Broken

Shattered.

When you throw a glass plate at a brick wall, it will break, no doubt. And when you try to glue the shattered pieces together, you will always lose a piece of the plate and you’ll glue the wrong pieces together. Often times, you’ll just give up. It’s just too much work to fix a silly old plate when you can easily buy a new one. The day I signed up for Ask.fm, I thought it would be fun to ask and receive questions anonymously. Two weeks after I got it, most of my school and other people followed me on Ask.fm. The silly questions, like “who do you like?” and “what’s your favorite color?”, stopped showing up in my inbox. I regretted ever getting this stupid Ask.fm. The hateful comments wouldn’t stop coming. “You’re so ugly”, “You’re a slut”, and “You should just kill yourself” are what filled my inbox. It was like I was a stupid old plate and they were throwing me at a brick wall. I felt so worthless. They didn’t even care that I was an actual human. They didn’t care that I had feelings. I was too broken to fix, so they decided it would be easier to just throw me away. They just didn’t care about me.

Remember how when you were little, your parents always told you that you got to choose your friends? Well, I did choose my friends, Rachel and Jordyn. At the beginning of middle school, I got chosen to be Emma Smith and Jessica Peterson’s friend.  With Emma and Jessica, it was all about them and I wasn’t allowed to   have other friends, so Rachel and Jordyn ended up on the sidelines. Emma and Jessica were the most popular girls in school, so that made me one of the most popular girls in school, too. Everyone knew who I was, Kylee Young. Emma and Jessica were different from Rachel and Jordyn, though. They were more interested in what I was, not who I was. They were interested in the fact that I wore Lululemon pants and leggings, not the fact that life was really hard for me. They wouldn’t care about me even if I told them about my depression, instead they would just leave me to drown in the ocean of misery. This happened for three years.

 

It was a cold autumn day and the leaves were falling everywhere. The sky was gray and was making me sad, even though I knew it was the depression what was making me sad. I was walking to my locker after lunch with Emma and Jessica. Emma had short blonde hair that brushed her shoulders and her eyes were as blue as the ocean, she was beautiful. Jessica had hair the color of honey and it swayed against the middle of her back while her eyes were the color of the leaves of a daisy. And for me, I had brown wavy brown hair that stirred between my shoulder blades. All three of us were about the same height, about five feet tall and four inches. Emma was talking about how she wanted to go to the mall with Jess and I this weekend, even though I knew that wasn’t going to happen. My weekends usually consisted of sleeping in on Saturday until 1:00 P.M. and having lunch, and somewhere during the day I would lock myself in my room and listen to music. On Sunday, my parents made me go to church with them, then I would do some homework. The rest of the day consisted of locking myself in my room listening to music. But, I smiled the fakest smile and told her that I would ask my mom if I could, even though my parents are always working and it feels like I never see them, except on Sunday mornings.

Literally nobody was out here, or so it felt. As we continued walking, a group of people were harassing a girl I had never seen before. Tears were streaming down her face and I could tell that she saw me looking at her because she wiped her cheeks with her baggy sweatshirt. I knew the pain of not being good enough. I knew the pain of being hated by all and loved by none. I could see the pain in her eyes, even though I was about 25 feet away from her. I looked over at Emma and Jessica who were still talking about the mall and Wet Seal’s sale that ended on Sunday. They noticed I had stopped walking and was staring at the group of people and the girl.

“Kylee, let’s go.” Emma demanded.

“Wait-” I tried to defend myself.

“Honey, we are going to be late for class.” Jessica said with authority. The looks on their faces were almost frightening.

The pang in my empty heart made the emptiness and hurt expand.

“Of course. Let’s go,” I smiled a fake smile and looked back one last time, making eye contact with the girl. Only if I could’ve helped her. But, I didn’t, I just walked away.

 

Later that day, in math, I was doodling in my journal, replaying the look in that girl’s eyes and what had happened, it was burned into my memory like fire burns wood. I could have said something, but I didn’t. I was too scared. The class had already finished and I was walking down the hallway alone, without out Jessica and Emma for the first time in what felt like a million years, in a haze. And that’s when I saw her. I saw the girl who was being bullied. I went up to her and when she saw me, she looked ashamed.

“I’m sorry,” I said and her face looked as if I was speaking German and she didn’t understand.

“For what?” her voice was quiet and sounded wounded.

“Kylee, what are you doing talking to this loser?” Emma came up behind me and said very loudly.

“I-” I tried to say something, but to Emma, my words are just a shout into the void.

“Shut up. Let’s go,” Emma demanded and Jessica followed us.

I could do something about this. I could help, not only that girl but, a lot of people. I can prevent people from feeling the way I feel. I can help them feel like they are something, like they are important…