No Way Out

Hi, i'm Laura. You may not know me. I'm the one no one ever notices, the one at the back of the class photos and the one you miss out when picking teams in PE. I never usually answer in class and I shrink back. But not now. I have a story to tell. I'm going to tell it. First, let me tell you about myself. I'm normal like everyone else, okay I may have moved a few times, eight to be exact. No one is counting. I have three sisters, two older and one younger. Well, not that much younger only about 17 months. I almost forgot, I love movies. Especially superheros, as they are so cool and save the day in there own way. Girls usually dream about Prince Charming or a Mr Darcy rescuing them and living happily ever after. I would rather a superhero come take me away to their home whether it's just a house or a Fortress of Solitude or even Asgard. Wherever it was I would be happy. However, not every damsel in distress gets saved by a good looking superhero, with more power than a turbocharged W16 engine and the body of Ryan Reynolds. When I realised this i'm not sure if it was me growing up or a reality check on disappointed hopes.

It all started when I got a place at a new secondary school. My previous one had drug addicts and smokers from age 11. Im sure majority of the school was on the Most Wanted. Okay the new one didn't have as many known smokers and on that side of things it was better. But I didn't realize what I was in for.I made new friends nad everything was fine. We would sit on the field laughing and messing around, talking about music and the latest movies. The downside was that my friends wasn't always in my lessons. It began as just kicking the back of my chair, I told them to stop. But stop it didn't. It was the farthest thing from stopping. It then developed into pulling mychair first whilst I sat on it, next, just as I sat down. This carried on for many weeks.

One day whilst walking to English, the corridor wasn't too busy. I think year 11's had an exam. Anyway, where was I. Oh right yeah, English. I never really like it but that term we were doing poetry but it wasn't the usual type. It was humourous and always made me smile. As I was walking down the corridor someone pushed me,hard. I hit the floor like a 80 Kilograms being dropped into the sea. My weight having a bigger pull on me than gravity. I peered through my long, blonde hair as it fell off my shoulder into my face blocking my eyesight. I didn't need to see the sound of sychronous laughing was clear enough. When the echoing sound had faded behind their footsteps down the stairs I tucked the front of my hair behind my ears and glanced down the corridor, left and right. No one. I had never felt more alone than I did on the floor.I gathered up all my books that had fallen out of my bag and returned them by stuffing them into my ricksack. I stood up wiped the dust off my trousers and walked towards English, I didn't feel like poetry anymore no matter how much it made me laugh. Because at that precise moment I didn't want to laugh, I wanted to be alone. All alone.

I walked up to my classroom and stopped. After looking inside and at seeing everyone laughing and having a good time, I looked down at the floor and proceeded to the end of the corridor, where I walked into the girls toilets. After, checking all the cubicles for vacancy, I stared into the mirror, it seemed clearer than usual. I looked at myself and sighed. I was not happy with what I saw. I saw for the first time I noticed my face was podgy and my eyebrows were strangely thin. I stood back and saw my body from my head to my knees. I had a quite a fat stomach and my blazer didn't help at all, I finally chose the cubicle at the end. It was cleaner than all the rest and was out of sight of the main door. I rushed in and locked the door. I dumped my bag beside the toilet and slid my back down the door till I reached the floor. I sat slumped up the door and closed my eyes for a few seconds and reopened them again but this time they were filled up witht tears. I'm not sure how long I was in there but it didn't seem long enough.

I kept it all inside and didn't tell anyone because I didn't want all the third degree and I feared it would get worst. Even without me confiding in anyone it did get worse. I got pushed a whole lot more and was beaten. The bruises I hid except the ones on my face which I made out to be from walking into a door.Every moment when I was backed into a corner and pounded. I screamed and wished that I be saved by a hero.No one ever came. I started to think that I deserved the pain because I was a bad person and with all my faults it was my punishment. It became the norm to be treated like a punchbag. When wasn't being beaten I thought something was wrong, so self inflicted the pain. I stopped wearing make up and doing my hair, it was pointless nothing would make me look or feel better about myself. It was working well keeping all this quiet until the point where I had enough.

One Saturday I was round a friend of the family and I started getting areally hot sweat. You could see the water running down my face, then my sight started spinning and I felt dizzy. All of a sudden it went black. Ican't remeber much else. The next time I saw light I was layed in a bed, I didn't recognise the room but there was window a few metres to the right of my bed. The door was open further down. I turned my head to the left and saw a clipboard which read my name and date of birth.It did say diagnosed but the writing seemed unclear. After a few minutes anurse came in and started off by small talk. Then, I bluntly asked her
"Why am I here?"
She explained that I had passed out kind of like a coma. Instead of commiting suicide my body went on shut down mode. I'd been out for 3 days. My mum then came in her eyes all red and puffy like she hadn't slept for days. She had tears in her eyes and she came down and sat beside me, held my hand. She didn't say anything but just tried holding back the tears through an attmepting smile telling me it's gonna be okay. I went home a few days later, the doctor told me to rest and gave me these prescription tablets. They were disgusting.I didn't go back to school straight away but I was dreading it. The thought made me feel sick. I had alot of visitors even though I told my mum I didn't wanna talk to anyone. She told me it would make me feel better. It didn't instantly because I was cautious of everyone. I didn't trust anyone.

It took a while for me to get back on my feet but I did eventually, I didn't return to school for the rest of that year. I started another new school in the September and for the past year and a half it's been going well. I stopped cutting and have been a lot happier. I kept myself to myself, i still find it hard to make friends and I get low sometimes where I despise myself but it goes away after a couple of days. I still don't talk about my problems and I keep theminside but I guess not everything always works out. There is never a straight happy ending not without a superhero to save the day. But there are no such thing as people with extradinary power who rush and take you away from dangerous and threatning situations. I am human and I conquered bullying. We may have no heroes but we have solutions.