:[march to the sea]:

/intro/

|start the song; its say something by A Great Big World. I just bought it kinda fits with this chapter I guess|

[tw: mentions of suicide, abuse, eating disorders, death, anxiety, and intense conversation. Let me know if you think there are any I missed. Stay safe everyone]

J O S H

"So class, as all of you know, a few months ago one of your fellow students tragically took his own life. The district has decided it would be a good idea to have someone talk to you guys about what you can do to help each other. So today, we have a guest speaker, Miss Carly." The teacher says. I look around the classroom. Everyone looks bored out of their minds.

"Hello class, I'm Carly. I'm here to talk to you all today to make sure you all understand what really happened. I know this is a sensitive topic, and if any of you start to feel uncomfortable, feel free to take a step outside and come back in when you're ready." The young black haired woman says. She looks around the room to let the information soak into everyone a little.

"Alright, so as you all know, a student took his own life a few months ago. Daniel Holm might have been in some of your classes, you probably passed him in the hall at some point, or you might have even been one of his friends. From what we've heard, Daniel never seemed to be acting different. But underneath he had been struggling with depression for months. Some of his closest friends had noticed that he had been becoming slightly more distant over the preceding months.

"We're trying to prevent another incident like this from happening in the future, so we thought the best way to do so is to come to the students themselves. So, I'd like to start with what you can do as individuals." She says, motioning her hand to her audience. "Let's talk about judging each other. All of you have noticed someone do something which isn't normal to you before. You probably turned to your group of friends and said something like, 'Did you see that girl start crying in the middle of class?' Well you probably never stopped to ask that girl what was wrong. You just thought she was weird and that was just her personality. She was just being over dramatic. Well if you stopped to ask you would've found out that her father died of cancer last week.

"Or that boy who doesn't eat lunch? You probably called him a twig. Well you probably never knew that he's been bullied his whole life for being fat, and ended up developing anorexia. Oh, and we can't forget about the girl who sits alone every lunch period. You called her a loser with no friends. When she really just has extremely bad social anxiety. If you stopped your gossiping and made an effort to get up and be friendly, or ask what's wrong, or offer to help, maybe you could stop them from damaging themselves. It all starts there. Feeling alone. Then it leads to needing a distraction. Then it's killing yourself. Just by getting up at lunch and walking over to the girls table and asking if she's ok after she broke down into tears in class can make such a huge difference to someone. You could be saving their lives and you'd never know it. You could be ending their life by turning back around and talking about going to a sports game with your friends after you watched a boy get made fun of for having a black eye. When that boy's actually being abused at home. Maybe if you talked to him, he would've told you and you could've told the school counselor so authorities could be notified."

I look back around the classroom. No one looks bored. They all just look guilty.

"So maybe, you're the one friend that someone needs that'll change their life, save their life even. You never know if the girl you just made fun of is actually really funny. She just has a problem that she can't solve on her own." The bell rings, startling the whole class. The teacher speaks up as everyone grabs their things.

"The only homework for tonight is to talk to someone new." He says before everyone leaves.

Maybe I should actually do my homework for once.

(696 words)

(A/n: hey hey hey! Welcome to March to the Sea! I'm really excited for this story :) I already have a ton of chapters prewritten and it's gonna be gr9. Anyways this speech thing is based off a true story. A student at my school killed himself last year and now every class is getting a speech at the beginning of the year that's similar to this. I really liked the message and I decided it would make a good story. Basically the moral is, don't just look over someone when you can see they're struggling. Don't just suppose they'll be alright. Don't just mention them to your friends. Talk to them, ask them if they're alright. Try to make them feel comfortable around you. Try to be friends with them. It might turn out that they're a really cool person and might be one of your best friends in the future. You might be exactly what they needed to overcome one of their obstacles in their life. Anywho,, I have to clean my room so we can paint it and I just realized I'm like a low key hoarder, it's not like *super* bad but I just can never throw things away, idk why. So adios until next chapter, I gotta go clean my garbage can of a room.

Stay safe, ily)

-m