I walk down the hall with my friend Brittany by my side.
"Are you sure you are okay?"
"Yes, I'm fine." I reply, not wanting to talk about what happened.
The truth is that my other friend, Rachel, is the one that is making my day stressful. She trusts me with all of her secrets, and her problems are now my problems. The other day during P.E., she told me that her mom verbally abuses her. To make it worse, Rachel was already having self-esteem issues.

Zoey is another one of my friends. She has a broken ankle and asks friends to ride with her in the elevator at school. Rachel often goes with her on these trips. My locker neighbor, Natalia, was telling me how they were going to break each others' ankles so they could ride in the elevator every day. Natalia figured Rachel was joking, but I knew Rachel better than that.

During my fourth hour science class, I saw Rachel with an ice pack on her ankle and she had it propped up. I almost lost it. I was so mad that Rachel would want to hurt herself. Why would anyone want to do that? I was mad at Natalia too, because I thought that she had done this to her. Previously in the year Rachel had problems with cutting and depression, and I did not want her to return to that state.

After being mad for my entire fourth hour, I went to my locker and did not talk to Natalia. I did not want to say anything about what was going on. I barely ever tell anyone anything because everything gets messed up when I do.

It turned out that Natalia didn't hurt Rachel, and I apologized for being so mad. I was just so ready for this drama to end. I know it won't though.

My advice to anyone who is going to hurt themselves for nothing, is to really think it through.

Why are you doing this?
Will this affect your future?
Think about WHY you are going to do it. Is it really that important?
Is there another way to fix it?

Think about your friends...think about your family...think about the people that would be hurt by you hurting yourself....