I've been in this position before and I hate it.

I've been the friend that can’t do anything but give advice.

This is the story of a girl (who cried a river and drowned the whole world). She's, let's call her Sarah, had a sad life. Her parents aren't together anymore. Sarah has anger issues. This girl takes her problems out on people that are better than her. It started, for us, in eighth grade although Sarah was in seventh. There were three girls that were really good friends. One of them was me. The other two, well, let's just call them Sally and Molly. Sally and Molly were having problems at home. Sally's parents had divorced a few years before, and Molly's parents were getting divorced. Her father was not fixing his alcohol problems. Molly was not in a good place, therefore, she tried to stay by herself. Sally and I helped her through the tough days and we kept each other away from those who might annoy/hurt us. We kept each other alive and in high spirits.

In the beginning, Sarah and I were in a gym class together with one other girl, Gabrielle. Gabrielle was a good friend of Sarah's. She and I were friendly, but didn’t know each other too well. Sally had gone to school with her from third grade. At this time, I was only really friends with a girl named Nelly. She and I just bonded instantly, although I wasn’t great at being a friend. She put up with me. In this gym class, Sarah and I teased each other. One day, it was particularly bad for me. Sarah was coming after me, so I opened the locker room door and placed myself in between the wall and door. Sarah pushed the door, so I could just barely breathe. I couldn’t scream. Gabrielle was too shocked to help. Our gym teacher made her stop, but only thought she was keeping the door open. Later that week, my backpack was in the toilet. I didn’t know what I did to deserve that. My solution was to just ignore her. It worked. She left me alone. Science Fair was just a few months later. I was better friends with Sally and Molly. Molly had been my friend since sixth grade, but Sally brought out a different side of her. She was more grown up. That drew me in even more. On the day of Science Fair, Sarah approached me. She asked if she could talk to me. She said she'd like to be friends with me again. I told her something I don’t quite remember, but I didn’t talk to her much after. Science Fair was a stressful day already. Her talking to me made me feel like she tried to make me mess up.

A few days earlier, Molly had told us about something that happened with her parents. Her father came home drunk. Her mother asked her to go upstairs. Like anyone else would, she eavesdropped. Her mother was yelling at him. Then, there was a bang. Her father and fallen and hit his head on the kitchen counter. Molly called 911. She told Sally, Nelly, and I. She trusted us not to say a word to anyone. Someone, not me, told someone else. A few other people knew. Luckily, the people who did know understood that it was not information to be talked about. It didn’t spread around. Around this time, Molly found out that her favorite cat had cancer and was put down, and that her father had been married before. Her family had three cats, and her parents did this without telling her. The fact that her dad was married before upset her a lot. She also found that her mother had picked up smoking again. Molly wasn’t in a good place. She stayed away from most everyone. Sally and I were her only friends. Being two quite gorgeous and mature girls, they attracted boys. I didn’t really like this part. The guys weren't friends. After a while, Sally and Molly became dependent on these boys' opinions. Meanwhile, Sarah worked on befriending the younger half of the school. Gabrielle and Nelly, along with sixth and seventh graders, fell under her spell. One particular boy, Brad, was very successful with them, although they refused to admit it. He dated quite a few girls, including Sally. Molly refused. Brad wasn’t very nice to Sally, but she put up with it.

Eventually, she broke. One day, just two weeks before final exams, Sarah finally attacked. She and her minions, Gabrielle, Brad, and another girl who I'm going to call Lucy, were unusually nice. I had just joked with Gabrielle that morning about being mad at her. About a week before, Sarah told me she'd like to ask me a question. We had started talking again, thanks to Gabrielle. I didn’t understand the seriousness of the whole situation, so I made a joke. She had been quietly stealing other girls on to her side. I said, so stupidly, "Are you going to tell me I can't be friends with Sally and Molly?" She thought I was serious and walked away. Anyway, the day that Sally broke was the worst. They were mockingly complimenting and following us around. Sally broke. During Extra Help, the three of us sat in the computer lab and talked to a high school friend of Sally's. We talked and realized we needed to go to our Dean of School, Mr. Pan, to fix it. I went with Sally.
I hadn't realized how much it hurt her until she cried.

Mr. Pan was also our science teacher, so her excuse to talk to him privately was that it was a long and complicated question. We stood outside his room and she told him everything. He listened to every word. The bell rang and we didn’t move. Students, including Gabrielle, came out his classroom. We saw Brad walk across campus wearing her jacket, with her phone in the pocket. Sally's eyes were already water, but this sent her over. She started crying. I put my arm around her as she continued her story to Mr. Pan. He told us what he would do and told us to get our backpacks and stuff from our Extra Help and walked over to our next class. We had art, but our teacher wasn't there. Therefore, we had an extra study period in our old science teacher's class. Brad had left Sally's jacket on the table. Her phone was fine. Later, in my gym class, I was alone with people on the other side. Before they came in I heard them in the hall.

"That was NOT a science question!" said Gabrielle, sarcastically.

Then they walked in on me alone and stopped talking. They tried to ask me questions about how Sally was. I barely gave them answers.
Again, this year, it's starting again. I am scared.