I feel really sad. I remember @LuvvaGirl99, she replied to a lot of my posts, and we were friendly in a way. She seemed like a really nice person.
I add my comment to the bottom of the post:
Author: @SmallGirl22
Subject: RE The Death Club
Really sorry to hear this. RIP Linda, you were too good for us all.
I click post and I pause, for a moment, then go to the kitchen for a glass of water, still thinking about her. It’s sad that someone feels the need to take their own life, but I understand, in a way. Sometimes it feels like the only escape from pain is death. When school is horrible, home is horrible, and inside my head is horrible, the only way to stop it all is to end it. I often wonder whether the world is better off without me.
Then I realise the world doesn’t care enough to be better off without me.
Nothing would change. Nobody would notice the empty seat where I used to sit. I doubt anyone would even recognise my name.
I’ve considered it before. A few times.
I wouldn’t hang myself; that would be too painful. I’d overdose. Like Linda did. End it quickly. Hopefully I’d pass out before the pain arrived.
This is not a world for people like me.
I finish my glass of water and place the glass in the bowl. I notice a few empty wine bottles poking out of the bin. I ignore them and return to the computer.
I’ve already had six comments on my post.
They all seem to be from the same person.
And they all seem to say the same thing.
Author: @PussyMagnet69
Subject: RE RE RE The Death Club
Wht da fuck you know about it?
Author: @PussyMagnet69
Subject: RE RE RE REThe Death Club
Probly just some middle-class stuck-up bitch who likes to pretend to feel bad bout someone else.
Author: @PussyMagnet69
Subject: RE RE RE RE REThe Death Club
You deserve to be fucking raped.
I don’t want to read on.
I deserve to be raped?
Who writes that?
I’ve heard things like this said to me by boys at school, horrible things, but somehow this feels worse…
I’ve been on this message board for years.
This is where I’ve made friends.
This is where I belong.
How could someone say something like this?
I go to close the browser. Then I read the rest of the messages.
Author: @PussyMagnet69
Subject: RE RE RE RE RE RE The Death Club
Hope your crying you fucking slut.
Author: @PussyMagnet69
Subject: RE RE RE RE RE RE REThe Death Club
Don’t pretend to give a shit. You probly just a stupid cunt with tiny fkin tits you fkin slut.
Author: @PussyMagnet69
Subject: RE RE RE RE RE RE RE REThe Death Club
Don’t comment on shit u dnt know. Fk off.
I want to cry.
I want to find this person and scream at them that I do care, that I’m not stuck-up, that I do understand what it’s like to be lonely, to be sad, to want to end things.
But I don’t.
I close the browser. Close down the computer. Then sit.
And stare.
How could someone write something like that?
It sounds silly, I know, but it’s like my home’s been destroyed. Like the only place that I can go to get away from everything is now ruined. Tainted. Ripped away from me.
I wipe my eyes. Shut myself in my room. Tell the world to go away, and daydream about how I would end it.
Daydream about what it would be like to no longer exist.
10
Will
Last period goes by slowly. My year elevens have their exams in a few months and we go through a previous year’s exam paper, which is immensely boring, even for me, and they sit there in tired silence, everyone in daydreams as I drone on.
The bell goes and I dismiss them and I sit at my desk and stare at my emails and ignore them. No one says goodbye, or thank you, or see you tomorrow. They all file out in desperation to get home or meet their friends or do whatever it is they wish to do.
I barely even notice the girl who waits behind.
“Hi, sir,” she says, and her voice is sultry, too deep for her age. Just like many other girls in the class, her skirt is too short, and she’s pulled it up to her navel to make it even shorter. Her top button is undone, as is the second and third, and her tiny tie only just covers a glimpse of her bra.
It is incredibly inappropriate, but what am I meant to do? I was told that I should correct students on their uniforms, and tell girls when their skirts are too short, but there’s not a chance I’m going to do that. Imagine if a student took such a comment out of context. Imagine what kind of accusations could be thrown at me. I refuse to do it.
“Hi,” I reply, noticing that she is staring at me in a really odd way, like her eyes are transfixed. She keeps smiling and it highlights her freckles. Her hair is long and red and she holds her bare arms behind her back like she’s presenting her body to me. Boys her age must go crazy for her.
“I enjoyed your lesson,” she tells me.
I try to recall her name, then remember it’s Destiny, and I think the same thing I thought when I first saw her name on the register at the beginning of the year — what a ridiculous name. Why can’t parents just give their kids actual names? What’s wrong with Sally and Kirsten and Jenny and Elizabeth — why do they have to give them made-up names like Destiny or Serenity or Peace. As soon as I look on the register and see someone with a name like that, I know they are going to be annoying.
“I’m glad,” I say, wondering why she is still here.
“I just wanted to say that I’m pleased to have you as my teacher,” she says. “You are quite inspiring.”
“Inspiring?” This girl can’t be for real. “We were just going through a test; not sure I’d call it inspiring.”
“It wasn’t the test, sir. It was you. There’s something about you that makes me think I’m going to do really well.”
I don’t know what the hell this girl is seeing, but it clearly is not in this reality.
“Well,” I reply, trying to find something to say, “I’m glad you feel that way.”
“I was just wondering…”
“Yes?”
“What made you want to become a teacher?”
I stare at her. Bemused. She looks so eager, so desperate to talk to me. She rests all of her weight on one foot, tilting her head to one side. Her finger rises from behind her waist and fiddles with a loose strand of hair.
“I, erm… I don’t know, to be honest.”
I became a teacher because I didn’t know what else to do. I have regretted it most days since. I don’t know what this girl wants from me.
“You best be getting home, I imagine,” I say.