By the time you read this, I’ll be gone. I can’t go on any longer dealing with this constant torment. Just because i have autism, everyone thinks i am a retard. But i’m not, and i don’t want to live in a world where they don’t even give me a chance. I don’t. I can’t deal with these feelings, i don’t expect you to understand, but there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it. I’m sorry, mom. Tell andrea and aaliyah that I love them. I love you, goodbye.
-Jessie

I didn’t know how to react, I had done this. I killed Jessie. I bullied him until he killed himself and I can’t ever make it better because he is dead. I don’t know what to do anymore. Thought Adam, hardly digesting the suicidal journal entry he had just seen. He leaned against the graffiti covered brick wall behind him. His hand combing through his messy red hair as he sighed and sunk down to the floor. Why did I do this to him? You know what, it was his fault. Stupid kid. It was his fault for being so stupid and selfish, it was his fault for being so weird. Not mine, I didn’t do anything wrong. He thought to himself, But if I didn’t do anything wrong then why do I feel so bad? Jessie was 14, he didn’t deserve to die. What have I done? He got up, brushed off his pants and proceeded to walk home, back to the trailer park they call No Man’s Land.
“Dude, you’re such a retard! Go to a retard school!”
“You’re so fat and ugly, work out some more!!”
“Dur Dur Dur! Get out of here!”

They said, throwing milk at me, making my good jacket wet. This happened all the time. They did it when Miss Jackie wasn’t there, and when she came back, she thought I did it. I can’t tell. I’ll be hurt if I do. I’m scared, and I want to die.
As Adam began to flip through the pages in the journal Jessie’s mom had thrown at him in a fit of rage, he felt sweaty and uneasy. He wanted to stop reading but couldn’t bring himself to stop. All he could think about was how he had done all of the things to Jessie. He had made Jessie feel like he was less than a person. He was the main reason that Jessie killed himself. With all these debilitating thoughts crowding his head, Adam couldn’t take it. The world spun around him like he was caught in the middle of a vicious hurricane. He felt nauseated, far beyond anything he had ever felt before. He felt like Jessie’s ghost was taunting him, hanging over his shoulder and his sole purpose was to make Adam’s life even more of a living hell. His nausea had gotten so bad that he walked as though he was a toddler who hadn’t been taught to walk yet. He paused on his trek home and stumbled over to a junction box to sit.
No matter how much effort Adam put in to get out of his head, he couldn’t. No matter how difficult it was for him to think about Jessie’s death, his brain compelled him to delve deeper into the horrible thoughts. I deserve it, I’m damned to be stuck in my head forever. Just like Jessie.  Adam had spent his whole life being told he was nothing, because of this he made someone else feel the same. He only wanted someone else to know how he felt. Why did he have to do that? It’s so selfish! How could he do that to his mom? I want to die sometimes, but that doesn’t make me do it! He had no clue of any damn thing I’m going through! I go home and get the s*** beat out of me every day. I’m not dead, I want to be gone sometimes, just not dead. He thought to himself, beginning to stand and walk towards the hell that awaits.
As Adam walked through the door to his trailer, he heard his father yell his name, but he ignored it. Walking straight into his room and praying and hoping to everything, whether it be holy or not, that his father is far too drunk to stand. He threw his backpack on the floor, and dropped onto his excuse for a bed. He pulled out the journal and read some more. Flipping to a random page, he read an entry titled, “Journal 14”

Today was my birthday. No one said happy birthday to me but mom and miss jackie. Some days it seems like if I died, they would be the only people to miss me. Maybe Adam would miss me. No. He would miss bullying me. But that’s okay. I hear what the teachers say, I hear them talk about how he has bruises and I think I’m the only one who knows his dad and mom put them there. It’s not that hard to figure out that they don’t go to parent meetings. When someone says mom or dad around him he looks away then at the marks they put. I know that I’m some stupid Autistic kid, but I know what it’s like to not be able to say stuff.
-Jess

Adam had just finished reading the entry when his dad stumbled into his room holding a belt. He hurriedly pushed Jessie’s notebook under the “mattress”. “WHY HAVEN’T YOU DONE THE DISHES YET? WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? I PUT A ROOF OVER YOUR GODDAMN HEAD, AND THIS IS HOW YOU ACT?!” His father lifted the belt and whipped him in the back, he knew not to cry. He knew that would just make his horrible father more angry; by this point, he was used to the pain. The belt cracked each time he got hit, like a whip used on a horse. Then he had an epiphany, That’s what I am. An animal, I get treated as if I’m a mouse at home, and when I get to school I’m like a tiger who pounces and attacks. Why am I like this? He thought to himself. And with the final snap of the belt on his back, his father stopped and messily stumbled back out of the room. On his way out, he tripped over Adam’s backpack and yelled, “STUPID PIECE OF S***! YOU DON’T NEED THIS ANYWAYS. YOU AREN’T GOING ANYWHERE IN LIFE... JUST LIKE YOUR MOTHER,” he said, slurring his words almost beyond comprehension, “While I’m stuck here with a pain in the ass leech of a son.” His father mumbled a few more things before somehow disappearing into the small trailer.
Adam reached for the book under his mattress and flipped once again to a random page, ignoring the blood he felt seeping through another one of his shirts.

I’m not stupid! They treat me like I’m stupid. I hate it. Okay who cares that it takes me like an hour to write these stupid journal entries! That doesn’t make me stupid! That makes me motivated and strong and... worth it. But no one ever seems to realize that I’m alone.
-Jess

That’s where Jessie’s wrong. He doesn’t realize that we all know he’s alone. No one liked him, of course we knew. We always knew. He was the only retard at the school. He scoffed, slightly irritated at the level of obliviousness he was witnessing.
The following day, Adam returned to school and there was something off about it. He realized everyone was staring him down all day, he began to get uneasy during lunch. Their owl like eyes boring into the sides and back of his head. Jeez, it’s like now they’ll treat me like more of an outcast than they already do. It’s stupid. They’re stupid. I don’t have any friends. I don’t know a damn person here who would actually want to talk to me. They do, only ‘cuz they’re scared. He thought to himself, trying to will himself to eat as if the whole lunch room wasn’t staring at him. The bell rung, “Finally.” He whispered while rushing to grab his things and get away from all the owls.
When Adam got to class, his teacher asked him up to the front of the classroom. While up there, his teacher said in a low, hushed tone, “Go to the counselor. She asked for you.” He walked out of the classroom and as he left, he saw a glimpse of who he thought was Jessie’s mother. His head started spinning. Thoughts were racing through his head, just like flashes of light. “The journal. She read it. I knew it. Damn it. Jessie. Dad. Mom. Alone. The system. No.” His heart was pounding in his chest as he approached the counselor's office. Upon entering the office, several heads turned and he saw a person who looked like a CPS worker and he slowly tried to make his way back to his class, away from all of this trouble in waiting. He was almost out the door when the CPS worker called him over.
“Sit down, my name is Desiree. You’re Adam, right?” She politely inquired. He wanted nothing to do with her. Once she’d offered her hand in a handshake he brushed her off and ignored it.
“Yeah. What about it? Why am I here?” He said, trying to hide his pain and nerves with a facade of irritation. He tried so hard to maintain a hard, emotionless face; but when the counselor Mrs. Rhoda asked him if he was okay he lost it. He started panicking and he couldn’t take it anymore. He wanted to be away from his father. He wanted his father to die alone, and after he died he wanted him to burn in the hottest level of Hell, or to be reincarnated into a roach that he could smash with his own feet.
“Sweetie, are you okay? What’s going on?” The CPS worker said as he was beginning to get nervous. He didn’t want to turn on his father, he was the only one there for him. But did they seriously not notice? How many times did, “I fell playing on the swing” work?
“Yeah, I’m great. Nothing’s going on. It’s not like you guys’d notice anyways.” He said while rolling his eyes.
Desiree started asking pointless questions he’d answered several times in the past. But then she started looking at his arms, clearly looking for wounds. As she was sizing him up, she asked if he felt safe at home. “Of course,” he said with a questionably sincere smile. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Then would you mind lifting the back of your shirt for me please?”
Oh crap. She’s going to see the scars from the belt. “Um...Isn’t that like sexual harassment or something?” He said, trying to get out of showing the scars.
“No, actually, and you can go get a full physical by the nurse, or you can choose to lift up your shirt a little bit.” She said, attempting to get out the information she knew, as she’d seen many cases like this. He reluctantly decided to show her the scars and as she saw them, as well as the still seeping wounds from yesterday, she gasped. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
“No. Do you want to tell me why the hell you want to know?” He fired back, angrily pulling his shirt down. “Who snitched?”
“A concerned parent had notified us about something that may or may not have been going on in your home. They were worried that you may be the next suicide.” She stated with a warm, almost comforting tone.
“Jessie’s mom, huh?” Adam inquired, a look of pain crossing his pale face.
“There’s a school full of possibilities, but unfortunately I can’t tell you.”
Adam finally realized that Jessie’s mom forgave him and tried to help him. Why would she do that if I killed her son? Why doesn’t she hate me?! He thought to himself. With that final thought, he burst into a heaving sob. Finally breaking and falling apart after being forced to be far too strong for far too long.
4 Months Later
Adam walked into his classroom, heads turned toward him smiling and saying hello as he walked past them on his way to his seat. These past months have been hard but he has had support that he never knew existed. He sat down next to his best friend, and asked “How was your day? Do you need help with your math homework?” His best friend Jaden has down syndrome and often needed some help with his work. Jessie’s mother had been generous enough to take Adam in, and although it wasn’t perfect he still felt like he meant something to his new foster mother. Adam works with his peers who have disabilities. He is constantly amazed by his new friends and how accepting they are. Adam is far beyond glad that he is in a new, very loving home. It’s hard for him to adjust to the love. He is in a far better place than he ever has been and he has finally forgiven himself for Jessie. Although he wishes he could go back and change it, he can’t. So he chose to rise above the negativity he was born into and be himself. The kind, loving boy that Ms. Alvarez had shown him he was.

Fin.