No one's here to remind me i'm useless, to make fun of my face, to see my scars, to know my pain or to talk to me as I read the words my mama wrote. My mama's diary and her ring are the only things I have... of her and of me. The pages that were once filled with her thoughts are now filled with mine.
“Not everyone's going to love you or hate you... the only solution is to love yourself.” It's hard to understand her words sometimes. No one even talks to me, loving me is too much to expect. Love myself? It sounds like a joke. I can't walk in school without getting called “ugly”, “useless”,”garbage” and all the stuff they can think of when their eyes come in contact with me.





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“Take care, Samantha.”
“Don't pretend like you care about me,” I snap at my grandmother, getting out of the car. I hate her. She’s always trying to know what's happening to me and what's going on when she doesn't even care. Nervous and scared, I walk down the hallway hoping everyone would ignore me but like any other day, I see all eyes staring at me, giving me looks that shout “you don't belong here,” And I don't. McDaniel High School is not meant for me, i'm too ordinary for this school. Before I can walk more, a force knocks me down to the floor. Pain trickles down my shoulder and I feel my heartbeat but that doesn't stop Christina to say something.
“The ugly duckling finally got money to buy some new clothes! You still can’t be the School President loser!” She sings. Laughter fills my ear and all I want to do right now is shrink and disappear. Proud and victorious, Christina and her friends walk away but their words don't. Their words and laughter still echo in my head. My shoulder still throbs from pain but it doesn't hurt as much as their words do. Humiliated, I pick up my stuff and run to the washroom. I can feel my eyes getting watery, I want to cry, I want to let all the pain out but I can't. I am weak and they know that.



The snow crunches beneath my feet as I walk towards my house, leaving impressions on the snow behind like Christina's words on my soul. Wind blows my hair off my face, giving me chills throughout my body. I watch the trees swing. The thick ones don't move but the weak ones are instructed by the wind.
As soon as I enter the house, my grandmother asks me how my day was with the widest smile plastered on her face. She keeps on talking but I disregard her and walk into my room. Her optimistic nature gets on my nerves. How can she act like nothing is ever wrong in her life? How can she smile all the time? How can she not miss her daughter? At first, I believed she cared about me and I meant something to her, but she proved me wrong. Either she couldn't help me or she did not want to.
The windows creak as the wind blows harder each second and all I can think of are the trees. The thick trees that don't need anyone to support them, they can stand on themselves and if they need some support they always have the others, but the trees with the thin branches and roots can't stand on their own. They have to swing the way the wind wants them to, or else they’ll break. They look so fragile... like an easy target but are they more fragile from the inside, one hard blow and they can crumble into pieces? Or are they strong from the inside growing with time?
The wind seeps through my window flipping the diary’s pages open. I flip through the first few pages that contain every single emotion - grief,sadness,victory,joy and positivity. Each word I read, strengthens my connection to mama. Each word helps put her pieces together. Each word takes me back to her last days.
I can feel the tears welling up as I see mama connected with tubes and monitors. My tears start to spill out but I push them away, forcing myself to be strong for her. I can't see her like this...not anymore, but before I can remove my gaze from her, she holds my hand. She’s smiling. She’s smiling when she’s about to die. She removes her hand from mine and places a black leather diary and a silver ring with “Stay Strong” engraved in it.
“These are for you, Samantha,” Mama answers my thoughts.
“Why? Why now?” I ask, curiosity clear in my voice. I look down at the ring, not knowing what to do or say.
“These helped me when I felt like I had no one by my side. This diary...was my best friend,¨ She says while smiling at the diary as if it was human “and the ring was my inspiration,” Mama finishes her sentence and smiles at me.
Tongue Tied, I look at mama not being able to say anything, not a single word. As much I want to tell her i’ll keep these safe, I can't. All I can do is smile. I watch her go weak, weaker than she already is. I knew this day was coming but I wasn't ready for it, i’m still not but she is.
“Its time now. I love you...stay strong,” She whispers the last words as she closes her eyes and a few moments later she's gone.
My lamp comes crashing down, the glass shattering into pieces. I wipe off the tears that had evolved as I close the window. My phone lights up with 27 new messages on the lock screen, all of them from different numbers. A part of me wants to read them but a huge part of me doesn't want to. My hands don't go the way I want and I start reading the messages, soon wishing I did not. Tears stream down my face but I still read them. I can't stop myself from continuing to read them, they are my drugs which I can't stop taking as much as I want to.
“You thought you could be the school president.”
“How did you even think that anyone would choose you.”
“Why would people choose such a hideous loser like you?”
“You’re not even worth of being in this school, school President is too far away.”
“You love embarrassing yourself, don't you?”
“What are you going to say? I’m ugly, vote for me?”
“The ugliness campaign.”
I cover my face, sobbing into my palms. I shouldn't be crying over the truth. Their words are the truth. I’m not worthy of being School President. No one would vote for me, why would they?
I thought Christina would stop coming after me if I went for the student council and some part of me thought I could show them that I am someone but if I am someone it's no one.
My phone keeps ringing and I keep reading the messages till I can't bear the pain anymore. I feel like I might explode with everything inside me. Desperate, my eyes travel to the shattered pieces of glass on the floor. There's only one thing I can think of and it's in front of me. I don’t want to do this, but it helps. It helps remove the pain with my attention diverted. I pick up the piece with the sharpest edge, unsure if this is the right thing to do, but it's my only escape. It's my escape, a short escape from this world of unknowns. It's my escape from the pain their words have caused. It's my escape from my fears.
I move the edge across my wrist...it stings but I do it again and again and again till I get numb to the feeling. I wish I could be numb to their words but that could never happen. I watch the blood drip on the floor taking each word with it. The blood takes away their words, their pain but also a part of me. A part of me that I don't want. A part of me that is my weakness. A part of me that keeps breaking me from the inside. I close my eyes and let the pain flow away into the air.
“What do you want to…?” My grandmother stops dead in her track when she sees me. "Are you in your senses?" She raises her voice while running to get the first aid box.
I don't want her here... to see my scars and to see me broken because she can never understand me. I don't want her to see me in such a vulnerable state. I don’t need anyone to pick up my pieces. Before I know it tears are running down my face, small sobs escaping my mouth as she wraps the cloth around my wrist. Whether I admit it out loud or not I need her right now. I need her comfort as a grandmother. Even though I despise her I need her love more than anything. I want someone to assure me everything's going to be okay. I expect her to be furious at me and not caring about me but i'm stunned at the sight I see.
She doesn't have her wider than normal smile spread over her face, instead her eyes are filled with tears and her facial expression is hard to read but close to disappointed. I don't know how and why but seeing her disappointed in me makes me uncomfortable.
“Are you disappointed in me?” My voice breaks and comes out more like a whisper.
“I am but not in you, in myself,” She looks up at me with an apologetic look in her eyes. “I knew you were having trouble and I thought you could go through it with your mama’s diary and the ring but you needed me and I should have been there. I’m so sorry Samantha.”
“I’m sorry too,” I am. I have ignored her for having confidence in me and now I don't want to. I need her.
At this moment, the wind sounds like silence and all I can hear is our sobs and our apologies.





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I have been ignoring Christina for the past week and even though it’s not something really brave to do, she’s starting to get annoyed. I see my cue and start walking to the podium to deliver my last speech for Student President.
I repeat my previous points of what improvement I can bring, but no one really gets persuaded to vote for me.
“I know all of you are not going to vote for me because you are not persuaded and also because of my face, but I still believe McDaniel High School needs me. We have everything except equality and individuality. Majority of the students get bullied because they are divergent and they lack confidence. I do too, but we are all in this together. We have to accept their differences and become a community but most importantly we have to love our self,” My nervousness is still here, but my confidence is growing. I reminisce my grandmother’s words and continue. “At the end of the day, it’s you who you have to be with and it’s really important to accept yourself including your flaws and make them your beauty. If there’s anything I can bring, it’s to create a community that allows you to be yourself. Thank you.”
The audience applauds but I don’t see assurance in their faces. I might not win this, but I know that the key to be free is to embrace yourself. Nervous yet confident, I look down and repeat the words “Stay Strong.”