Just Yesterday

Spoken

Class ended, after what felt like hours. I quickly wiped my eyes so that the flow of tears would end. I looked over to his desk. Natalie was now standing. I realized that we were the last two people in class. I began to approach her. She met my eyes, and held her stare. Her face looked like anger. I dropped my glance, trying to breathe. Before I had a chance to look up, she was bumping my shoulder on her exit out the class.

I walk past multiple crowds of gasps and pointed fingers. I wonder if they are pointing at me or at the empty spot beside me. This time two months ago I was a person. I had friends, or at least that's what I called them. Two months ago my life was fine. I was the girl that people wanted to fit in with. The girl that people felt as if they were afraid to get caught staring at too long. Now so many faces stared, they pointed as well.

I turned down the hallway where my locker was. As I made my way to it,I noticed a decorated locker. I tried not to stare, tried not to remember. But I couldn't help remembering him knelt near the locker. Him repeatedly dropping books. My friends-ex now- would walk past and kick the books further across the hall. I would watch as he tried to hold back the pain of knowing I was part of the harassment.

Letters, notes, pictures, and flowers were all stuck to the front of the locker. I searched for the lock, but it was not in view. The school had sent home previous letters, so this must have been recently made. I walked past quickly, trying not to stare to long. Trying to forget who it belonged to once.

I fished the paper that the principal had written my locker combination on out of my pocket. As I looked up, there she was knelt down they way he had. She closed her eyes, and whispered something, perhaps a prayer. She lightly kissed the locker ,and stood up. Once again our eyes met.

" So what's that about? You sitting in his seat." I held my stare,a tingling began to occur in my eyes. Her eyes dropped, and she turned around ready to leave.

" You can't replace my brother, if that's what you're trying to do, you can't." She turned around, anger was apparent on her face.

"He was my friend-"

"He was my brother!" It hurt to use the past tense phrase of that. Then I was astonished that she began to laugh.

"Oh, so now you remember that?" She turned once again. I began to approach her, the echo of a heavy pulse in my head.

"Who do you think you are?" The next period bell rang, stopping my words from being heard. The crowds of students flooded around me, pushing me along the halls.

The day went along. I found myself in my final class, P.E. I received another round of welcome backs, and stares, and finger pointings. My teacher instructed our class to jog for the final ten minutes of the day. I plugged my ear buds into my ears and began to run. The loud music seemed to calm the pulsing in my head, which confused me. I ran, and didn't care who was around. It felt freeing, like I was finally escaping the burdens that had kept me hostage for these past months. Running, escaping, breathing. I was about to be released, then the left ear bud was snatched out.

"The bell rang. It's time to go home." Mr. Matthew stopped to catch his breath, sweat soaking the collar of his yellow shirt. "God, you run fast!"

I headed back to the girls locker room. As I ran down the steps, it looked as if the room were completely empty. I opened up my locker, my uniform fell to the floor. I knelt down too pick it up, and was startled by Jaselyne. She extended her arm toward me, holding a blue envelope.

"I heard you were back. I wanted to give this to you myself. Everybody else put theirs on Will's locker, but like I said I wanted to give it to you myself."

I stood there, staring. She shook her hand once more, telling me to take it. I grabbed the rest of my stuff ,and walked past her. A gasp escaped her lips.

" Look I know that we messed up okay. After everything happened, we were just afraid. We thought someone would find out. That's why we all stayed away."

I looked at her, trying to figure out whether the group asked her to do this or if she volunteered. I turned, on my way out the door again.

" Thanks for not saying anything, you know to the cops. No one questioned any of us, so I just figured that you didn't include any of our names. We didn't know he would-"

" Look, um, thanks for the card. And don't mention it." I grabbed the card, and attempted to leave the room for a third time.

" We really are sorry about-"

" Like I said, 'Don't mention it.'" This time I didn't dare to turn or stop. I had agreed that the group volunteered her to speak to me.