“Trevor has a new girlfriend its Brooke “said Liz. A friend of mine who was friends with my ex-boyfriend. We were walking in gym. The smell of sweat, BO, foot funguses, and throw up only made what she told me worse. I did not know what to say but I was hurt and very embarrassed. It was like I was stripped me in front of everyone and then hung me by my toes. How could he have another girlfriend already we just broke up even two weeks ago? How could he do that to me? I had to get out of there. I ran as though I had flames under my feet to the swim locker room and cried and cried. I cried so much that it was like a waterfall had formed in my eyes. I just couldn’t stop crying. Everything had gone wrong that year. Before school started my aunt sue who was like a mother to me died of breast cancer. Losing her put a huge gaping black hole in my heart. I only felt pain. But then I started dating Trevor and he made me feel as though I was whole. I began to see the world again, even though I didn’t even like him. He was just a sweet and kind guy who listened to me when I talked. Through the whole year my grades would drop then rise then decrease again. I just didn’t care anymore. There was no point in getting good grades. Without my aunt, there was no point to anything; nothing mattered to me anymore. Then I began to lose a lot of my friends or people I thought were my friends. No one wanted me around no one cared. These were people I have known for years. When Trevor and I broke up a whole bunch of my friends left me in the cold. I was a tree in the fall when it losses all of its leaves, a cold empty tree. I meant nothing to them. I meant nothing to anybody. I was nothing. I was in a black pit of nothing. I could find no way out and no one seemed to care enough to help me out. I needed to cut to stop the pain. I needed the blade. I needed the slice. I needed to feel the pain of the cut. I needed to feel the warmth of the blood dripping down my arm. I needed the cut. I needed to breathe. I couldn’t breathe. I needed air. I needed the cut. I looked all around me trying to and find something anything to get relief. A paper clip! When I saw it I grabbed it opened it up and dug it into my arm and dragged it across my smooth flesh. The air came. The warmth came. I felt nothing. It was amazing like when you break your leg and go to the hospital and the doctors give you medicine to stop the pain and you are numb. That how it felt. I was able to think again. I knew what I had to do. I needed to die, to release this pain and be free. No one cared about me, no one needed me, and no one will miss me. NO ONE. I was going to kill myself after school. I would go home and act completely normal till I go to bed. Then I will take every pill in my house and go to sleep and then never wake up again. Will anyone cry? Will anyone care? Who will come to my funeral? Will they dedicate the year book to me? Will people be happy, mad, and sad? The answer is nobody cares. ‘Bing’ the bell rings, I need to go to Spanish. I look in the mirror my eyes are puffy, red and swollen. I whipped my eyes and went to class. I kept my head down, no need to let people see. I sat in my seat and start to cry, Justin and Ricky my best friends asked “what’s wrong”? I just kept shaking my head. Class started Mrs. Parke told the class to work on a worksheet. She saw me crying, asking the same question “what’s wrong Christie”. I don’t answer. She asked Justin he said “I don’t know”. “Christie come talk to me in the hallway” said Mrs. Parke. I whip my face free of tears. You could have wrung out my face like a drenched washcloth by now. I walked by my whole class, but I was way too upset to think about them. My mind was a train only going one way only able to think about the most simplest of tasks. As I stepped out of the class room Mrs. Parke looks me all over she saw my arm. “What happen to your arm” she asked. “Nothing “I said lying though tears. But there was no point. The cut was fresh; I could feel the moist, warm, thick blood dripping down my arm. And she could see it, “Christie please talk to me. I just want to help you I care about you can trust me.” She said. I just stared at her. How could she care about me she has only know me for ten months? She was my teacher. Why would she care? But looking in to her eyes was like looking into a book. A book about a caring, loving, understanding thoughtful, wonderful, and beautiful inside and out. I open my mouth to tell her just about what happen in the morning about Trevor. But my mouth became a roaring river of words. The words just kept coming they wouldn’t stop. I told her everything. I shut my eyes I couldn’t bear to see any kind of look of judgment, fear, or the ‘what the hell is wrong with you’ look. So I made sure I could not see her. It was a black wall of nothing. Just how I felt. “Nobody cares… Nobody loves me… I need to die… I’m a cutter… the world would be better without me…nobody needs me… nobody wants me … I’m going to kill myself! She listened to me never once interrupted me. When I was done, I feared so much to look at her; what if she looks at me with judgment? What if she says I’m over reacting, that I’m crazy? What if she never wants me near her again? I can’t handle that! I was so reluctant to open my eyes that it felt that someone had glued them shut. Just like when you wake up in the morning and you know you have to get up but you don’t feel like it. But I finally got my eyes open and when I looked into her eyes all I saw was understanding, care, love, and support. I didn’t think I wanted that but when she looked at me like that I felt safe and secured. “Christie it’s okay. Everything will be okay.” “How?” “Because a lot of people feel like this. They feel lost, hopeless, like there is nothing to live for anymore. I have felt like that once.” “When?” Then she proceeded to tell me her story. Then she said this “Christie I care about you Justin and Ricky care about you I’d miss you if you killed yourself”. She gave me something that I don’t think or believe anyone else could have given me. Hope. Hope for a future, for a life, but most of all she made me realize I was not alone. That people do care and love me that everything will be okay. She taught me that day that your life is precious, that you need to live your life not take it. If it wasn’t for Mrs. Parke that cared enough to pull me outside and talked to me, to listen to me, to hug me and to show me that she cared about me., I wouldn’t be here today. I’d be a corpus in the ground rotting flesh. But I’m not and I will be eternal thankful for that.
