"Here," Percy chucked a thin black marker at me. "Write somethin'." I caught the marker reflexively and held it for a moment. I didn't exactly want to write anything. Jessica and Dawn stood scribbling on the next lamppost up the road. This was so cruel, but I didn't have the guts to stand alone and say no. I wasn't able to sleep at night knowing I was making someone else's life miserable. My mind seemed to be unable to think of anything else while I lay in bed trying to sleep. The bags under my eyes never faded as a result of the lost hours. I would start sweating, panting, hoping. Hoping the victim would see sense and not listen to us. I knew what we were saying wasn't true...did she know it wasn't true?
❅
My hand shook as I scribbled the word whore on the lamppost beneath the other insults Percy had written. The letters did not look like they belonged to the same word, they were all spaced out too much and some were higher than the rest. "Nice one, Rob!" He smirked, evilly. "Now, let's get the ones on Old Hall Street! Coming, girls?" Jessica, the one with the long, skill, ginger hair whipped around, revealing a few lines written in blue marker. The curse words and insults were underlined. Bitch, slut, poor, idiotic. They were all there, ready to be seen by everyone in town. "Of course, babe," Jessica cackled. The tone in her voice expressed how devilish she was feeling today. Dawn simply nodded.
❅
Percy strutted over to the lamppost, his dark brown hair being slightly swept to the side as he did so. With his icy blue eyes, he examined the insults Jessica had written. "Excellent," he smiled, grabbing her waist and yanking her in for a big, theatrical make out session. I rolled my eyes. They were cut off by Dawn coughing an ahem. I was relieved by that, if they hadn't been interrupted, I worried they would have gone on all night.
❅
The four of us walked the ten minutes to Old Hall Street, making constant chatter. "This is too fun," shrieked Jessica. She wore a wide smile on her face. I wondered if it was all an act, if she felt the same way as I did and was just trying to hide it. Failing, like I was. I doubted it, she seemed genuinely happy about ruining another person's life. It disgusted me. Never did upsetting someone else purposely make sense to me, that was not how I was reared. Life was too short, too fragile, to make someone feel bad about themselves.
❅
The blue and red light up sign of a diner illuminated all of the street. We searched for the nearest lamppost and found two opposite each other. Dawn and I took one while Jessica the Ginger, as I often called her, did the other one with Percy. Dawn had an ugly smirk painted on her face while she wrote a million and one horrible things about her target. Once she finished, she eyed me and the unopened marker. "Go on, Pattinson, or are you too scared?" Dawn scoffed. My heart plummeted downwards. This wasn't who I was, this wasn't how I was raised. "I'm not scared," I lied, lifting the marker to make contact with the hard metal. Just like last time, a sigh escaped my lips writing an insult. This time I called her a freak.
❅
The next day, just as expected, the female victim shamefully walked through the doors of the school with a emerald tears streaking her face. Percy, Jessica, Dawn and I stood at the bottom of the stairs, watching everyone point and laugh at her. It felt awful and heart-breaking to have taken part in Percy's plan to write nasty things on the lampposts she passed on her route to school. Dawn had followed her home one day to find out which route she took, then reported back to us the next day. Everyone in town read the gossip we posted on them each week. It was their weapon. Imagine that weapon being a knife, and they bayonetted the girl everyday by taunting and teasing her. Nobody knew it was us that wrote the gossip every week.
❅
She was in most of my classes, which made the guilt even harder to endure. The way she would sit in the furthest seat to the back, never raise her hand and never speak was unbearable. I was tearing her down by the week. What really hurt, though, was when we were in SPHE class and talked about bullying. She excused herself to the bathroom. After ten minutes with no return, the teacher asked if somebody would go check on her. Immediately, my hand shot up. "I'll go."
❅
The dull grey colour of the lockers made each hallway look the same as I made my way to the girls' bathroom. Standing at the doorway, I called, "Kristen, it's Rob, Miss O'Loughlin wanted to know if you're ok?" My voice broke on the last word. Of course she wasn't ok. "Y-yeah, I'm ok, Rob," Kristen choked out. I was feeling lucky, so I took a deep breath and followed her voice. "I know I'm not supposed to be in here, but you don't sound ok." Kristen was crouched with her hands around her knees beside the sink. Just like this morning, tears rolled down her cheeks.
❅
Kristen opened up to me, telling me about how some "awful people" had been gossiping about her on the town's lampposts. "Everyone sees the things they say about me," she cringed. "And none of them are true."
That one really did it. I felt too guilty by now. There was no other option. Perhaps I would get some sleep now. "Kris..." I began. Not one detail was left out of my explanation. Everything was spilled, who had been doing it, how I cracked under pressure, how I never wanted to do it, how sorry I was... "I can't tell you how sorry I am. I never wanted to hurt you, I never wanted to do it."
❅
Three weeks had passed. Kristen never spoke one word to me. She refused to meet my eyes. The secret was out, everybody knew it was my so called "friends" and I writing the mean things about her all over town. The principal found out and made us— in our own free time— go around town with rags and all sorts of cleaning products to get the horrible words off. I couldn't have been happier scrubbing the metal up and down with a sponge and bleach. Jessica, Dawn and Percy all turned on me. It was their loss entirely. For the past three weeks, I was getting six hours of sleep on average. That was pretty good.
❅
One more week passed. It had been a month now— a month without acting like a soulless slave to Percy— since she and I talked in the bathroom. Just as I strolled into French class, my eyes locked on her. She was perched in the corner of the room with a book, her chocolate brown hair dangling over her shoulders. I took a seat in the opposite corner, knowing she wouldn't want to be near me. I understood. I wouldn't want to be near someone who made me feel like rubbish. Kristen surprised me, though. When she heard me moving my chair, she stood up gracefully and sauntered over to sit beside me. She waited a moment before looking me in the eyes. Her sudden action confused me. She hadn't spoken to me in weeks, why would she sit next to me? "Rob...?" Kristen muttered, looking up at me. "I... I forgive you."
