The smile, the laughter, the singing in the car. She waves at her friends as she passes by the school for the last time this year as summer has just started. The sun, the freedom, everything is going just perfect. Or at least on the outside it is. This girl, she greets her parents at home and plops on the couch to watch her recordings from her favorite shows from the night before. One leg over the side and a sprite in her right hand and her left hand tucked behind her head under her red, curly hair. The fan next to the front door is on full blast to get rid of the hot, humid, Florida air. Sounds like she is having the perfect afternoon right?

Inside, her heart is in pieces, broken beyond being fixed. Her mom isn’t home. She’s never home. Her dad? He left a long time ago and is never coming back. With her mom being a huge lawyer for white collar cases, she is gone all day. This girl has her own car, was part of the cheer squad at her school, and spent spring break in Cabo San Lucas with her best friend. Sounds perfect doesn’t it?

The last time her mom hugged her was two weeks ago. The last time she got a good job from someone was her coach. The last time her mom said good job? She can’t remember. A couple months ago was her cheer banquet. She looked out into the crowd for her mom who was coming from work but she wasn’t there. As she got her award on stage, the other parents were the ones to clap for her and she had to hold back the tears from spilling out of her bright green eyes. This memory keeps crossing her mind.

She has a scholarship to Cornell in New York for zoology and she can’t wait to leave. At least then being on her own is her choice. She is scared that her mom won’t be there to say good bye. Right now she just focuses on the movie on the flat screen in her living room. She hears her mom’s Prius pull in through the gate outside their house and into the clean as a whistle garage. She unlocks the backdoor and brings in a bag that looks like lunch from the girl’s favorite vegetarian restaurant down the block. This is weird. Her mom never brings her lunch. “Oh hi, Mom. I didn’t know you were going to be home.” She talks in a surprised voice. “No, you cannot leave the office early...I don’t care...Just finish the paperwork I left for you on my desk for the Johnson case and then you can go to your little dinner.

“What were you saying, hun? I was on the phone with that temporary assistant.”
“Oh, um nothing. What’s that you have there?” The girl has her eyes locked on the back hoping its a veggie burrito.
“Oh I just picked up a little late lunch. You didn’t think I’d remember your last day of high school, did you?”
“I don’t know, you were too busy to make it to my graduation so I just assumed. Is that for me?”
“Um, yes. I picked up lunch. Here. I have some work to do in my office.” Her mom walks to her office door.
The girl is confused, “I thought we were eating together.”
“Dear, you’re a big girl. You don’t need me when you’re eating!” And she disappeared.

This girl, she is strong. She fights everyday for that will to keep going. No one cares. She thinks she is alone. Right when things look up for just a second, it goes back down. She stands in the hallway staring at a picture of her when she was little. By herself at her 10th birthday party. Her mom is in the background on the phone. It was nothing new. She’s been used to this her whole life.

The girl goes to her room with her lunch and plops on her bed, holding back more tears. All she wants is for someone, anyone to care. “Am I that horrible that no one can stand being around me? Am I ugly? Am I annoying?” The girl thinks to herself what could be wrong with her. She stands in front of her mirror, lifting up her shirt with her hand on her stomach and sucking in. The girl is really fit. She has danced and done cheer since she was really little. She thinks that he must be annoying. No one has texted her since she got home. Her closest friend hasn’t even called her since school got out a couple hours ago.

She walks to her bathroom, and stares at the mirror on the medicine cabinet. She opens it and stares at her prescriptions that she has to take everyday. In there she sees her asthma pills, her pain killers for her knee, her sleeping pills and her anti-depressant pills. Her mom doesn’t know she takes anti-depressant pills. She went to the doctor a couple weeks after she turned 18 so she could get them without her mom knowing, not that she would care anyways. Her pills are almost empty and she starts to worry. She’s afraid her mom will find out. Only three more months and she will be on her own in New York.

The girl goes back into her room and opens her computer and logs into her social network page. The first post she sees kills her. Her so-called friend posted “Redheads are freaks. So glad I don’t have to see mine anymore.” She knew that her friend was talking about her. Below that, a conversation went on between three of her friends saying how annoying she is and how she’s a spoiled brat who thinks she’s better than everyone else. If only they knew how jealous she is of her friends. She would trade everything in to have a full, loving family that cared about her.

She slams her laptop closed and throws herself on her bed and starts crying. She stands up quickly and runs to the bathroom and swings open the medicine cabinet and grabs her pain killers and sleeping pills. She goes back to her room and sits on her bed. She pour them out in her hand and stares at them. “This is it. No more wondering. Just peace.” She talks out loud to herself. All of a sudden, her phone buzzes from her desk. She debates on whether she should check it or not. She gets up, still holding the pills in her hand and unlocks her phone to see a three page message from this boy that used to live next to her. He goes to her school and they smile at each other occasionally in the hallway but other than that, he has his friends and she had hers. The message reads:
“You are amazing. I hope you realize that. No one is as great as you are. You are beautiful, smart and perfect. I always want to say something to you in the hallway but I’m afraid you won’t want to talk to me. I saw what they were saying about you online. I hate it. You don’t deserve it. Does your mom still act the way she used to? If she is, I am so extremely sorry. I don’t understand how anyone can ignore you. I want to spend all my time with you. Let’s hang out tomorrow now that we are done with school. Please remember how much you mean to me.”

The tears coming from her eyes turn into tears of happiness. She pours her pills back into their bottles and calls him. They talk for hours as she tells him everything she’s going through and he tells her that she can rely on him. He reminds her that everyone always has someone who cares, even if they think they are alone. There will always be someone affected by your loss. Someone will always be there. ?