Whos Really the Victim

Who's Really the Victim…



I stand in the halls of my old middle school with my hands in my burgundy reddish brown leather jacket, a bag hanging from my right shoulder as my blue eyes stare up at the middle school graduation photos of 2005-2006, as I look to the many different young faces that have no doubtable changed over the past eight years. A middle school reunion was happening today, my friend that accompanied me had to rush off to get something handled and asked if I would be fine. I told her I would, that I would just be wandering the halls of this school, a school that used to look so big to me now seemed so small and insignificant.
Was this hallway really the same hallway that I've had to walk through time and time again for the two years of being here?
Looking at the halls and classrooms now makes me think differently, no, these were not the same halls, they had been repainted, how could these halls be the same ones that I walked through eight years ago?
I ran a hand through my long brown hair, pushing stands to rest behind my ear as I continue to look at this collection of youthful faces, faces that would one day be replaced by a more recent set of youth, while this would be put to rest in the shelves of obscurity that was the school's basement, never to be look up on again.
Change was evident, change was common, yet there are times we do not wish for it to change, or when we do wish for it that change will never come to us.
Was it ironic or some kind of poetry in a twisted way of life?
The sounds of voices could be heard clearly down the hallway, the gymnasium was close by, it was where all those faces, the ones that were here on this graduation photos, where there. a place where I felt the need to go and yell out my frustration, a place where I wanted those smiles to vanish as if they were all nothing but some kind of painting, where I the artist could go and destroy it if that is what I truly wished.
The need to destroy everything around me.
Ah, yes I remember that feeling well, times in my life how I've wished I could act up on them, caring little on what others had to say as I smash and break apart what they might have held dear, to let them know how they all made me feel, that instead of me being the broken marionette that was being forced to follow the puppeteer's strings, that it would be them instead, smashed to bits like the broken humans that they were on the inside.
Yet…
It was those thoughts; those very same thoughts that made me realize that if I were to act on them, would I be just be as bad as those who subjugated me to such torment, to such pain, making me wish that I could just die and be done with the pain of it all, that my existence was inferior to the ones pushing me to that very point.
With those thoughts it made me wonder, just how twisted I had become, my cell phone rang, I took it out of my bag and looked at the text message that came from my fiancée.
Are you alright? Let me know if you want me to get you out of that hellhole, I'll do it you know I will. I don't want you to push yourself into doing something you hate.
Call me if so, if not then, well I'll take you and that friend of yours out to dinner to forget all of it.
I smirk at the text, but then soon frown a second after. Was I alright? I didn't feel much of a difference when I came to this wretched school, but then it has been a number of years, perhaps that feeling of anger has now dulled to an almost unnoticeable feeling. Whenever I force myself to remember, to remember what I had gone through but they would be blocked by my own foolish brain. But there would be times where I would remember it, without even trying, and it made my anger boil.
If another person were to hear these thoughts they would immediately say that I would need help from a professional, bullshit. For someone to be brutally messed with, memories such as these to resurface from time and time again is normal, it's the fact that everyone else wants to forget that it even bloody happened would need help.
People who pretend that such a thing never happened are nothing more than ignorant clods that can't seem to see the land before the ocean before diving in head first.
I'm fine. I type back but then add in. But I may ask to be taken from here soon, it's boring as hell and everyone just boasts about what they are doing now that they are big shot adults. It's stifling.
Shortly thereafter hitting send I get a response.
Tarynne, you have a book that's ranked in the top five of this year's best seller and the second volume is at the printers of the same sires, you're allowed some bragging rights. Call me when you're finished.
Huh… yeah I guess I am, strange what you forget about when you start to remember stuff you don't want to remember.
I was about to hit the call button, to have my lover come and rescue me when a woman came over and began speaking to me as if I had noticed her.
"You couldn't take the crowds ether I'm guessing."
I glance at her; the woman was slightly shorter than me, but that was because of my tanned brown leather three inch heeled ankle high lace up boots, she was wearing a black dress with a floral pattern, and black flats. But even without the dress I could tell that this woman was nearing the term of a pregnancy.
She had dark reddish brown hair that was cut to the center of her slightly plump neck and dark brown eyes that looked like they could swallow someone's soul; she had a smattering of freckles across her face and chest area.
I knew her, but she didn't know me from the looks of it.
"Yes," I said looking back to the photos. "Too many people boasting about what they're doing now can get rather annoying the more you listen to it, not that there's anything really wrong with it, it just goes over a limit pretty quickly." I glance to her stomach, avoiding eye contact. "How far along are you?"
She placed both of her hands on her stomach as a beaming smile that make my stomach lurch at the mere sight of it. "I'm six months yesterday."
"Congratulations…" I mutter before putting my phone away, she caught sight of my hand seeing my engagement ring on my left hand.
"Oh you're getting married right, is you're man here? When's the wedding?"
"He's not here." I let out a sigh before I walk past her and head to the library. "He had a meeting that he couldn't get out of, no matter what he tired."
"He sounds very devoted to you."
"That he is."
"And you're wedding? When is it?"
"Around next year in the beginning of fall when the leaves change color, I was originally thinking winter while my fiancée wanted summer so we both worked out to fall since it was in between."
"Yeah a lot of weddings seem to be around that time of summer or spring. What kind of dress are you going to wear?"
"I haven't decided yet." I said as we both entered the empty library, I headed to the farthest corner where the armchair I had sat in many times had not moved even once; while I sat down she sat down in the couch across from me.
"I'm Allison Marco." She said, her smile never faltering.
My head turned to look to the old books, from which I used to read, slightly surprised that they were still the exact same order that I had placed them from when I was young. I pulled out the book Redwall a book that I now own and read constantly to my two year old nephew that can't get enough of.
That's right my brother couldn't come to this, oh right he's helping that man rehabilitation of walking after that knee operation right now… how much dose he gets paid for that again…? "Nice to meet you." I said flipping through the book seeing some of the old rips and tares before closing the book again and putting it back to where I had it placed.
I glanced at her; it was as if she expected to hear more from me so I added. "So you're married or…?"
"Oh no, not yet, but I will be this month, kind of a rush wedding you see, unlike yours." I could hear a hint of jealousy in her voice but said nothing as I continued to look at the books. "I originally intended to abort the baby, but then the man offered to marry me since he was against abortion, he's rich you see."
"Uh-huh." I said, again to elaborating anything, she was trying to make me envious that she was going to be marrying a man with money. "I hope you'll be a good mother."
"Why thank you." Allison gave another beaming smile. She didn't even seem to notice that I had said "I hope" instead of "I know" which is what you'd normally hear when it comes to congratulating someone on their pregnancy, but with Allison, I just couldn't bring myself to lie.
It was clear to me now after the few minutes of talking with Allison that she did not recognize me in the slightest. How aggravating…
"So," Allison said with a cheery smile. "Did you used to go here?"
I didn't answer at first. "My friend did, Melody, dose that name ring a bell at all to you?" I waited for the obvious. "No I don't." answer to come from her lips.
Only it didn't. "Oh you knew her too? Yeah, she's still strange isn't she?"
"Why would you see her as strange?" I ask.
"Well she has all of those siblings… she may just end up like that you know I'm told her home is a wreck because of it."
"Well most of the children have moved out now or are in college so I don't think it's like that, besides talking about my friend like that in such a way isn't very nice, you should be careful Allison, whatever it is you say, no matter who it is, it may just come back to bite you."
"Oh I don't think I'll have to worry about that!" she laughed as if I were joking, which was far from any kind of joke I would tell. "Besides what could she do?"
"A lot of things." I folded one leg across my knee and laced my fingers together. "For starters her long-time boyfriend can file a law suit complaint on harassment against you; you'd be in a large form of debt that I doubt your husband to be would be happy about. And then there's me, you seemed to have forgotten very quickly that I'm her closest friend and decided to bash her without thinking of what problems might be in return for that. If I wanted to I could tell everyone in this whole gathering at the gymnasium that you enjoy spreading such vial things about people when you truly know nothing about them." I chuckled softly when she had become mute. "But there is no need to worry for now, I won't do that."
"Oh… well that's good, besides you'd probably make you're self a fool by doing that."
"No I don't think so…" my phone rang. "Hold on a moment." I picked up my phone and answered it. "Hello? Oh, hi is something wrong, I thought we were going to meet at that café to discuss the next volume, uh-huh, okay so it's just been bumped to later this week, you didn't need to call me for that. But I'm thankful for the call, is that thing with the convention set up for this December? Okay that's good, I'll go over the details with you later, bye, oh and say hi to your wife for me." When I hung up Allison asked me.
"Who was that?"
"My publisher." I said as I put my phone away.
"Publisher? Like for a magazine or something?"
"Yes, but it's for books so it's a similar thing I suppose. I write novels for a living, many people think it's not a good job, but I enjoy it, I can write whatever I want and no one else can say otherwise."
"You must not get good pay though; I'm told that kind of industry is hard to work for."
"Ha! It can be, but I enjoy what I do and I get a good amount of the profit from when my books are sold and bought by people who also enjoy my work, besides once I'm married I have no intention of stopping, unlike some woman who decide to quite when they marry a rich husband or win the lottery. Speaking of which what do you do for a living?"
"I work at a café, but once the baby is born I'm going to quit and raise the child."
"Huh… is that so…?"
"Yeah, I'm not like those other woman you've described."
"No I guess not, being a full time mother is not like living off the livelihood of the husband." I then stood and headed to the hallway. "I'm heading to the classrooms, it'll feel like nostalgia going to look at those small chairs and desks again, care to join me, it's not that far."
"Alright," she said as she stood. "I think I will. But didn't you say that a friend of yours went here?"
"I did, but I never said that I didn't go to this school."
She said nothing in response as I opened the door to one of the classrooms and went inside with Allison in tow. "Well I didn't expect this, the classroom hasn't even changed… guess they really are cheap when it comes to things like chairs and desks…"
"Yeah I can still pick out my desk out of everyone else's, do you think if we look in other classrooms we'll find yours?"
She was looking at me, but my back was facing her as I stood to the far back corner of the room, there a lone desk stayed completely covered in dust, as if time was trying to hide something from the past, yet it failed to do so for the deep gouges of words of hate could still be read by anyone. I rested my hand on top of the desk, my fingertips brushing away the thick layer of dust, such words of rage carved in by someone who despised this student as if that student were nothing more than something that shouldn't have even existed.
It makes you wonder, just what goes through a person's head when they carve in the words like Freak! Dumb idiot, you and your family should all die! DIE! DIEDIEDIEDIE!!! I hope you hang yourself for being so damn stupid. You and your whole retarded family of freaks!
So on and so forth, it took a lot of time and effort to not only write with permanent marker, but carving it into the wood.
"No…" I said softly as my hand fell from the desk and hung like dead weight as thoughts began to whip through my mind like a horrifying whirlwind, bringing with it the dreaded memories I have longed to forget, yet keep pulling me back. "I don't think we will… say… this was you're classroom wasn't it?"
"Yes what about it?"
"I've heard this story about this classroom. About this one girl that everyone in the whole school seemed to hate for just merely being in existence. That this one young girl, hated by all for merely being alive, on one, but one girl seemed bothered to help her. it was as if this whole school wanted to see her dead… can you believe that?"
"I… um… yes I've heard that before and this girl was in this class."
"Did you even bother to help her?"
She flinched when I glanced at her over my shoulder. "I… no, I couldn't get involved, too scared you see."
"Ah yes, fear, one of the biggest things that seems to drive the human race these days… though I'm told that revenge is an even greater force. Don't you think, that maybe even once that girl who was so violently abused by her classmates and peers that she wanted to get back at every single one of them, even the ones who just stood by and watched?"
Again Allison remained quiet.
"I can honestly say I don't blame her, that girl, must have wanted to get back at them so badly, even if it meant killing them. But then that girl's not here now is she?"
"No, she's not, but you have to wonder where she might be right now…"
"Dead in a ditch, maybe that's where she is, I've heard some people talk about how that girl was treated and one person's response was "Maybe she's dead in a ditch somewhere." But who knows really…"
"Well where ever she is… I bet she's not doing so well… I've been told that she'd never amount to anything in this life, for all we know she's become a recluse, cowards hide away in the dark hoping to not face they're fears..."
"Is that so…?" I said with bitterness. "Well that's what you think but you don't know that now do you? I doubt that girl is the coward you claim she is to be…"
When our eyes made contact I averted away from them, better to look at something else then at her.
This seemed to have her catch on finally. "Is there something wrong? You keep looking away from my face…"
"No…" I said as I now fully look at her. "It's just that you remind me of someone who thought it would be fun to harass me to the point of nearly killing myself. Though I doubt she'd care, she'd probably laugh about it if she heard about it, though if she had my mother would have slapped that smile right off of her face."
"You're mother sounds very brutal."
"Yes, but I love her none the less." I turned and headed out of the classroom. "You know I think this room just became stifling, perhaps it's this room or even the school itself."
As I left the room I could hear Allison walking not that far behind me when we reached the wall that held the graduation photos she finally spoke. "What's with you? You're acting as if you have a grudge against this whole school."
"I do." I said, all of the emotion had fled from my voice as I turned to face her. "I hate this place with all my heart, I hate it so much that when I have children I intend to make sure that she or he will not go here, ever. I don't want them to deal with what has happened here in the past…"
"If you're talking about that girl she's probably…"
I cut her off. "If you're about to say that she's might be dead then you can stop there… she's not dead, I know that for certainty she isn't."
Allison frowned. "And you know that how, you've seen her somewhere?"
I burst out laughing, I couldn't help it. "You really have no idea do you? You have no idea who I am. Oh this is rich, this is foolishly rich!"
"What are you talking about, we never met before."
With an arched brow I point my thumb to the photos of 2005-2006. "I think we have, many times in fact, and if you can't figure it out that much then I'll give you a clue." I reach into my bag and handed her one the book that hit the top five, the title of the book read Deep Rooted and in smaller print it read underneath. A story of revenge.
Allison looked to the book and frowned, before she looked to the name of the author, her dark brown eyes going completely wide as her skin turned even a whiter shade of pale. "That name… but it can't be."
"Oh you recognize it, that's good; you're not as slow as I thought you were. Now then, now that you have my name, try finding me up on the graduates photos." I stepped out of the way and allowed her to look, she looked from the top and from the sudden intake of breath I could tell that she had found the one I had meant.
A slow smile came to my lips as she slowly turned back to look at me. "So you found it I hope? You better have, because three days after that photo was taken, when we entered school you started to harass me to the point of me wanting to kill… every… single… person who harmed me. Including you."
"Why me…?"
I changed the subject a bit not answering the obvious as to the why when she clearly knew why. "The story has a supernatural feel to it, the main character has these abilities that she can use on other people, I think you'll like it, and besides you'll want to look out for something special in there." I moved closer to her and she took three steps back. "You're name is in it."
"Why are you even telling me that?" she asked, her voice grew small as her eyes grew wide, she clutched the book tightly to her chest.
"Do you want to know what's so great about writing stories?" I repeated the same question I had asked her before. "It gives you the freedom to do whatever you wish and no one can stop you. Including murder. There have been many times when I came to this damned school in which I wanted to kill you, you, the one person who did all of that shit to me, where you chased me to the point of me collapsing and then having you and your group trample all over me as if I was nothing but garbage, where you decided it would be okay to kick me in the stomach because you knew I wouldn't do anything about it. Back then you were right, but now that's changed… doing it this way I can get my revenge on you and everyone else in this whole damn place, not to mention I get paid for it."
"You still haven't answered my question as to why…"
My blue eyes formed a deep glare showing all of my anger, my rage towards her. "You know bloody well why, let's just be happy that it ended here in this school and not in high school because I can tell you now if you would have gone after me when I lost a family member and you decided to torment me even further. You wouldn't be here right now gloating that you're marrying a rich man when you don't give a damn about the child inside of you."
"That's a lie!"
"Sure it is, you're going to go on and think what you're doing is best while ignoring everything else, much like how you did with me earlier when we were all in the gymnasium, you didn't seem to notice who I was, you all thought I was just some random friend of Melody's. And honestly that's fine with me, that way I can give you a greater bitch slap then I intended. You all thought I wouldn't be successful in life that I would be lying dead in a gutter somewhere, which is what you yourself told me eight years ago. Fast forward to now and I'm even more successful than any of you. Ironic isn't it?" I glanced at my watch. "Would you look at that, times fled once again, I have to head back to the gymnasium to announce my book."
I walked past her, brushing her shoulder with mine but then stopped when I added something else for her benefit. "One more thing, when your kid is born I really do hope you raise it to be good and considerate person, so that he or she won't end up like you. Wouldn't you're husband to be whose talking to all the others just love to know that bit of info on your life."
I left Allison where she stood, I had no intention in talking to her again, nor did I intend to allow anyone else to forget what they did to me.
When it was all over I stood by the back parking lot waiting for my fiancée to come get me when Melody joined my side and said. "So how do you feel? Are you glad you came along after all?"
"You know what, I am. I said what needed to be said, and was able to get some of the books out to the people I wanted them to have. I hope they like it. But you know it's like my father said, "rewards come to those who wait" and I really do like mine…"

Now that you know this story, tell me, just who is the victim now?
Ha-ha I think you already know the answer, we may start out as the victims, but over time we shall reverse that roll on to you the bully, you forget what you've done to us, but we never will. And hey you may just meet us again, just be prepared, you might not know what will come out of our mouths when we meet…

The End