Sensitivity & Strength, Larva High School 1

  Benjamin looked at the poor guy and smiled. “Yeah, I remember, but at least we had each other.”

  “I know. I feel really sorry for him.” Sara’s eyes were filled with empathy.

  “Don’t worry about it, Sara. He’ll be fine. In a few days he will have new friends.”

  “I know.” Sara changed her focus and turned to Amber.

  “So, are you okay?”

  Her voice was caring and made Amber look up from her food. “Yeah, I’m fine. So far, everyone has been nice to me.”

  “Good, they better be or I will chop them up.” Benjamin made a few karate moves with his hands. His soundtrack to his performance made the whole table laugh out loud. Joshua, who was just coming over to their table, stopped and looked at Benjamin’s performance.

  “That is probably the strangest thing I have ever seen. A Japanese Ninja disguised as a Native American… who would have thought?” Benjamin gave Joshua a high five and laughed.

  “I’m a chameleon, man.” Ben spoke in a dramatic way. “I can be anything I want to be, and my enemies never see me coming.”

  Josh smiled. “I heard you spent your summer in the Olympic Rainforest. How was that?”

  “It was good. And I learned to survive in the wild, so I’m a true hunter now.”

  “Really, so did you hunt any vampires up in Forks?” Joshua was clearly enjoying the witty conversation.

  “Honestly, man, they don’t taste good so we didn’t hunt them down. They don’t come near us on purpose; they know not to mess with hardcore Natives like us.” Benjamin had a pretend-macho expression on his face.

  Amber interrupted. “Oh no, don’t tell me… you are a shape-shifter, and I am really dating a wolf.”

  “Enough Twilight for one day, guys. Come on, we need to get to class.” Sara was smiling and felt good at being a part of this amazing group. She was so grateful that she and Benjamin could still be friends and that Amber was cool with it.

  Sara recalled the awful night when she had broken up with Benjamin because he had kissed Amber. If anyone had told her then that in a few months they would all be good friends, she wouldn’t have believed them. She had been so full of anger and confusion. It was ironic that Benjamin and Joshua had actually been in a fight that night, and now they were joking around and giving high fives. So much had happened since that night.

  For Amber, the first day of school was terrifying. Coming back to school knowing that everyone knew about her suicide attempt was a challenge, and she could feel her sadness creeping up on her. The memories here were overwhelming, and she was grateful that lunch had been so much fun with the gang gathered again. Around them, she felt safe, but walking the hallways alone was still frightening.

  Her mom had suggested she change schools to get a fresh start, but Amber had chosen to stay. She felt confident that she was a stronger person now, and she had decided to apply the technique that Victoria had told her about in the hospital – thinking about all the potential bullies as trainers. I will not take it personally. It is not about me. It’s about them, and they are here to serve me, Amber recited in her mind.

  When she walked into biology class, she recognized some girls who had been particularly hard on her last school year, and instantly, she got a knot in her stomach. She found a spot, and as she sat down, she heard them whisper and giggle behind her. They are talking about me, she thought, and she remembered how she had felt before the suicide attempt. Amber could feel her palms get sweaty and her heart beating faster. Focus, focus, she thought and tried to gain control, but her heart was still pounding and she felt dizzy and weak.

  How she got through biology class, she didn’t know. But as soon as it was over, she left school and skipped her last class to flee home. She was furious at herself for being so weak. If it took nothing more than some whispers from giggling girls, then it would be a long, terrible school year. Maybe I could do home schooling, she thought and buried her head in her pillow.

  She looked at her phone and felt the need to call Benjamin, but she knew he was still in class and that his phone would be on silent. She needed to talk to someone. Suddenly, she remembered that Marie had told her to call if she ever needed to talk. She opened her computer and called Marie on Skype. Amber could hear the computer dialing, and suddenly it hit her that it was probably nighttime in France, and she was probably waking Marie up. But before she could end the call, Marie answered.

  “Hello, Amber.” Marie didn’t look like she had been sleeping.

  “I’m sorry, Marie, were you sleeping?”

  “No, no, it’s okay, I am always up late. What can I do for you?” Marie smiled.

  “I came home from school. I couldn’t do it.”

  “Oh.” Marie leaned into the camera just a little bit. “I am sorry to hear that. What happened?” Marie’s voice was warm.

  “It was so stupid, because nothing really happened. It was only a few girls who were whispering about me and laughing behind my back in biology, and it made me feel uncomfortable.”

  “In what way?”

  “Like my heart was racing, and my hands got sweaty and I felt nauseous. I just needed to get out of there.”

  “Hmm, that sounds like an anxiety attack. Do you agree?”

  “I don’t know. If you say so.” Amber shrugged her shoulders.

  Marie was laughing a bit. “Well, I say so, Amber, so what are you going to do about it?”

  Amber didn’t know what to say, so she was silent for a while.

  “Maybe I could do home schooling?” she finally said.

  “You probably could, but tell me – did anything good happen today?”

  “Yeah, we had fun at lunch, and I felt fine, until the girls whispered about me.”

  “Okay, but let me ask you this: are you sure they were talking about you?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “Did you hear them mention your name?”

  “No.”

  “Then how do you know?”

  “Because they were mean to me last year.”

  “Yes, but could it be that they were whispering about a boy, or something other than you entirely?”

  “Theoretically, but I don’t think so.”

  “But you don’t know?”

  “No, I don’t know for sure.”

  “Did you know that what you experienced today is the curse of self-centered people?”

  “What – what do you mean?”

  “It’s funny. When people are self-centered, they are convinced that everybody is looking at them and talking about how they dress and what they do, when in fact other people are more concerned about how they themselves look. For all you know, no one was thinking about you today in that class. They were concerned with other issues.”

  Amber felt a little offended by Marie’s use of words. Amber did not like being called a self-centered person.

  “Maybe you are right. I don’t know.”

  “No, you don’t know, and you will never know unless you ask them. But then again, asking everyone who whispers and giggles in a high school about their motives for doing so would be a full-time job, right?”

  Amber smiled. “Yeah.”

  “So maybe you could be less self-centered and not take every whisper as a sign of hostility?”

  “I guess I could, but I don’t feel very self-centered. I think that is a negative word.”

  “Really? Why?” Marie raised her eyebrows.

  “Because self-centered people are not nice people.”

  “How so?” Marie tilted her head.

  “Because they only think about themselves.”

  “But most teenagers are like that. It’s quite natural for their age, yes?”

  “I guess,” Amber slowly admitted.

  Marie laughed once again, and it was such a heartwarming sound that Amber smiled and relaxed a bit more. “The teenage years are the most self-centered period in life, and that is not bad; it’s just another developmental stage of life, and no one can
blame you for it. It’s biological and can be explained by your brain development.”

  “I don’t like to think of myself as self-centered. It sounds like selfishness. I think it’s bad.” Amber interjected.

  “Interesting! That would be like saying that being stubborn is a bad thing, Amber, but that would make every three-year-old a bad person. There is no such thing. We are all evolving, you included.”

  “But I don’t want to be self-centered!” Amber stated.

  “You don’t have to. You can choose to be the opposite.” Marie smiled.

  “But how?”

  “Oh, you tell me. What is the opposite of self-centered?”

  Amber looked up as she thought about it. “Giving, loving, sharing?”

  Marie nodded her head. “Yes! So how can you give?”

  “I don’t know. I have nothing to give.” Amber felt her sadness return.

  “Is that true, Amber?” Marie’s voice sounded very serious. “Is that really true?”

  Amber felt paralyzed; she didn’t know what she had to offer anyone, when she couldn’t even get through one day of school herself. “I think so,” she said slowly, feeling her way.“

  “Hmm, let me ask you this then, if you could talk to the old Amber, two days before her suicide attempt, what would you tell her?”

  “I would tell her not to do it, to hang in there and get help.” Amber began.

  “Yes…” Marie nodded. “And?”

  Amber answered quickly. “And I would tell her that everything will be all right.”

  “Yes…go on.”

  “And I would hug and hold her and tell her that I know what it feels like,” Amber said, emotionally affected.

  “Do you think your words and hugs would make a difference?”

  “I don’t know, maybe…” Amber wasn’t sure.

  “I think they would.” Marie looked at Amber kindly.

  Amber thought about it for a moment and nodded. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

  “Do you think there are other kids in your situation out there right now?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Do you think anyone is thinking about suicide right now?”

  “Yes, probably.” Amber felt even more sad thinking about it.

  “I want you to look up the statistics on suicide in your state. Is that okay?

  “Yes, that’s okay.”

  “Good. I’m getting a cup of tea. In the meanwhile, you will look up the numbers, okay?”

  “Okay.” Amber quickly Googled the statistics. What she saw made her speechless.

  Marie came back to the screen. ”So, did you find it?”

  “Yes, I did… Every fourth teenager in Washington State has seriously thought about suicide. And one in ten has made at least one suicide attempt within the last year.”

  Marie slowly nodded her head. “What do you think about that?”

  Amber could feel her throat tightening. “It’s really sad.” She felt tears in her eyes. Picturing her school classroom, she realized that if that statistic was true, around five in that room had been hurt enough to consider checking out, and two would have been miserable enough to have actually tried.

  She read on. “Each week, an average of two youths between the ages of ten and twenty-four die by suicide in Washington State.” Amber sat with tears rolling down her cheeks. She felt overwhelmed.

  “It could have been me.” Amber looked at Marie, who looked so sympathetically at her.

  “I know. It’s a horrible thought.”

  “Yeah.” Amber dried her eyes with the back of her hands and sniffled.

  “Can you see my cup of tea, Amber?” Marie’s question confused her. She watched Marie hold the cup in the air.

  “Yes, I see it,” she said slowly.

  “How much do you think is in it?”

  Amber instantly sighed. Oh no, not the old song about seeing the glass as half empty or half full. “I don’t know,” she said, “It’s not a see-through cup.”

  “I know,” Marie said and smiled. “But how much do you think it weighs?”

  “I have no idea,” Amber shrugged her shoulders.

  “That’s okay, because it really doesn’t matter how much it weighs. What matters is how long I hold it. The longer I hold it, the heavier it gets. If I had to hold this cup of tea for a minute, it would be effortless. If I held it for one hour, it would be tiring. But if I had to hold it up for a whole day, I doubt I could without giving up – it would be too heavy. Do you see my point?”

  Amber was completely lost. Where was the connection between tea and suicide? “I am not following you,” she said.

  “The point is that thoughts are like this cup. Anyone can think heavy thoughts for a short time, but the longer you think about them, the heavier they get. And even small worries can grow heavy when you carry them for too long.”

  “Hmm. That’s true.” Amber was still thinking about it.

  “Yes. So I didn’t want you to see the numbers and then carry the burden and dwell on the thought of how many young people are killing themselves. Instead, I wanted you to get upset enough to decide what you are going to do about it.”

  Amber felt chills down her spine. How am I supposed to do anything about it, just me? She was just one teenage girl.

  “What can I do about it?” she said in a low voice.

  “Good question. Think about it, and let me know what you come up with, all right?”

  “Okay.” Amber didn’t really want to ask more questions. Her head was loaded.

  “Good! Call me if you need me, and otherwise we’ll talk on Sunday, right?”

  “Right. Good night, Marie.” Amber ended the call and lay back down on her bed. What on earth could she do about it? She was just sixteen. Her mind was starting to explore ideas when her phone vibrated. It was Benjamin.

  “Where r u?” They had agreed to meet outside of school before his baseball practice.

  She wrote him right back. “Home, I had to skip math.”

  He responded instantly. “R u ok?”

  “Yes, I’m ok, I talked to Marie about it. Let’s talk later, ok?”

  “Ok.”

  Amber needed time alone to process her conversation with Marie. She didn’t feel sad anymore, but she did feel confused about her assignment. How can I help? She thought again and closed her eyes to concentrate. She decided to make a list.

  10 things I could do to help prevent teenage suicides:

  1: Organize a cake sale and donate the money to a suicide prevention line.

  2: Run a marathon for donations to a suicide program.

  3: Seek out sad-looking people at school and ask them if they need to talk.

  4: Write anti-bullying messages on my Facebook profile to inspire others to be nice.

  5: Write a book about my experience to open the eyes of parents and the bullies.

  6:

  7:

  8:

  9:

  10:

  Amber looked at her list. The first five came slowly, and then she was out of ideas. She crossed out number two. Running a marathon was unrealistic. She hated running, and it would take months to train for a marathon.

  Writing a book was a long-term commitment too, and it would be hard to do on top of her pile of homework. She crossed that idea out.

  I could write on my Facebook page, she thought and sat for a few minutes before she let her fingers write a post.

  Did you know that 2 kids in every classroom have tried to commit suicide within the last year? Did you know that 5 kids in every class have seriously considered killing themselves?

  Look around you and think twice before you make a nasty comment or post a mean update. You may be saving a life.

  Amber looked at the post. It’s a start, she thought, and felt really brave to have posted it. Then, her anxiety came back. What if people make nasty comments on my post? What if they make fun of me or mock me? Her fear took over and she decided to delete the post, but then she
noticed that three people had already liked it. That gave her the strength to leave it, at least for a little while longer. She looked at the list again. I think I’m going to organize a bake sale.

  CHAPTER 23

  Making a difference

  “Hey, Vic, wait up.” Amber called from behind when she saw Victoria in the school hallway.

  “Hi, Amber, what’s up?” Victoria responded with a big smile.

  “I had an idea.”

  “Uh-oh.” Victoria looked at her with mock suspicion.

  “No, you’ll like it, because you get to do something you really enjoy… that is, if you’ll help.”

  Victoria looked intrigued. “Okay, try me.”

  “Let’s organize a bake sale against bullying.”

  Victoria laughed. “It’s good to see you on a mission, Amber! Sure, I will help you; I make the best Swedish cinnamon rolls in the world. At least, that’s what my father says. When is the bake sale?”

  “I don’t exactly know, but last night, I was thinking, what can I do to help other people who are in the same situation I was in last year?” Amber paused. “I made a little list.”

  “Cool. What’s on the list, besides selling cakes?”

  “Well… being nice and forthcoming to kids who look like they are suffering. Amber took a deep breath before revealing her ideas to Victoria. “Post anti-bullying messages on my Facebook wall, that was another one – and run a marathon, but I crossed that one out. And then there was writing a book about it, but I crossed that out, too… so I guess that leaves selling treats, reaching out to kids who seem sad, and posting Facebook messages.” Amber tested Victoria with a little smile, looking for a reaction to see if her ideas were totally off.

  “I like it, but you know, I could probably help you come up with a few more things for your list. Would you like that?”

  “Sure. What’s on your mind?” Amber was pleased that Victoria welcomed her initiative.

  “Well, you could make a short film about bullying and show it to all the kids at school.” Victoria looked thrilled about her own idea, but Amber looked overwhelmed.

  “That sounds like a lot of work. I don’t even know where to start.”

  “Hmm,” Victoria said. “You’re right, but you know what you could do, though – you could talk to other kids about your experience and inspire them.” Victoria was one big smile.

  “I don’t know about that. I think I would be too shy to do that.” Amber hated turning down all of Victoria’s ideas, but films and public talks were a bit out of her league.