All you read about in the papers and see on the news is a kid being beat up at school, or a girl being hit on the bus. You never hear about the actually things said, or the nonviolent bullying; that only comes out when the person is dead. I don’t know what to say other than; I know I’m not dead. But in high school, I wanted to be, I was pretty much dead. Bullying that is violent… I’d rather have that. When you know the person is hitting you and hates you. The bullying I got all through high school? A little bit different than what we all hear about. I didn’t know who my friends were; I didn’t know what was true. I remember one day, in March, I was listening to music on the bus ride home. The song had ended and there was that quiet before the next, in that silence I heard my name. So I hit paused and tried to pretend like I couldn’t hear the people talking; I just looked out the window and listened. “ She’s such a s***, not boys even like her.” “Right?! What a f***ing w****, I hope she gets pregnant.” “I hope she dies from an STD” “She has to be somewhat attractive to have sex, and lets face it, the little w**** is barely anything but a four eyed band geek.” I remember thanking god that my stop was next; I couldn’t hold the tears in anymore. As soon as the bus stopped, I grabbed my stuff and quickly walked home. Nobody was home that day; my music was still blasting in my headphones as I ran through my house to the bathroom. I ripped my headphones out and cried against the door of the bathroom. I was still crying when I opened the medicine cabinet. All those words, all those rumors being spread about me, it was all running through my head; I had no one. I opened the pill bottle and right as I filled the glass of water I looked in the mirror. All those words running through my head got louder, I knew there was no escape. But right when I poured the pills into my hand, the voices stopped, all I heard was the music from my headphones still playing. I looked in the mirror again, it wasn’t me, and I was already dead. I remember looking at myself and thinking, “what the f*** are you doing” “they will win” I pictured all their looks at lunch when they see me, all their whispers when I walk by. If I die, they wont have that, if I die, they are going to find someone else; someone weaker and take it out on them. I am strong, I realized that I can do it, I can go into class the next day and smile right at them; that was my glory. The fact that they wanted me there, I know they did. I remember when my teacher first asked me about it all, and I said “I don’t care what they say, it’s a small town and they are making me famous in it”. So that’s what I let them do. They spent their high school life talking about me, and I spent mine, growing. Senior year, we all had to write our college papers about ourselves; I wrote mine about being bullied. I remember sitting next to the girl who was with that whole group in English. We had to pass our papers to the person next to us to pear edit, I was shaking when I handed mine to her; I was so afraid she would tell the others about how weak and scared I really was. After I finished reading her paper, which was really great, I watched her face as she read mine. I watch how her eyes got watery, how she started shaking herself. When she finished she just hugged me and said, “I am so sorry that I didn’t stop them”. I think in that moment, I just wanted to thank her, because of what happened I grew strong and brave, and with her saying sorry… I grew faith in people. If anyone going through bullying is reading this… just know, people do change, they can be better, and you need to be the better person and forgive. I never thought I’d be able to get over what happened in high school, or I’d be able to live through it. But I did, even though you don’t think you can, you can. My dad always said that the best revenge is success, so good thing I didn’t kill myself that day, because I still have time to succeed.