Just A Week More Than A Fortnight.

DAY 05, WEEK 02

The house was empty. She saw newspaper front pages all over the floor, it looked like it had been there for quite a while. Front pages with her blurred face splattered all over it. The reason she thought nothing had changed was because it was really no different to when she was alive. She would come home every day with no one to welcome her home. The only times she saw her parents were when she coincidentally met her parents by the door, on her way to school. They would have just come home from work. She tried pretending to be sick sometimes and see if she could catch them home; it did not work either. They would either be sleeping at their company or working overseas on some major project. She belong to a quite wealthy family, obviously, considering all the work her parents had spent their time on.

Usually with this family background, the story would be about her being happy with her family again; but instead this is about a dead girl seeking joy which came by a little too late. By looking at the papers on the floor she could have guessed what had happened the day her parents received the news. Her parents bought every single newspaper in the neighborhood to make sure the news were true, then arranged for a small quick funeral.

"Do not linger around emotion and let it interfere with the real thing."

That was their family motto. They probably did not try to find out how it happened either. Jessica told Karry that she committed suicide, but that was not really what had happened. She gritted her teeth hard and could hear them grinding. 

"No one likes you."

She could hear that voice echo in her mind like Suzy was right next to her, whispering in her ear. 

"I know."

"Know what?"

"Not you. Sorry, the voices tend to come back sometimes."

She shook her head, yet her teeth still had not let go. They did everything best friends did. They got McDonald's at midnight cause they wanted to, they nicknamed their crushes and bitches, everything around them seemed to have reminded them of each other. Some day, one day, things changed. Suzy took over. You see, Jessica was always the more popular one at the time, the one with more friends. Having a boyfriend and flirting around was not enough, she needed to have everything Jessica had. 

The bullying did not just stop at forcing her to do things she did not want to do. They then began to leave condoms and birth control pills scattered in her locker. The news got to the teachers, and then the staff of the school became very sensitive as to how Jessica was dressed. She could only wear long jeans and a long-sleeved top, with a high collar just to be safe sometimes. If she wear to wear shorts or a dress, a teacher would stop her and send her home to change, or attempt to call her parents; of course, they did not pick up. Sexual harassment was not even the end of it. Yes, she was sexually violated. By her classmates, even by shabby teachers. Boys a grade or two older would grope her butt when they stood next to her or walked past her. Some teachers would lean in to caress her thigh, her gym teacher would have his hands on her at uncomfortable zones.

They thought it was okay. They thought she welcomed it.

"She's a slut, might as well, there's nothing else she's good for anyways."

They would say it right in front of her. No one stood up for her. Maybe they thought she should be strong enough to do this to herself, maybe they thought someone else would help her, maybe they thought it was none of their business. Or maybe, they thought that just one person on her side would not make a difference and on the contrary, they would be spiraled into this melodrama.

Jessica considered visiting her own grave, but there was no use, her parents probably never visited anyways. Why did not anyone notice her pain? Her grief? Did no one care? At one point she almost convinced herself to be the person everyone said she was. 

"Maybe what they're saying is true. I just haven't noticed it yet."

Thoughts like those flooded her mind at the time. She would get prank calls from anonymous numbers with sex noises coming through it as well. She felt guilty, at first, that it was all her fault. Then she began to be disgusted, she stopped going to school and was going to resort to homeschooling, but she received a call with a name she had not seen on her mobile phone for so long.

"Meet me at the school's rooftop."