How To Save A Life

Chapter One

It was the first day of a new semester in my senior year. After a two week long winter recess and finals, I was still the same stressed out teenage boy I was for the past four years. Honestly, finals aren't as stressful as trying to roam the halls without getting detected by jocks or anyone other than a couple friends. It was never easy for me to make friends. I grew up with only one and made just two more within the past couple years. I never really cared. I like smaller groups anyway. 

I watched from where I stood at my locker as the jocks made their way down the halls, laughing like a bunch of preps. Thinking they're better than everyone else as they walked together in their group of several people. Too many to count. I hated these guys so much. Sometimes, I wish a tornado or hurricane would come and take out only the jocks at this school. It would make everybody happy if they were gone.

The jocks have caused me nothing but trouble all throughout high school. They bullied me, called me very awful names, and pushed me around. I got more bruises from them in just four years than I did in my whole life. At first, it was small things like "accidentally" bumping into me. Then it became worst. They pushed me down in the hallway and knocked my books off the table. They pulled my hair repeatedly if they sat behind me in class. I wear a baseball cap every day at school and they always knock it off my head. At my school they allow hats for some unknown reason. But, the jocks have been making my life a living hell for years. They made sure that on the first day of every semester, like today, they would do something awful to me as a little warm up for the rest of the semester. It gets very obnoxious and sometimes I just want to kill myself just to get away from the torment. They have been the reason why I have been suspended several times every year and why I get landed in detention all the time. I can't control my anger well towards these events but I try not to fight back. But sometimes, my anger gets the best of me.  

"What up, prick?" Justin Turner laughed out as he walked towards me. He's the head of the jocks and treats me worst than the rest. I stayed quiet and turned back to my locker to grab my stuff. Through the corner of my eye I could see that he was throwing his hand up and snapped my baseball cap off my head before wrapping his hand around my wrist. "Nice watch." I look down to see the watch on my wrist that my dad got me for a birthday present a month earlier. It was expensive and I wore it everyday. My dad had to have spent nearly two grand on it. I tried to pull my arm away but he stopped me when he snapped the watch off my wrist. "Nice!" He laughed. "Hey, guys! Check out this new watch I got!" I tried to grab the watch away from him but he pulled his arm away. "Nuh uh." Justin then turned to his friends and laughed. "Time for my favorite game!" He yelled. "Bounce the dork!"

I held my hands out in front of me. "No. No. No." I tried to cover all the areas they could grab me but that didn't work. They all came around me and picked me up, lifting me and tossing me in the air over and over again to the point were I thought I was going to hurl. "Let go of me!" I yelled over and over again as I kept bouncing. They did this all the time. At least once a week. Every Monday. I'm afraid of heights so being tossed high in the air by these jerks makes me sick to my stomach.

"Aw. But we're having so much fun," Justin laughed. "I wonder if we could make him touch the ceiling." All the jocks cheered at that while I was having a panic attack.

"Oh, God. Please no!" I begged. "Let me go!"

After a while, Justin said, "Okay." And he and his friends dropped me hard on the ground. They laughed and left me there as they walked away. I landed on my back and no doubt that when I check later I'll have a giant bruise up my spine.

"Shit," I sighed out. When I stood and got to my feet, picking up my hat that was lying beside me, I noticed everyone in the hallway looking at me, stifling laughs.

"Are you okay?" A girl in the hallway kindly asked me. I know her. She's been in a few of my classes throughout the years. She was always a quiet girl, doodling in her notebook. But, she did have a big heart and I couldn't stand that. I'm not use to people being nice to me. I always think it's an act and that they'll betray me later. I have a hard time trusting people.

"Don't talk to me," I said and grabbed my book bag that was lying on the floor and walked away.

"That must have hurt," My friend, Matt said as he made his way over to me with our friends, Kyle and Josh. Matt and I have been best friends for years. I only met Kyle and Josh when we were put into a lab group sophomore year. The three are the only ones that I feel have been by my side and will stay there.

"I'm going to shoot those guys," I said, pointing a finger down the hall at the crowd of jocks. I saw them laughing as they pushed around a tiny freshman. The kid basically held his head down and walked away. I watched as Justin kicked him in the leg as he walked away. Justin and his friends still laughing. That guy has too much pep and I hate it. No one should be that happy at school.

"No, you're not."

I nodded. "I swear to God, one day I am going to point a freaking shotgun to Turner's head and shoot him." I said with an imitation of a gun in my hand and pretended I was holding it up to my head.

"Shh," Matt shushed. "Unless you want to get expelled, you can't talk like that at school."

"Yeah," Kyle spoke up. "We're into our second semester of senior year. Don't worry about it."

"They've been putting me through hell for years. They are going to pay for that one day." I sighed and looked at the jocks, laughing, being complete preps. "I hate those guys."

Matt shook his head. "Whatever, man. Let's just head to class. God, you're so over-dramatic."

"Why are they aimed at me anyway?" I said as I started walking ahead of them down the hallway. We had to pass the jocks to get to class and I dreaded that. "Why am I such an easy target for those jerks?"

"Well, you're a little smaller than them," Josh stated, joining my side.

"And you are only like one-forty," Said Kyle.

I sighed. "I hate this damn school." I walked ahead of them towards our class. It was only half an hour into Monday and my week already sucked. I loathed going to school but my parents made me. Junior year, I tried to explain to them about how badly I was being bullied at school every day but they said boys will be boys and that I should just ignore it. Sometimes, I wish they were like other parents and take me out of school. But, they obviously refused when I asked. I have long since stopped coming to them with my problems. The only time I asked for their help within the past year was when I explained that the antidepressants I was taking at the time were giving me suicidal and homicidal ideations. My doctor prescribed a different brand of antidepressants but they just seemed to make it worse. I decided not to tell my parents because I don't need to deal with having to try several types of medications until we're sure it won't give me these thoughts. I just have a feeling that nothing will work.

I felt Justin and a couple of his friends start kicking me as I tried to make my way pass them. They kicked all of us.

Every jock I passed laughed at me as I walked to class. Four years I've put up with this. And within those four years I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. And also for about a year I've been having those suicidal and homicidal ideations and I had a feeling they weren't caused by the medication. I didn't want to have them but I did. I think about it every day. If only they all knew. I wonder how they would treat me then. My dad is a hunter so our house if full of hunting rifles. Along with the weaponry I bought from dealers. And, because of my dad, I learned how to handle a gun. No amount of therapy can help me when I am this close to breaking. 

KNOW THE SIGNS:

-Perpetrators of self-harm or violence towards others may be victims of long-term bullying and may have real or perceived feelings of being picked on or persecuted by others.

-Being over aggressive: Making overt threats of violence, in pictures, videos, spoken or written words.