The Friendship Bracelet

Babysitting

I looked in the mirror. I had 2 black eyes and cuts all over my face. I had bruises and cuts all down my legs and all over my torso. One of those history studying moments, I thought to myself. I heard someone coming towards the toilet block so I ran into one of the stalls. I closed the door and crawled up into a ball on the closed toilet lid. I started to cry and question my current situation. Why did this happen to me? What did I do to deserve this? How could they even think to do this? So many questions that I just couldn't find the answer to. In about 10 seconds I realised that I was talking out loud and that I had left the door unlocked. I reached to lock it but before I could get up, Willow and Madelyn pushed open the door and stared at me. They suddenly started laughing and throwing words at me, I think they were saying I was going to die.

I just ignored them and pushed past them. I ran back to class and asked the teacher if I could get something from my locker. She said yes and I ran straight down to my homeroom and opened my locker. There was a folded piece of paper sticky-taped to the inside of the locker door. I took it off of the door and unfolded it. 'LOSER' was written on the paper in bold, red letters. I stared at it for a few seconds and felt a burning rage building up inside of me. Hot tears flooded my eyes, and I sat there, immobile, for what felt like a lifetime.

Before I knew it, the bell had gone and I had to go to my aunt's house babysit her two sons, the younger one is 5 and his name is Jacob, the older one's name is Luke. They live fairly close to the school so I didn't have to walk very far.

When I got there, I took the key from underneath their car manual, on the shelf, and unlocked the door. I put the key back and opened the door. They both came running towards me and the youngest one jumped up into my arms. I caught him and he poked one of my bruises and said, "What's that?" I told him, "Gracie's had a rough day."

"What happened?" Asked the eldest of the two, who is 12. "I'll tell you in private," I said to him. I went into the living room closely followed by the two boys. "Now, Jacob, can you be an extra, extra good boy while I go talk to Luke in private?" I said to him. "No promises," He said. "I'll give you some of my yummy homemade ice cream."

"With sprinkles?"

"Of course. Now, Luke, I need to talk to you. Pretty much what I'm going to say might affect Jacob's feelings a little too much to handle."

I went into his bedroom and Luke came in and closed the door behind him. "What happened to you? I assume that's why you wanted to talk to me," He said with a concerned look on his face.

"Yes, but please don't tell anyone, okay?"

"Promise."

"Okay... Basically today I was... I was beat up... By 13 people at once. They knocked me out and I was left lying unconscious on the concrete. They ripped off my glasses and stepped on them, and then they punched me in the face numerous times and threw me to the ground. Then they started to kick, punch and step on me."

"Oh my god... are you okay?!"

"I think so. I hope so. You remember Willow and Madelyn right?"

"Yeah. What do they have to do with this though?"

"We drifted apart and they started to be mean to me, up until the point where they convinced the bullies to... well... to do this," I mumbled while gesturing to my wounds.

I opened the door and started slowly walking back to the living room. Jacob saw that I was almost crying and gave me an enormous hug. "I hope you're okay," He said to me. "Me too," said Luke soon after.

"Never mind that, boys. Jacob, were you a good boy while I was gone?"

"Yes! I even cleaned a little bit!"

"Let me see." I looked around at the living room, he had been putting his toys away. "Woah! You definitely deserve some ice cream!" I went into the kitchen and got the ice cream out of the freezer. Luke asked if he could have some too. I got out two bowls and put ice cream into each one. Since I was upset, I decided to give myself some as well.

I got the sprinkles out and put some on each of the three bowls of ice cream. I put them on the dining table and we all sat down. "It's hard looking at you right with you like that," said Luke, who seemed to be staring at the cuts and bruises on my face and arms. "I know, but hopefully they go away fairly quickly." I glanced over at Jacob. He had his face right over the bowl of ice cream, and was licking his lips. I giggled a little bit. That was the first time I had laughed genuinely at all that day, and hopefully it wasn't the last.