I could here my classmates’ guilt-ridden voices behind me as a blur of noise. I could here the hard tone of the policeman interrogating them. I wondered how he could be so blunt, so uncaring. But then again, he saw this type of thing everyday. I could hear each of them say the same meaningless word over and over. Accident. “No one meant for this to happen. I swear. It was an accident. We were mean to Coral, it’s true, but we were just kids being kids. We never meant for it to go this far. Never…”

“I don’t even know how it happened. We were just messing around. Nobody saw the car. I didn’t mean to… We were just having some harmless fun… It was only an accident…”

“This is just so surreal. Nothing was supposed to happen. No one was supposed to get hurt. It was an accident, you have to believe me. We were just messing around, having some innocent fun…”

It seemed ironic. They each spoke about innocence. I didn’t see the world of innocence of which they spoke. I saw a girl laying in the street. Dead. I saw a victim of the world. I saw a girl who had been cruelly released from her torment, never to get a chance to prove us wrong. I saw a girl who we killed. So the murderers spoke of innocence?

I was one of them, too. I watched it happening. I was late, coming out of the school. I had stayed after to make up a test and I saw it happening. I didn’t do a thing. I had vowed to be different, to help her, the class outcast, but I couldn’t be hated. I wasn’t about to be the traitor. So I just froze. I stood on the steps of the school, like every other time. A coward. I stood and watched as Coral’s last bit of dignity was ripped out of her and trampled on. I watched quietly as my classmates, the very people I grew up with each day, turned into malignant animals, lips snarled, frothing at the teeth. They were no better than a pack of wolves, and I was one of them. I was one of these barbaric, cruel creatures, merciless. I was not held above them, as I thought. Here I saw them attacking a meek, but beautiful creature and I did absolutely nothing.

I remember every detail as it happened. She was walking head down, her precious notebook cradled in her arms, like a baby. All she did was write. I suspect it was an outlet; a way to escape us. She protected this notebook with her life. Slowly, I watched as they circled her, a pack of vultures. Each of my classmates wore a menacing grin on their face. The spoke in coddling, sweet voices. Joey led, but he was no worse than the rest of them. They all joined in. They all took pleasure in her pain. “What’s this? Let’s have a look!” Joey cooed, ripping the notebook from the poor girl’s arms. The cruel, violent nature of this action was such a stark contrast to his tone. It hurt to watch. “Oh, some poetry, how nice! Wow, Coral, this is really something. It’s a good thing I’m not too clumsy, isn’t it?” He grinned at Coral, but she just looked up at him, slowly and sadly. A weak puppy who had been beaten and kicked too many times. “I mean, what if it were to accidentally slip out of my hand-” on cue, he tossed the book into the oncoming traffic. “Oops.” It was awful. The look on her face was one of disbelief and overwhelming disappointment as she viewed her most precious belonging being run over, ripped apart, splattered with mud. After everything we’d ever done, Coral still had faith in us, but Joey had taken it too far. Her expression of not understanding as she stared into each of our faces in turn will be forever ingrained in my mind, the confusion when her eyes finally reached mine, ten feet away, standing frozen on the steps. She lingered at my face, her disappointment and broken faith palpable. This look is forever burned into my soul.

We looked up. She was walking slowly to where her notebook lay in the street.

I was running.

She was kneeling at the notebook. Pulling the papers back together. Sad and hurt. She worked too slowly.

My classmates sniggered.

I reached the edge of the road, just as a flash of blue came around the busy corner. An air of silence took us over, enveloping us. It was impossible to make a sound. All of us stared at what we had done. We were at fault. We had ripped this beautiful flower from the ground and stomped on it. She grew despite her rocky, well-trodden soil. She was a miracle, so strong. She could overcome anything. But we took the challenge and we killed this one-of-a-kind beauty. She was a flower belonging to a species of all her own and we alone were responsible for wiping out that species.

A man stepped out of the fast, blue car. He was distraught. He knelt beside Coral and called an ambulance, tears blossoming from his eyes. I, however, couldn’t bring myself to cry. I didn’t deserve those tears. I wasn’t allowed to feel this pain; I was the root of it. As he called the ambulance, I just stared, hoping with everyone else, that I was wrong. She was just fine. She was going to be fine. But I knew. I could see that she was gone. She was cold. The light was faded from her eyes. I think she knew as she walked into the street. I think she understood that this would be her end, her demise, but tired, and disappointed, she walked anyway. Soon her pain would be over. The wounds we inflicted on her day after day would fade, left on earth with her body, curled up in the street. Yes, her body would stay, but she would join the unearthly angels. She never belonged in this world. She, laying here, was more beautiful than ever. The color had drained from her face. She was still, a wisp of a beauty, light and phantom-like. As the police talked to each of us, their red lights flashing and their sirens blaring, I plucked a dandelion from the edge of the road and walked out to her. I wasn’t really aware of what I was doing. It was if I was being controlled by something else and I just accepted it. This was something I had to do. I sat by Coral’s side, gently removing the book from her hands. I replaced it with the dandelion, a slight gesture of repentance. “I’m so sorry.” I kissed her forehead and opened to the first page of her notebook. Scrawled in desperate, blue ink, It read:
Welcome to my mind
I’m warning you,
You might not like what you find

I’m always happy, I’m always ok,
Oh, Really? We all have things we hide,
There’s always something I don’t say

You think you know me so well,
Well here’s your chance,
Here’s your peek under my shell

If you want to stay ignorant,
Take solace in its bliss,
Be my guest, don’t read what I print

Continue at your own risk.