He sits through class silent. Intelligent but it's never noticed. Even if it was that would be just more fuel for them. He hears another chuckle from the side of him once again. He doesn't give them the satisfaction of even looking to who said it. He pretends but deep inside he knows it kills him. When they make jokes he laughs on the outside and cry's on the inside. He knows he never really did anything wrong, there were no reasons for him to be hated and tortured so. But yet it continues. Yet he sits alone at lunch. He walks home alone. He sits home alone. Of course his mother's there but what's she worth? Drunk again as always from cheap malt liquor she bought at the store. She seldom acknowledges he is there. He knows it's never been the same since his father died. He hoped some day she would realize she could change but deeper inside he knew she wouldn't. He knew that things would never change and over time he began to blame himself. "It's my fault they hate me. I'm the cause of everything that's wrong. It's all my fault." Are just some of the thoughts that went through his head. So many others were about how sweet death would be. How much easier it would be for him and for everyone else to just end his own life. Those thoughts were always followed with the thought that he didn't deserve such an easy way out. He thought he deserved to suffer for all the things he had done. All the people he annoyed, all the people who had to get up in the morning and ready themselves with jokes to throw out at him. "What gives me the right?" he would say so often with the loaded .45 in his hand. He would just toss the loaded gun on the ground and walk out the door every time. He had written that suicide not so many times he had gone through nearly three notebooks of paper. Every time he writes it gets shorter. It has gone from two pages to just two sentences.

"I'm sorry but I had to go. This life's was just too much for me." That's all that's he writes anymore because he stopped writing reasons, apologies, and goodbyes to the few people he cared for, because they were all gone. There was no one left in the world he wanted to see anymore. He would rather sit in his room staring down the loaded barrel of a .45 then see another human face, one that will just eventually inevitably laugh at him because they all realize he's nothing. This is the usual day for him. Nearly every day he considers throwing everything away for a few people who think they are cool because they make fun of someone randomly.

At the age of only seventeen years old she already hates the world and wants it to die. She's spent the past three years paying for a mistake she made her freshman year that she didn't even really do. An ex-boyfriend of hers spreading the rumor that he got lucky, he got crowned and she was shunned. For weeks after the rumors spread like wildfire through a rain deprived savannah, walking down the hall's she would hear them say to her "You fucking whore. You worthless bitch. No one loves you, piece of trash. Does your back hurt this morning?" As hard as she tried to ignore them all she couldn't. She couldn't refuse them the satisfaction of letting them know she was being hurt by every last remark, every last little comment that brought her closer to hating herself. Now she mostly was just tormented by others about random flaws they could point out on her, and if there weren't any that day they would either bring up an old one or just make something up. She had thought many a times of throwing it all away. But she didn't want to give in. She had the spirit of a fighter. She knew that someday all would be better. So she waited and waited for that day to sometime come. She hoped and prayed that it would.

It never posed a problem before, the fact that she was an orphan. Now people laugh and say things like "The left because they didn't love you." "They killed themselves trying to the away from you." She knew this wasn't true but it still hurt. She knew that they died coming home from their tenth anniversary dinner. They were in a car accident. They didn't have any other family she remembered this clearly. She remembered the love they had for one another and the love they had for her. She was merely 5 years old when this happened but this she remembered. You may ask how people can be so cruel but this isn't even the cruelest of things they have done over the years.

This day started like any other day would usually. Jokes thrown at her, mean comments and what not. All stuff she was used to. It was around fourth class period that the announcement came on that the school was going on a lockdown. "Either the drug dog's or a small gang fight like always." She thought to herself as the teacher locked to door and closed the blinds. Time passed as they sat their silently waiting when they heard someone on the other side of the door knocking. Then the knocking turned into someone breaking through the window. He unlocked the door and walked in. He sought out one of the male classmates and shot him three times in the chest. As he turned and walked out the door the girls asked him a simple yet odd question.

"Why are you doing this?"

"These people, if they are worthy of being called that, have tortured me for so long my heart has grown cold and died. I am simply doing what I think is right and giving them what they deserve. "He said this smiling and almost laughing at the question.

"I am a lot like you, you know. I have been hurt by the same people for a long time too. It hurts I know. But it isn't worth killing them or going to jail."

"And what would you know of things like this hm?"

"You don't remember me do you?"

"Should I?" He said now searching through his mind trying to figure out who it was.

"You don't remember our first year here at high school? We were together for a while. So how was that sex we never had hmm?" He wasn't able to speak. Only stare back at her. It had been so long since he had last heard of this. The girl he had thrown to the wolves and sold her out with nothing to show for it. He thought it would bring him popularity and friends. Which it did for a while but it died with time. He had often heard the terrible things that were said to and about the "whore" his false rumors had created. All the terrible things he had caused to happen to her. He now realized that he was the exact thing that he set out to destroy.

"I know it won't mean much but...I am sorry. Truly sorry. I see my errors now." Moving the gun in his hand now. "And I now know how to fix all my problems. It' too late for me but you…You have to stay strong. Do what I couldn't. Live. And be successful. For the both of us." He said this as he put the barrel of that .45 pistol to his head. Although this time he didn't throw it down. He didn't throw it away and give himself another chance. He had that note in the pocket of his coat, like he always did, that day. The girl now a woman ten years down the road leads a worldwide anti-bullying program and is a very wealthy person.

"Who's laughing now hm? They laughed for years and I am the one who came out on top. I am the one who's built myself a giant cooperation. I am the one who really won." She speaks to a small picture on her desk of the man who gave her the confidence and the strength to go on that day. The day he say the end of the barrel of that .45 pistol. "Who's laughing now?" she said. "Who's laughing now?"