Chapter Text
“I’ve forgiven her,” she said, gaze intent, almost challenging. “But not because she made me. Because I chose—it’s what was best for me, okay? My choice.” - Sophia Hess
Trapped in a squishy, foul-smelling locker, abandoned by my former friend and the useless other students who just watched, trying not to retch and failing, I couldn’t do anything but continue crying out in the hope anyone, literally anyone around me, had even the barest sense of common human decency.
It took only ten minutes for that hope to die.
This is it, I thought. I’m going to die here, forgotten—no, deliberately ignored by hundreds of students who wouldn’t even lift a finger to help someone in need.
How did that even happen? How broken did someone have to be to see suffering and just… do nothing? And not just one sociopath—although there were clearly quite a few, Emma and Sophia among them—but all of those people who just stood by and witnessed me being tortured and looked away?
How hard was it to make people care, even a little bit?
That was the real truth, wasn’t it? Nobody cared. Nobody could get over their own petty, stupid issues long enough to get anything done. Everyone was just too self-absorbed, or broken, or indifferent, or apathetic to stop bad things from happening. They just shrugged and thought, “oh well, not worth my time” or “at least that’s not me” or, worse, laughed at what I went through. Too wrapped up in their own petty hatreds, bigotry, social posturing, selfishness and shortsightedness to help anyone unless it benefited them first.
Couldn’t they at least try? Couldn’t they even pretend?
The halls were empty, everyone in class. Everyone who heard me screaming and banging my fists on the locker door just walked past me, thinking it would be someone else’s problem… or not giving me any thought at all.
Metal pressed against me on all sides, crushing. My shoulders ached from how I was squeezed into the locker, my hair matted and fouled from what they had shoved in here—rotting, stinking—my fists sore from pounding them against the door, and I just knew, no one cared. No one would ever—
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A brief, dizzying moment. Time skipped like a scratched record, thoughts fading like a bad dream upon waking.
I took a shallow breath through my mouth, counted as I held it, then exhaled slowly.
Well, I thought, this sucks.
God, highschool. How stupid. How inane, how meaningless. I would have laughed, if the sudden accidental intake of foul air through my nose hadn’t forced me into measured, shallow breaths again. How little any of it mattered, in the big picture, with the smallest bit of perspective. I would graduate, I would go to college, I would get a career, I would move on, and anything and anyone that caused me stress as a teenager would be nothing but an unpleasant memory.
But first... I had to get out of this locker.
Just had to pace myself, conserve energy. Every minute—seconds carefully counted—another shout for help, another few rattles of my cage, bruising the skin of my palms as I slapped the rusted metal. Distracted myself from the filthy refuse beneath my sneakers, the texture of dried gunk on my skin… more shallow, measured breaths, and—
“Who’s making all that racket?” A voice, gruff, an older man. Not a teacher I recognized. A janitor?
“Help! I’m trapped in my locker!” A pause—my heart skipped a beat, no, don’t go—then hasty footsteps on cheap linoleum tile.
“This better not be a stupid prank,” the man grumbled, closer now. Considering Winslow, I couldn’t fault him his suspicion.
“I wish,” I muttered under my breath, then banged the door with my hand again, hoping he could track it. He could, and did.
I waited for several minutes for him to fetch the master key and, finally, let me collapse out of the locker and into his surprised arms, my legs having fallen asleep without me realizing. The freedom felt electric, even as he fussed over me, helping me stagger over to the nurse’s office. There was more fussing—pictures taken, perpetrators named, the stupid ‘prank’ explained, cleaning me up, the principal called in, then my father—but all I could think was, even if this was what it took for all of you to care... I’m glad you’re finally paying attention.