bea and my friends are laughing so hard I fell off the chair. I could not ask for a better period in school every day that will form good high school memories. But it always seems like there is something right there to ruin a person’s moment of happiness. My spirit of happiness turned to feeling sad for a specific person, Heather. I feel like I am the only one who notices her depression at lunch and people act like she is invisible. When she walks, her head is always looking down and her light blue eyes are glazy with water and you can see the loneliness through them.
“You look angry, what is wrong?” one of my friends asked.
“Oh, it is nothing” I said. I continued having a smile on my face and laughing. I am pretending nothing was wrong. They would not make any moves knowing someone is getting bullied.
Every day I see the same sight, it is the same routine and pattern repeating itself nonstop that is like a broken music record. Someone from Diana’s table is always laughing at the clothes she wears, the way she wears her hair, the way she does everything. I can hear those giggles full of jealousy and eyes on her the whole time.
So what if she is in love with wearing high heel boots and dressy shirts that would be worn for a professional job. I do not know why people cannot accept others for who they are. How every individual decides to look is up to them, that is what makes each one of us unique and interesting. It seems like people do not notice that anymore. If everyone was like clones of each other, the world would be a very boring place. Personally, I think we should not judge and treat somebody differently based on the way they look. It is what is on the inside and their personality that matters.
I am filled with anger, with hate right now. The feeling of being a red, burning flame is in me. I can feel Heather’s pain and anguish, even though I am not her. My pepperoni pizza tastes cold and it does not taste that good at this moment. I can hardly enjoy the rest of it as I wish I can do something to stop of her being verbally harassed. I cannot imagine not wanting to go to lunch because a table with everyone there has low self-esteem and they need to take it out on an innocent person to make themselves feel better. I badly wish I have the courage to talk to her, because at this moment I do not. So many thoughts are racing through my head like people running track. Confusion gets to me and I do not know what to do. The part that leaves me in shock is that Diana can do this to someone who did absolutely nothing to her. She acted like an innocent lamb but she was hiding, is really a vicious dog ready to rip anyone apart on the inside.
“Bea, you were right” I said.
“I was right about what?”
“About Diana being a fake hypocrite and not someone you can trust” I said. She stopped eating and talking to the rest of the people at the table and she was talking to me. She lifted one eyebrow up with her confused face.
She asks me “Wait, what is going on?!”
“You have not noticed?” I said. “This whole time Diana and her table have been bothering Heather every day, ever since school started.”
I have never seen Bea so angry in my life, it is like she was a new person at that moment and a person I have never seen. Now we were both the only ones at the table who realized what was going on and we were sitting in confusion because of it.
“So, what do you want to do about this?” she says.
“I do not know, we have to figure something out.” I was trying to think, but everything got cluttered in my mind at once. I was thinking about my test next period that I did not study for; my project due tomorrow that was not done and last but not least this dilemma. I wish I was not so undecided.
“Sorry Bea, my mind’s too cluttered to think” I say. When we got up to throw our lunch out, we notice that Heather threw her books on the ground and started screaming to someone quietly while not trying to make a scene.
She kept on saying “I am done with this, I cannot deal with this anymore!” She ran out and told the teacher she needed to go to the bathroom. My heart jumped and I had stomach cramps for a second. I felt a rush go through my body and I felt like something was knotted in my throat, the feeling a person gets when they’re about to cry or lose it. I had a feeling she did not really have to use the bathroom. Bea and I ran after her, rushing in the bathroom, only to find her standing there. Her tears were a waterfall, nonstop pouring from her eyes and she had a little pocket knife in her hand. The same words were repetitive coming out of her mouth.
“Guys, I just could not take it anymore, what did I ever do to them to hate me!”
When I look at her wrist I see little streaks of blood coming out. A little feeling of relief got too me when I realized she did not cut herself that deep. I grabbed the knife from her and I do not know the feeling I had at this moment, it was a mix of feelings together at once.
“Bea, call for help, LIKE NOW!” She grabs the nurse and the ambulance came. I actually heard my heart pounding, the boom, boom sound it made. I am nervous whether or not she is going to make it. The moment I found out she was fine, it was the best feeling ever. It was a grand feeling of knowing that you somewhat helped save someone’s life. The grey cloud of worry came off of me and there was only happiness all around. Heather got asked why she tried to commit suicide and she spoke up this time, she told the whole truth and reasons. The next day, Diana and her table were no longer seen in school anymore. The trouble was gone because they all got expelled and had a police report made. As I go outside, the weather is still rainy, but not the mood.