I guess I'm a killer. I'm a monster. Looking back I cant understand. How did it happen? When did everything spiral out of control? How is it that I came to be standing here with this gun? What did I do, why did he hate me so much? Was it somehow my fault? Did it even matter? I hated him, in any case.

It started with my father. One day, he fell over. His eyes were closed, his breathing labored. I called 911. Hours later, they told us he had cancer. We all hoped the chemo would work, save him. A few months later, I was standing in the cemetery, crying over his grave, mom's arms around me. And then she remarried. John was a nice man, big and strong like my dad had been. They started dating a wee after the funeral, mom said she had a hole in her heart and she needed love again to fill it. In a month, they were married. I thought they were really rushing things. And then mom's business suffered, and John got a job. I was too young, only 13. And then mom got sick. The doctors said it was from stress. She had a fever, and soon she died too.

And I was back in the graveyard. John was still nice to me then. I lived with him and we had a quiet, simple life. But then, a year after mom died, he began dating her. Sarah, and soon they were married. she hated me, and he started spending more time with her. And then he remembered I existed.

It started simple enough. He would slap me if I broke a rule. But then it escalated. I couldn't tell anyone, he would hurt me if I did, I was too afraid. And nobody cared, I was invisible. I just let the anger drip, let the hurt drip. Every time a new bruise formed my well rose. And sure, one or two teachers noticed. But they couldn't do anything if I didn't tell them. And I didn't, because if did he would hurt me again. And so the anger dripped.

I woke up, he hurt me, she laughed at me, they found new chores I had to do. I went to school. Nobody saw me, the girl hunched over with bruises, clinging to the wall. I went to class and got in trouble because I hadn't had time for my homework. I failed all my tests and went home. She told me I was stupid for my grades, he hurt me for them. She told me, every day, I was hideous, I was stupid, I was nothing. And I believed her. He beat me, every day, and I just stood there and took it. And every day, at school, people laughed at me, people ignored me, teachers scolded me, but nobody was kind to me.

I didn't deserve kindness, my stepmother reminded me of that daily. And one day he insulted my father. And so the well water rose. And he kept doing that. And one day, he insulted my mother, who had been nothing but good to him, and I overflowed.

Then everything was a blur. Somehow I got a gun, and I think I shot them both, I don't know. I don't even know if it was fatal. But I was still too upset. I couldn't hold all my anger, all my hurt, all the mean words and cruel jabs from the years. I couldn't hold their judgment, the teachers scorn for me, the lazy clumsy student. I couldn't hold her words anymore I couldn't hold his bruises anymore. and they hadn't been enough.  

And so, here I am. I guess I'm a killer. I'm a monster. And I'm standing with my gun pointed at a room full of terrified 15-year-olds, my classmates. The bullies who shoved me and made me drop my books. The people who'd poked my bruises. The people who'd laughed at me. The teachers who frowned on me. I wanted them to understand what id been going thru! why couldn't they ever see me, see the hurt inside? Why couldn't they have asked me, ever, if I was ok? Why couldn't any of them have been my friend? Why couldn't the teachers have had pity on me? Why had they all judged me without knowing who I was? They didn't know how it felt to watch your father die, to feel your mother's fevered forehead lower in temperature to the cold of death, to hear her breathing stop. They didn't know what it felt like to be belittled every day and beaten by a man you once trusted! why had they judged me?

I felt my finger on the trigger, my gun pointed, quivering, at the teacher. Would I really do this? Yes, now they knew the fear I did, now they knew how it felt to have your life in the hands of someone who hates you. Because I hated them all. I felt something warm and wet falling down my cheeks, I heard an alien voice screaming everything I thought. How they didn't understand me, how they judged me, how now they knew how I felt. But they didn't care. I could see it on their faces. All they cared about was the gun, all they cared about was getting out alive. They were a lot of cowards. I felt my finger tighten on the gun, aimed right at the heart of the teacher. He was tall and strong, but I didn't think of that as like my father anymore. He was tall and strong like him. My finger tightened. this was it. maybe I was already a killer, I knew I was a monster, but when I did this, it would be real.

And then I felt something on my shoulder. A warm tickle on my ear, a soft, familiar whisper. "you don't have to do this. There are other ways." and my tears kept falling, and I lowered my gun. I didn't know and I didn't care who that voice was, I really, really didn't want to be a killer. And maybe I could walk away from this. Maybe there really were people who cared about me. I turned and saw my mother, and I took her hand and walked home with her, dropping the gun, leaving it behind forever. She faded away, leaving me there, alone again, alone like always.

I couldn't do this anymore. I took out my phone and dialed 911. In a shaky voice, I answered the operator. "My name is Emily, I think I just killed my stepparents and almost shot my classmates. Please help me, I don't know what to do." I hoped they would send police to kill me, I shouldn't be allowed to live. After 3 months of therapy, finding out my stepparents survived and were arrested for child abuse, and I don't know what else, they released me back to school. A girl came up to me. "Hi. My name is kate, would you like to be friends?" I recognized her face, I had seen it from the other end of a gun. "I almost killed you, you don't want to be my friend." and she hugged me. she apologized for not being my friend and cried with me.

.......................................................................................................................

I went to school on a day like any other, bored and tired, and walked into my first class. A minute later, a girl I had seen a couple of times walked in. I had always ignored her, she was small, quiet, and had weird bruises all the time. But just then, she didn't look so small. She took up the entire doorway, it seemed to me, she was angry and crying, a gun pointed at us, at me. She was shouting about something, tears streaming down her face. I screamed as the gun swung over me. But when I heard her, I felt sorry for her. But she was about to kill me.

And then I realized, as she screamed it, that even though I had never been cruel to her, I could have stopped this. She only wanted a friend. And I had ignored her. I was the reason she was doing this. I saw, clearly, what she had been going thru. She had suffered unimaginable losses, she had been hurt, she had been yelled at, and she had been alone. And I cried, with everyone else. Not for fear, as they did, but because I had been so wrong. And I had done this to her. And then, she dropped her weapon, held an invisible hand, and walked away.

3 months later, I asked to be her friend. "I almost killed you. You don't want to be my friend." and I hugged her, and apologized, and cried. What she almost did was my fault, for not listening.