And Faith Took Me Away...

Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

The hour dragged on and more and more people came in. We had the whole eighth grade in the tiny room now. I walked around, hugging and talking to people. Calming them down. It was mostly students, but I saw Mrs. Egle and Ms. Naymark walk in. They had tears in their eyes and I immediately went over to them.  They hugged me, and I felt a tear roll down my cheek.

            “Why?” I asked quietly.

            “Oh honey, I don’t know…” Mrs. Egle hugged me again. I tried to stop crying, but that didn’t work so well. She let go and I tried to smile at her.  The eight graders had formed a circle and were talking about Kayla. I wandered over to them, making hug stops on the way there. Mrs. Egle beat me there.

“Kayla wouldn’t have liked all this attention and hugging and crying, would she?” We all shook our heads no. “Now, I know you are suffering, and the hurt will take a while to go away, for some of you, it may never go away completely,” she looked at me and Josh, “but you all know she wouldn’t want you to be sad all your lives.”

“Do you remember when she was all loopy on that laughing gas in Spanish?” Someone asked. I smiled.

“Yeah, and I kept convincing her my thumb was gone. Then amazing her when it ‘grew back’?” I said, smiling at the memory. I had an awful lot of memories with her. But I wished for more. I just couldn’t focus. We all went around sharing memories and Megan played some of her favorite songs. We rocked out to Teach me how to dougie and John wall. They helped me with the moves and made me laugh. Kendra gasped suddenly.

“The-the- suicide posters… Will Mrs. Kulmeshkenova take them down?” We all fell silent. I went up to her.

“I’ll go talk to her now. Okay?” I said. I looked over at Britney and Sarah. “Do you two want to come with?” They nodded and we walked out. We made our way down to the health room, and I thought of what to say. I knocked lightly on the door. She opened it and I caught a glimpse of about five students in a class of twenty-four. Wow…

“ Hi, Mrs. K. We were wondering if we could talk to you, out in the hall.” She nodded and came out, shutting the door behind her.

“What’s up, girls?” She asked. I smiled weakly.

“We want you to take down the suicide posters. Its just going to be a big reminder every time we walk past. We won’t be able to take it. And the whole point of our posters was to STOP suicide. And that obviously didn’t work. Please?” I pleaded her with my eyes.

She sighed. “Girls, it may not have helped Kayla, but it may help some other kids. So we’re going to leave them up.” I could feel Sarah getting angry. I “accidently” brushed her arm. This was our way of calming the other down. I didn’t blame her; I was getting pretty angry myself. I sighed.

“Okay.” Then, I walked away. I saw Britney follow me and Sarah was right by my side. We walked back into Mrs. T’s lab. I went and hugged Kendra, telling her the bad news. Everyone went silent. It was devastating to lose a friend, and then have to be reminded of it every time you walked to Health or lunch or gym. I was really mad. But what could I do? She was a teacher, and she had authority. I saw Sarah whisper something in Taylor’s ear. They smiled and ran out the door. Well, this should be good.

The bell rang and I didn’t bother moving, but the room had gotten hot and stuffy. I knew I would be in here all day. They had set out paper and markers, so people were making GIANT posters. I walked over to one and wrote a quick message. Sarah ran over to me. “We did it.”

“Did what?”

 “We tore the posters down and ripped them up.”

“You… What?” The announcements came on. She left, waving as she went.