Victim, No More

A tale of a high school outcast that just wants to be left alone to escape. A sudden flashback triggers a revenge plot.

VICTIM, NO MORE

I take one last drag off my joint before I toss it and climb back into my car. I pull the heavy door behind me before I realize, “Oh my God, what am I thinking?”

I shove the door open and I get out, I start shoving through the grass, looking for the last bit of that burning ember so I can stash the last of that joint with the rest of my bud and re-roll it and finish it off later. You never toss anything, you keep recycling it, then throw it into a bong and inhale until it's gone. I find it, burn the tip of my finger in the process of extinguishing it. I mutter, “s**t”, under my breath as a blister pops up on my index finger, but not because it hurts, but because some of the buds burned away and not into my lungs.

F**k her, I mumble as I crawl back towards my car, the damn grass staining the knees of my tigelf ht jeans a darker shade of blue. F**k this, I mumble as I pull myself up, half asleep and half dazed. I shake my head, get into the car, keys still in the ignition, I never took them out when I parked here, nobody comes here, purse still on the floor, backpack thrown against the passengers seat. I always drive myself to school in the morning, alone. It's grade twelve, my last year. Finally.

I slam the clunky, rusty door of my car behind me as soon as I get my entire body in the car. This morning it seems like my entire body is weighed down with lead. It's a Monday, another week closer to graduation, another kilo is supposed to be lifted from my shoulders, but it's not, all because of her. I rustle through my purse and I find my little tin full of amost fully smoked joints and I shove this little nugget in with them. I close it, wrap an elastic band around it, and shove it into the bottom of my purse.

I always keep my purse on me. They do random drug dog searches of the lockers were getting more frequent as drug use increased in schools and parents became more worried. The thing was, kids weren't just smoking pot anymore, the most detectable drug. They were taking pills they'd find in cabinets, chugging cough syrup they stole from pharmacies, destroying their livers and their brain cells in the process and going on terrifying highs. Xanax and Vicodin were addictive and deadly if you mixed them up wrong, the drug dogs never found those. Marijuana was childs play in comparison.

I brushed my hair off my face and pulled it back into my signature pigtails, everyone thinks they look so “cute”. It had grown out since the “gum in my hair” incident last year. Alexia had really got me then, chewing gum, forbidden during class hours, so she stuck the wad in my locks between classes. I ran home and chopped it out. I hacked my hair into a messy pixie cut, which was somewhat trendy at the time. I remember crying when I looked at my multicoloured hair in my hand with that disgusting, saliva encrusted wad of bubblegum. Nobody questioned my hair the next day, but she knew, and she laughed. After a few days, other people started to laugh, too. After a few weeks, the taunting started, the isolation began, and I bought my first gram off of one of the losers out front because I know what Xanax and Vicodin do to you.

You can't escape from high school, and it's not a happy part of anybody's life. I kept my grade's up and I plastered on a happy smile as I tried to shove food down my throat at home, the Mary Jane helped my appetite, but I dropped weight. I'd store my butts in my tin so I could get the most out of my bud so I didn't have to dig under the couch for coins or wade through my mothers purse. I didn't want my theavery to be noticed. Like high school kids everywhere, I was escaping, too. Bullying was supposed to be over, but it wasn't, and I was a target. Running my painted, and chewed up fingernails over my beaten up steering wheel, I realized I was getting angry as I pulled into school, and I knew there was one thing I had to do before graduation, even if it ruined me. Even if it killed me.

Get even.

I don't know where the resounding voice in my head came from, but it was there, and it was loud. I parked my car in it's appointed spot, the same one every day, and I checked to make sure that my eyeliner was right, that my eyeshadow wasn't too smudged. I have dirt on my jeans from crawling through the grass after my roach. I am a roach.

God, she's making me think I deserve this.

I practice some self-talk, but not out loud, as I walk into the back door of the high school, towards my locker, and of course, she's around, and she has a Yo-yo twirling from her finger for no aparant reason. Who plays with Yo-yo's anymore?

“Whatcha doin'?”, she says to me, as she tries to bob the Yo-yo up and down.

I ignore her, and self-talk. I am better than this. Five weeks left. The voice pops in and it soothes me, and you'll get her back, you know you will. Figure something out today.

What the hell?

I ignore her, and her friends gather. I slam open my locker, and I keep my purse tight on my side. It goes over my shoulder, so it can't be ripped from my body. I learned that lesson when she grabbed my old purse, one that I got as a gift from my friend, who I'll never see again, a purse that will never be replaced, and tore it to bits in front of me, and sent me into a rage. That rage sent me into the principal's office, and later that day, I smoked my first bowl in someone's basement after giving my first blow job.

She smacks me with the Yo-yo. Her friends, girls and guys, all seniors, start giggling, in this horrid, cult-like way. It echos through the hall, and I shudder, like its coming from a horror movie. Tee-hee-hee-hee. I try not to flinch and grab all of my books, shove them in my bag, and make a note to never, ever, go to my locker again. Five more weeks, get even. Four more weeks, 4 days, 4 periods, you just missed homeroom. The bell was ringing.

A hall monitor, unbelievable those still existed, in a time with cell phones and cameras, comes down the bright hallway, yelling, “get to class or you'll get a tardy slip”. Alexia tosses the Yo-yo and her friends herd around her, so she doesn't get the slip. One will take the fall for her. The Yo-yo shatters at my feet, and I walk the other way, towards the front door, where the burners hang out, where I can pay five bucks for a cheap gram, and go hide in the park, where nobody knows where I go, and smoke it, and just think for a little while. I'm tired as all hell today, but I need it off. Thoughts of revenge, and thoughts of Bobby are going through my head. My body is exhausted, my mind never flies like this. Did I get some bad bud? Is it laced? I get to the smoking pit as fast as I can, and I see my hook up. We exchange like pro's and I walk towards my car, but decide driving is a bad idea. I cram my backpack into the passengers side, and instead, walk.

I start to see air particles float in the sunny sky as the day begins to break and warm up. Why do they start the day so early? I pull my sweater off. I still don't feel the blister on my finger, but I see it, and it's popped. I pop my finger in my mouth and I suck on it, to feel something, to get the thoughts to stop, but I know a flashback is coming, and I start to run, towards the park, towards the small bridge, so I can sit beside the pond, and inhale the pot, and pretend I'm a troll on a mythic adventure to find Bobby, to bring him back. I know I can't bring him back, but when I'm high I don't know that, so it feels better, even for a little while. F**k you Alexia.

You did this, Alexia. You'll get it.

I take caution. I scan the park. Burning out from the first joint already - it must have been laced. The paranoia creeps in, stronger than I've ever experienced. I don't see anyone in the park, so I can sit down. The grass is still wet, but it's warm, and in a minute, I won't notice. I pull the joint out, I had stashed it in my pocket. I carefully push it into a nice shape with my fingers, the process calms me down, but Bobby jumps in my mind. I see Alexia's face, and I see an ambulance. I go through my purse and grab the first lighter I can feel. I light the joint and take a huge drag, pulling with all I have in my lungs. I hold it, and start counting, a familiar ritual.

I count to three, and I start to get dizzy. This isn't normal.

The ambulance whizzes by my house and the phone rings at the same time. The number that comes up is the landline at Bobby's. He must have done something. I pick it up halfway through the first ring.

“Bobby has hurt himself. We've called 911.”

I hang up. I don't know what to do. That b***h Alexia, she's ruined his life. He has problems, everybody knows that. He overdosed on Xanax last year, he ended up on observation in a psychiatric unit for 72 hours and nobody would let me see him. I was his only friend. He came out changed, and Alexia was on him like a snake.

That night, he slit his throat. I saw the carpet. I saw that night at hospital, with his parents. Then I saw him three days later at his funeral.

His roommate at the hospital said Bobby was a “cool guy” and seemed pretty “easy going” for someone that “did so much damage”. Bobby was in an unusually good mood when I saw him after he was put on another 72 hour involuntary hold, immediately activated after the police and paramedics showed up. They stitched up his neck with 24 stitches, and took everything of his away, including his underwear, and put him in the psychiatric ward, the same one he had been in before.

The nurses were supposed to check on him every five minutes. During the night, the nurses often didn't do their jobs, especially at night. His roommate, a schizophrenic named Zach who was heavily knocked out by anti-psychotics around nine o'clock didn't know anything until it was too late.

Bobby spent time after Zach concked out to rip up his one bed sheet and his gown. He made a noose, and somehow moved a ceiling tile and slung it over a pipe. Luck of the draw on the room they put him in, but he would have found a way. The noose didn't break, but the stitches did, and he bled out. Zach woke up when he heard Bobby die. He thought he was hallucinating, unfortunately he wasn't. The nurses called a Code Blue. Bobby died twice.

I saw every second of the experience through Bobby's eyes before I regained consciousness, with my lower legs in the pond below the little bridge. I wasn't a troll, I never was that time. There was definitely something in my pot. I felt Bobby's terror, the desperation and the sudden burst of energy when he knew it was all over, the happiness he felt when he was in that secured psychiatric unit where he could actually pull it off without intervention. He had been plotting it all along �" all because of her. I felt him die that day, I felt the stitches rip, the blood pour out and the air escape my body for the last time, and then I choked and everything ended. I realized that nothing came after that final act. I knew I had to avenge Bobby's death and I had to stop smoking pot and put myself together.

The sun was higher in the sky and the air warmer as I dried off lying in the grass, no longer wet from the morning condensation. I plotted.

It has to be fast, it has to be simple, it has to be undetectable.

Shakespeare comes to mind.

A plant! Can't she touch something? Won't that kill her? How will I do it? I'm up, and staggering, my hair a mess, but I can't see it, my clothes muddy and somewhat wet, but I don't care because I have a plan. I get to my car, and I drive home, as carefully as possible, because I'm still buzzing. I dump my tin into the neighbours recycling and I go inside and start to research. I don't do it online, that is far too obvious. I flip through National Geographic, I go through old textbooks. My mind is buzzing, the bloody images of Bobby are fading and turning to Alexia, although, poison won't make her bleed.

She'll suffer, though. Oh, she will suffer.

I learn that no poison is undetectable, there is no “perfect poison”. I do risk getting caught. It's worth it. The risk is minimal. I ignore the voice. I push on. Do it for Bobby. I push on some more. Hemlock makes my head snap to attention and clears my mind. So simple. Nobody would ever suspect hemlock! It's far too obvious! They think Socrates died a peaceful death, oh no, he did not, it's actually slow, the body is paralyzed, then the breathing stops with the mind fully functioning. You suffocate slowly to death and can't do anything about it. Perfect.

How do I get it? I look for more. I find a lot of information on the Greeks and Romans. No good, I'm Canadian. It doesn't grow here. Doctors had it until the 20^th century! Wow! I scan and scan. I give up,and log on to my iPad. I log a proxy that I use to illegally watch movies on Netflix and Hulu that you need to be in the USA to view, so I figure I'm protected a bit. I go to the Wikipedia entry on Hemlock and it's listed as the “execution” method for Socrates. It's so fitting. Her punishment for her torture and manslaughter of the innocent. I laugh a viscious laugh I've never heard come out of me before.

Part of me stops and wonders what the hell I'm doing.

Do it for Bobby.

I keep going. I secure a dose of a toxic plant and have it shipped to a fake address I can go to. I don't know if it is hemlock. It should be there before graduation. 4 weeks, 3 days, 4 classes and homeroom remain. It will be her grand entrance. She'll go out with a bang, I'll go out with a whimper, it is fine with me, it should be fine with her. An ending fitting for an opera! I wait. The next weeks aren't easy, without bud, the guilt, the anxiety. I get a package to my fake mailing address. It has a strange looking plant in a plastic baggy, with toxic seeds at the bottom, it looks like one that pot comes in. I stare at it, and it looks an awful lot like leaves you'd find on any old salad.

She only eats salad. Trying to keep her figure.

Graduation night comes. I've made it. I have the baggy. It's me against the world. Can I do it? I have the burst of energy I felt when I was Bobby, before he killed himself. How do I transfer the baggy into her salad without killing everybody there, or getting myself noticed? I look around, scrying on every person and every thing in the room. An oppurtunity arrises. I take my chance. I pour the baggy onto her salad, swish it around, put more dressing on it, and sit down, just as she comes back and pushes me. I rattle her salad as I walk past it. She hisses at me.

“Get out of my way, stoner b***h”.

I lower my eyes to the ground. I sit in front of my salad, and wait for everyone to start eating, and when they do, I do to. I raise my fork to my lips as Alexia does. She takes a bite. Chews. Her face looks weird for a second, but she swallows.

She's used to swallowing worse.

I snicker. She glares at me. Oops, did I make a noise? I'm used to being invisible. I aise my fork for another bite, and I'm shaking. I realize I'm staring at her, and then I realize with shock, that she's shaking and looking pale. Her friend says, “It's probably your blood sugar honey.” I hear bulimia being whispered. I grin on the inside, she's eating hemlock on an empty stomach. The minutes pass slowly. The chatter seems to be pre-recorded and be replayed in slow speed, while I eat like a rabbit, watching, waiting.

Finally, it happens. She goes stiff. Her fork drops. The room goes silent. She stares at me, her mouth agape, a chunk of salad still in it. Then it happened in seconds. Alexia starts to gag, and vomits everywhere. Even I got splashed. Why did I sit so close?

Someone grabs a cell phone and calls 911, because they think everyone at the graduation dinner has some sort of food poisoning now. Why did I sit so close?

She screams jibberish and starts having tonic clonic seizures. That last word she says is “F**k”. Then her body goes completely weak, but her eyes are open, alert, and they stare at me. Her breathing slows, and stops. The paramedics run in, but she has stopped breathing. She collapses over, dead �" eyes wide open. People are passing out left, right and centre. The police run in, too.

The bag, marked “Poison” is clutched in my hand, with a few fatal seeds left. I don't notice. A hand grabs mine, and the bag falls. It's over. I feel like Bobby.

Author's Note

Ignore spelling.. Canadian, no spell check.. sorry! Did the best I could for now. Please be gentle, it's my first time posting anything.