Emma: Freshman Year

Chapter 12: Bad Day

That morning at school, as Emma was kneeling on the ground, putting books away in her locker before math class, she noticed that there was blood seeping through the long sleeved shirt she was wearing. Sighing in annoyance, Emma unzipped her backpack and filled it with her algebra textbook, her Spanish textbook and notebook, and her English notebook. Zipping up her backpack, she stood up and slung it over her shoulder just as the first bell rang.

Just then, Kendra stepped in front of Emma and tightly grabbed her by the wrist. "Oh my God. Guys, come look!" she cried, rolling up Emma's sleeve and revealing her self-inflicted wounds.

"What is it?" Alyssa wanted to know as a small crowd gathered around Kendra and Emma.

"Emma cut herself again," Kendra announced. "What a freak!"

"Let me go, Kendra!" Emma demanded, trying in vain to pull away from Kendra's strong grip.

"Wow, what a loser," a girl in the crowd remarked.

"Yeah, no shit!" Briana agreed.

"No wonder she has no friends!" a boy in the crowd stated.

"I do too have friends!" Emma cried with tears in her eyes. "Now let me go!"

"Fine! I'll let you go, you piece of shit!" Kendra snarled, giving Emma a rough push.

Emma was slammed against the lockers by Kendra, then fell to the ground with a thud. "Ouch! You assholes!" Emma screamed as pain seared through her tailbone, where she had landed.

"Call us assholes one more time and we'll pull your pants down," Kendra threatened as she and her friends walked away, laughing.

With tears in her eyes, Emma picked herself up from the ground and rolled her sleeve down, covering the cuts on her arm. She raced to her first class with Mr. Halverson, but didn't make it in time before the tardy bell rang.

"You're late, Emma," Mr. Halverson stated as Emma entered the classroom.

"I'm sorry," Emma replied quietly as hung her head in shame. With fresh tears forming in her eyes, Emma walked to her desk beside Heidi and sat down, placing her backpack on the floor beside her.

"Go get a tardy slip from the office, Emma," Mr. Halverson told her. "You know the rules."

Without saying anything, Emma got up from her desk, walked to the front of the classroom, and opened the door, letting herself out in the empty hallway. What a horrible start to her day; first she was criticized by her mom for staying overnight at Landon's, then Kendra showed off Emma's self-inflicted cuts to the entire school and pushed her on the floor, making her late for her algebra class.

"Hey Cutie!"

Emma looked up and spotted Landon walking towards her from further down the hall.

"Hey," Emma greeted him, not even trying to hide the dejected look on her face.

"You look so sad," Landon observed. "What's wrong?"

Emma sighed as she wiped away the tears from her eyes. Should she tell Landon everything that was going on? Giving him the benefit of the doubt, Emma explained everything, starting from when her mom chewed her out for being gone all night to when Kendra pushed her against the lockers and made her late for class. However, Emma carefully excluded the part where she cut herself, for she hated anyone knowing that she struggled with self-harming tendencies.

"Sounds like your mom wasn't too happy about you staying over at my place, huh?" Landon remarked.

"No, she wasn't," Emma replied. "She grounded me from my phone and friends for a month."