The Life Of A Victim

<3 RECOVERY <3

The next day of school starts and John offers to drive me there, I agreed, not wanting to walk. We were sitting in the car and he notices I zoned out, “Hey,” he said, interrupting my brain thinking of nothing, “You don’t need to worry about her, she's behind bars now, she can’t hurt you anymore” “Yeah, but what if-” I start, “She won’t, you know that, so stop convincing yourself all these ‘what ifs’, it won’t happen” He interrupted.

The car ride was silent after that, until he broke the silence, “Grace, look, I know it’s hard for you right now, but you have to be strong, I know you are” he started, “You stayed strong when Katelyn got me, when she was about to get you,” his voice started to quiver, “You stayed strong” he finished, I nodded, trying to convince myself that I am strong and I am who he says I am.

We get to the school and there are people standing outside the building, applauding our way, even some of Katelyn’s friends, hence the word “some”. I step out of the car and people come rushing our way like we are celebrities, “Hi Grace, you are very brave and strong, great job” a random girl I’ve never met said. I make my way across the crowd and lots of people offering high fives and gifts, I accepted all of the high fives and gifts, but I didn’t deserve them, “We are so glad you are here, Grace!” another person shouted, “We love you!!” I smiled at the attention, is this what love felt like?

We managed to get inside the building and people were rushing in, following us. Then I saw someone I don’t want to see, Katelyn’s friend, Vikki, in the corner of the room. Her eyes were filled with tears, it made me want to be nice to her, even if she won’t, “Hold on one second,” I tell John, I walk to Vikki, her arms crossed, “What do you want?” her raspy voice asked, “I just wanted to see if you are okay, I heard what happened with Kately, I’m so sorry” I said, trying to be as nice as possible, “Yeah, thank you, I never knew she was capable of stuff like this,” she replied, “Hey,” I said, “No one was prepared for what happened, so don’t blame yourself and just accept that it happened. There’s nothing anyone can do,” she nodded and so did I. I walked back to John and everything started to calm down, the crowd went away, but I still got nice comments here and there. We walked to Math and it was weird to see Mrs. Hener actually nice to me. Her smile filled her face as she said, “Welcome back, Grace,” “Thank you, Mrs. Hener” I answered, walking to my seat. The class was roughly easy, since she gave me and John a break today, so I just got to sit there and draw while the others learned. Before I knew it, math was over.

History was a breeze aswell, it was weird to see Mr. Barren nice to me since he always thinks he knows everything. Before I knew it, it was lunch, I found an empty table, but it was instantly filled with other students as I sat down, “Hey, sorry to bother” I started, “But can you guys find somewhere else, I’m saving this area for my boyfriend” Some of the people were hesitant but then left. John saw the empty table where I was and made his way over, “So,” he started, “How’s it going?” “Good so far” I answer, completely forgetting about my mom. School kind of did that for me, it made me forget, “Listen, we need to talk after school” he broke the silence. I nodded, knowing that it was a serious manner.