Everyday, I wake up and face my bully. She's cruel and relentless. She's rude and snide. She's my worst enemy, yet she's my best friend as well. She's my bully and a part of me.

I walk around, buried in sweaters and baggy clothes. I smile and laugh. I act like everything is absolutely okay, but sometimes when I stop and there's a silence, I can hear her. My friend, my nightmare, my bully. She mocks me. She judges me. She laughs at me, and it's almost like she's my very own ghost. My very own "conscience".

I'm taking a test in math. She floats beside me, singing about how I'll never pass this class. I'm opening my locker, laughing as a boy tells me a joke. She tells me how no boy will ever like me. She haunts me, pushing me towards an invisible cliff. A cliff that, if I fall, I know I'll never survive.

To the point of enough, I sink to the bottom of the shower, crying. Leaning up against the shower head, she pulls her plush lips into mocking smile. "What's wrong, dear?" she croons. Desperately holding on to the edge, I struggle to regain control of myself. Huddled in a towel, sopping wet and freezing, I stare down my bully in the mirror.

Broken brown eyes meet icy brown eyes. I smile, she smiles, and for once we both just stand there. We stand as one. Bully and victim. Best and worst of friends. Family and strangers. She is me, but I am not her.