For Molly

story about a classmate that killed herself

Every day, five 12 year olds waited together for the school bus to take them home. I was one of them. Jessica was the bully. She picked on everyone. Emily and Clarissa were Jessica's sidekicks because they were afraid if they weren't on her side, they would become targets of her cruelty. Then there was Sarah, a nice girl who didn't like Jessica but was friends with Clarissa. Occasionally, a sixth girl named Brittany waited with us too. She despised Jessica, but was liked by everyone else.

One day, a new girl named Molly, started waiting with us. She was shy and plain-looking, but very nice to anyone who would talk to her. Although she was a year older, she was in a class with Brittany and me. Nobody else knew her. I sometimes sat with her on the bus and noticed she stuttered and had trouble saying a sentance clearly. She always spoke very highly of Brittany and considered her to be a good friend. She didn't have any friends but Brittany and me. Most people didn't notice she was even there, but if they did, they made comments about her stuttering.

I was generally accepted in our little group, so when I brought Molly with me, no one objected. Things were okay until Jessica suddenly decided she didn't like Molly and didn't want her to sit with us. She started laughing at Molly's stuttering. Then, the "jokes" got more and more vicious. Emily and Clarissa would laugh along, but Sarah and I did not. We told them to stop. Then, Jessica started making fun of us too, so we backed down.

Meanwhile, I was becoming closer friends with Molly, who confided in me how hurt she felt when everyone picked on her and how it had happened all her life. But whenever I got the nerve to stand up to her, I was always outnumbered, so I stopped trying.

One day, Brittany overheard Jessica, Emily, and Clarissa talking about wanting to ditch Molly. Brittany took it upon herself to be the leader, and so the next day, she announced that we all didn't want Molly to sit with us anymore because we thought she was a freak. Even though I didn't feel that way at all, I didn't say anything. I just sat there, stunned that Brittany had said what she said.

I'll never forget Molly's expression. Despair, pain, and anger were all mixed together on her face. Brittany, one of the girls she had trusted the most in her world, had told her she was a freak and didn't want to see her again. She silently picked up her backpack and moved to a nearby tabel with her back to us. I knew she was crying. One of my biggest regrets was that at that moment, I didn't say out loud that I didn''t want her to go, I should have called her back- but I was a coward.

So Sarah and I sat there without saying a word, while the others laughed at the thought of Molly crying in front of us.

Though I was still friendly to Molly in private, it wasn't the same. She stopped showing the same eagerness to me when I spoke to her. Molly started taking the bus less and less frequently until she finally stopped altogether. Her mother drove her home. Then I lost touch with her, because the class we had had together finished, and she no longer rode the bus. She moved away later that semester.

One year later, Sarah ran up to me at school and blurted "Molly died...she committed suicide."

"What" I asked, not believing what I just heard.

"Her mother put an obituary in the local paper," said Sarah, as shaken as me.

"But..... didn't she move to the other side of the country?"

"Yeah, but it was in our newspaper for some reason."

I went home that day, still not thinking clearly. Had I caused her to kill herself? If I had only stood up for her, would she still be alive today? Those questions ran through my mind over and over. When I got home, I told my mother the whole story, from the very beginning when Molly first entered my life- to the end, where she left.

Guilt-ridden and miserable, I stayed up that night, crying uncontrollably, talking to my mother until 3 A.M. When I woke up the next day, my eyes were so swollen and puffy, they would hardly open. I felt responsiable for her death. I could still picture Molly's face when Brittany told her not to sit with us anymore. It became obvious to me what had happened in her life. She had grown up always being picked on, without any friends to help her. When Brittany and I came into her life, she clung to us, feeling that we were the only ones besides her family who cared about her. But we both let her down terribly. Moving is difficult for anyone, but for her, it must have been devastating. Not being able to handle it all, without any friends and only enamies, she must have decided she couldn't live with that kind of misery. Perhaps if I had only been kinder to her, she would still be alive.

"Oh, that's too bad," Emily and Clarissa both said, with fake sorrow in their vocies, when they heard what had happened to Molly. Jessica just snickered. Their reaction made me sick! How could they act so inhumanely about her, let alone, laugh at her, even in death? After a minute, they forgot their would-be sorrow and went on to make fun of a sixth grade boy with glasses sitting nearby. Sarah was just as shocked as I was at their cold reaction.

Now, two years after Molly first entered my life, I'm not the same person that I was. When I see someone- anyone -being picked on or harassed, I always try to help them, no matter what.

Molly's memory still haunts me, but I will always think of her as a gift... a gift to me and anyone else who has ever experianced bullying-a gift that reminds me to never make that mistake again.

Reviews

[ETERNITY]

Hi I liked your story. My particular 'likes' are a bit different.
But, hey, to each their own.
I was kinda considered your 'mean girl'
So other than a few misspelled words
Good job