the moral of the story

chapter one: the tragic life of florence elizabeth walsh

lower case intentional i wrote this all on my phone and i couldn't be bothered to type capital letters

i wish i never met him. maybe then my life would be normal. maybe i wouldn't have thousands of insults hurled at me everyday. maybe when i passed people on the street, they wouldn't stare at me as if i possessed three heads. maybe girls would want to be my friend. maybe boys would want to date me.

i think about this a lot. more than i should. i know it's unhealthy to still be dwelling like this, but excuse me if it's a little difficult for a person to move on when they're constantly being reminded of their mistakes.

as hard as i contemplate my predicament, deep down somewhere i'm aware i'll never really know what would have happened if i'd never let myself go exploring that day. maybe my life would've crumbled to pieces anyway. maybe i would've eventually found a way to ruin it myself. somehow, i always manage to do that.

a year and a half later, i long to know the truth.

•

why did no one ever tell me how emotionally draining junior year is? i mean seriously, who ever thought that making the toughest year of high school the same one that basically determines how the rest of your life will pan out would be a good idea? kids are already depressed as is, school is just another plate to uncontrollably spin along with the ten others.

my school tries to help as best they can, though. i guess after the release of 13 reasons why, they were afraid that the entire study body would make like a suicide pact or whatever to be like hannah baker. so they offer shrinks to kids who get reported by their friends for a good laugh. it's quite the rave these days, my peers not taking issues like this seriously. oh my god, who wouldn't laugh at a girl who just slit her wrists? comedy and its finest!

my locker is the one closest to the guidance office, so whenever one of these pranks occur, i'm usually the first to know about it. they all start the same: kid rushes into the office, worried and on the verge of tears. they demand to speak to one of shrinks, and when they get the chance, the kid sobs and tells the tale of their friend, who they believe is someone who could possibly harm themselves. then the shrink, after they offer the kid some kleenex to blow their "stuffed" nose in, quickly heads to find the friend.

today, the friend is aaron gilbert. it seems that his buddies on the football team thought it would be hilarious to pull this prank on him. i watch from behind the door of my navy blue locker as one of the school's shrinks, martina, gently guide the poor confused freshman into her office. it's not too long later when aaron emerges from the office, bright red and face twisted with anger. he marches up towards his friends in their letterman jackets, beginning to playfully beat them up.

i decide to pay no more attention to the meatheads, instead shifting it to gathering more of my books for my next class. i'm lucky that no one has chosen to pull that prank on me, considering my reputation here at this school. and in society. but then again, it's only pulled by friends who care about each other. and i have none of those.

once i've collected all my belongings for the day, i gently close my locker and begin to trek to my next class, which also happens to be my favorite. don't get me wrong, just like every other class, english is one i go by without the companionship of a friend. but i've always been drawn to english for some reason. i always loved to read, but much more so when i was younger. once upon a time, i could spend hours in the small town of maycomb, alabama of to kill a mockingbird, and never long to leave. now i can't even dare to pluck it from it's home of under my messy bed.

nevertheless, i still love english class. i'm good at the essays, and my teacher seems to like me for some reason. i think she feels bad for me. she obviously knows about what happened, at this point everyone does. but mrs. patterson never fails to brighten my day in one way or another. whether it be complimenting me on a piece of writing, or simply just letting me know that she liked my cardigan, it never matters how small. it always takes away a little bit of the pain that still lingers in me.