My Fault
All of this is true but how I wish it wasn't.
Have you ever felt sorry for someone, someone who happens to be quite nice but you hate her all the same? Did you ever think you were winning the game when in fact you were losing? Well, I have and still to this day, I live with the consequences of my actions and no-one can ever change that.
She was pretty, she was cool, she was popular. In fact she was the most popular girl in school. She smoked, she had lots of boyfriends, wore tons of make-up, never did well in any of her exams, bunked off school and had heart tattoos on her neck and I was her best friend.
I followed her everywhere and did everything with her. I smoked but I hated smoking. I was clever but I pretended not to be, I had potential but didn't use it, I wore thick black make-up but really looked better without it, instead of tattoos I had piercings even though they hurt like you can’t imagine and would catch on my clothes. If she said she had a boyfriend, I pretended I did too, I didn’t do my homework because she didn't. I was rude, I was unkind, I was mean and worst of all I was a bully. To make her happy and to keep her as my friend I did what she said. I was scared she wouldn't like me any more, scared she’d bully me, scared to be alone, just scared of her like everyone else.
It wasn't me I felt sorry for, it was that really nice girl, the girl who looked as though she had everything, she had two parents, a brother and sister, a house with a garden, lovely clothes, a nice car and I dream of having her school bag. She gets really good grades and she was always friendly but none of this matters any more, not right now because she is the girl on the receiving end of us.
We puff smoke into her face, we scribble on her school work and ring her on her phone in the middle of an important test but worst of all, we cyber bully her. We text her messages with all kinds of threats and post lies about her on Facebook which aren't the slightest bit true. We follow her home in the dark. We do everything to make her scared. We snigger in her face and snort with laughter in class. We are mean like you can’t imagine. She does nothing but hold her head up high and walk on by. Any given chance, we taunt her and tease her, we make her life miserable. We feel cool, we feel powerful, we feel popular, we feel respected, no-one would dare confront us.
But something’s happened, something bad, something unforgivable, something that is my fault.
The girl who I though had everything no longer has her life. She committed suicide. She’s dead.
What was a game to us, our mean, rotten, nasty behaviour which had become our daily ritual has gone terribly wrong. We are no longer cool and we are no longer respected. We are ashamed. We are murderers. We bullied that nice girl into taking her life.
In her own sweet way, she has got even. She has won. Just as I took her life she has taken mine.