WHO YOU ARE

Felicity hid her face in her hands, sobbing quietly for herself, as if anyone could see her in her room, sitting by the computer, staring at the status Emily just uploaded.

Felicity had always been a quite sensitive person, a push-over, especially while being in a public forum. And now, she really felt how she was starting to lose it.

She barely dared to push away her dark blonde her away from her face so she could read the text clearly. She didn't want to. But she didn't need to. She had already read the text, and remembers everything clearly.

Boulder-nose. That's what they had called her. She did have a pretty crooked nose, but there's no way it deserved to be compared to a boulder. Many people had told Felicity she was extremely ugly due to her nose. She couldn't help it. She was born with it. Life can never be like Hollywood films; not everyone is perfectly beautiful on the outside.

Before her father, Andreas, had left Felicity and her family due to the divorce, he had always told her that beauty comes from the inside. That is what kept Felicity away from suicide. He had mattered so much to her. She didn't want to forget him.

Why? Because on the inside, even though he had abandoned them, Felicity always thought Andreas still missed them, and that in a strange way, they were still a family. Felicity didn't really know if Andreas loved Caroline more than Elizabeth. Elizabeth was Felicity's mother, a caring and kind person. She was very understanding towards people and had usually managed to keep control of her anger when times were difficult. But then, once Andreas, her one and only husband, had left them because "they never actually made sense", Elizabeth pretty much lost all her happiness, and then started drinking and smoking, in pure depression.

Felicity's little sister, Nora, was probably the one with most happiness in the family. Elizabeth and Andreas had done a great job raising her into a wonderful little seven-year-old. She wasn't the most beautiful girl ever, but her kindness and understanding at such a young age was impressive. She was, just like Felicity, a sensitive girl. Once Andreas had left them, she became pretty quiet, and so Felicity and Elizabeth had started to worry about her. Was she suffering depression, too?

Felicity looked down at her wrist. She still hadn't cut it, but she feared she soon couldn't stand all the stuff she had to go through. First divorce, and then cyber-bullying. It's too much for such a sensitive girl.

Many people said that "you only need to close your computer to get out of cyber-bullying". That was a huge misunderstanding. Whether Felicity left her computer or not, she had still seen the status. And it wouldn't matter if Emily would remove it, Felicity would still remeber the status. And the words would hurt her.

Removing the status would only result in an act of regret and cowardice.

But Emily hadn't removed it. She received a lot of comments about how fun the joke was, and that "Felicity totally deserved it".

Felicity opened her drawer and picked out the knife. A small but sharp knife, that would easily cut through her skin. She looked at it, and almost felt tempted to slit her wrists.

But would it be worth it? Self-harm is supposed to be a cry of help, when you don't dare to say it out loud, but would her classmates actually care? Probably not. They'd just look at the scars and call her a zebra or something.

Her entire body was shaking of sadness and fear, as she was standing upright with the knife in her hand, resting on her wrist. The tears were rolling down her face, and she felt the salty taste of them on her lips.

Should I seriously do it? Would it be worth it? Or is all of this just a stupid idea that I shouldn't consider? The thoughts were running through her head, which only made her hesitate even more.

She had to do some kinds of test. Ask herself a question, maybe?

What would Jesus do? A good question, since it's not about harming others, but harming yourself. Or is it? Maybe someone would care. Maybe someone would ask her why on Earth she had cut her wrists.

But who would that be?

She kept thinking about it. After thinking about that her mum might care about her more if she would, she decided to actually do it.

But just as she was about to do it, she heard footsteps in the staircase, and so she quickly hid her knife in the drawer and closed it quickly.

Nora entered her room.

"Felicity?" she said quietly, and looked at Felicity.

"What is it, Nora?"

"Do you want to play with me?" Nora asked. "We can play tag or something, or hide-and-seek."

"It's 8 o'clock in the evening, Nora", Felicity answered. "It's too late for you."

"But Felicity, it's Friday", Nora answered. "No school tomorrow. Please?"

Felicity thought about it. Nora was a really sweet girl, but Felicity really wasn't in the mood for playing with her little sister.

"No, Nora", Felicity said. "It's too late and I'm way too old to play games."

Nora quietly looked down to the ground.

"Okay..." she said, feeling hurt, and left the room slowly.

Felicity sighed, and just stood there, in the middle of her room for a second. It wasn't really the best Friday ever.

In the middle of her depressing thoughts, she heard a noise from the computer.

She sat down by her computer and say a message in the chat. It was from Chloe.

Felicity read the message.

And then froze.

Stared at the screen for a few seconds.

Then she quickly closed the internet and shut off her computer. She was breathing intensively.

Then she headed out of her room, down the stairs, put on her shoes and ran out of the house, crying and sobbing.

The stars were shining bright in the sky above.