They watched her. They took pictures of her. And she didn’t even know; at least not until everyone else did.


The pictures were sent to everyone on a Saturday in January. Somehow, they had my e-mail. They had everyone’s. It showed up in my inbox, and I didn’t recognize the sender’s e-mail address. I was curious, so I clicked on it. I wish I never did. It had pictures of her all over it. I kept scrolling, looking at all the terrible photos they had taken of her. But back then, I didn’t know it was terrible. I just looked at her. When I received that e-mail, I didn’t know what to do or to think. So I followed everyone else.

That following Monday, she walked into school knowing nothing. She was smiley and just as perky as she always was. It didn’t last very long. The moment she stepped into the building it was as if she was stepping into hell. I can just imagine being her that morning. Everyone looked at her and snickered, and taunted, and teased. And I’m sorry to say, I was one of them. I didn’t want to do it. But I just couldn’t be the one to comfort her because I would be the one taunted next.

She lost her friends and you could tell she was getting sadder and sadder every day. She had streak marks on her face every morning she showed up. And her clothes were disgusting. She didn’t even seem as if she was trying anymore. I’m not really sure if anyone else noticed how she had changed, but I did.

My friend called me one night and told me to go online and to type into the search engine some words that I can’t even imagine repeating. But I typed them out anyway. No matter how much it hurt me to, I did it, and I clicked on the fourth link, just like she said. There was a group forming. And she told me to join it. So, I did. Every day after school, I would check that group and see what everybody was talking about. All were about her. I wanted to reach out to her and help her through this, but knowing what would happen to me made me stop wishing I could do these things for her. I noticed what was happening to her, and what would happen to me if I were to be with her, just to give her help. I knew I couldn’t take it. I just couldn’t.


Days, weeks, and months went by. And then one day, the news came. She didn’t come to school that day, or any others for that week. No one saw her for weeks and all of us stopped talking. Not just about the pictures but overall. We couldn’t take it. And the day that the news came abut her, some of us never spoke again. We all knew what we had done. None of us knew why we did it, but we did.

We ended her life, and I knew it was my fault, too. Not because of what I had done.
But what I didn’t do.