Too Fragile

NINE AM, THURSDAY MORNING1

She walks into the classroom, late as always, and makes her way down the aisle of desks, keeping her eyes so skillfully on the ground, she must've been practising near her entire life. At the very back of the class, she takes her usual seat, unzips her bag. But she doesn't pull out any math notes (in fact, she keeps none). Instead, a large, ringed notebook takes its place on her desk, along with a pencil case filled to the bursting with HB pencils. Without a single bridge of eye contact with anyone, she bends her head over her book, letting her hair fall down as a curtain between her and the other kids, a barrier against the world. Confining herself, she lets her hand fly across the page; words spill out onto the faint blue lines. 2

*Kids don't look at her, aren't compelled to converse with her. Their eyes glide over her in their search for other, more normal people, but in their minds, they subconciously label her-emo, goth-like pinning a fragile butterly to a corkboard. She exposes her wrists for the world to see, but no one takes the time to notice the crimson pleas etched into her skin. And she goes home every night, a thousand thoughts swirling around in her mind, as she carves her sorrows deeper and deeper into her veins, hoping someone will see, hoping someone will care.*3

The bell rings, signalling the next class.4

NINE AM, FRIDAY MORNING5

She doesn't walk in the next day, late or otherwise. The kids who've watched the news know why, the rest will know in due time. Everyone is talking, murmuring, whispering. About her. The attention she needed so much is hers at last; the spotlight belongs to her, but she's nowhere to claim it. So the light falls instead on the six feet of earth piled on the corpse of her-the butterfly too fragile to be pinned.6