Callie Fortes stared in a mirror at herself. She observed her soft brown hair gently falling onto her shoulders. Her blue eyes were moving rapidly at her body trying to figure out what could possibly be wrong with her.

She slowly grabbed a strand of her hair and twisted it between her thumb and index finger. Is it my hair? She thought to herself. She let the hair go and leaned in closer. There weren't any zits on her light-complected skin or her rosy red cheeks. Maybe it's my face…

She lightly touched her cheekbone and stroked it softly. Callie watched her finger move up and down her cheek then remembered the tiny bumps on her arms. She stopped and looked at her arms. What if it's my gross, bumpy arms? She grabbed her head in frustration.

Callie didn't understand why people at her school were bullying her. She was always told she was nice and caring in Elementary and wasn't ready for the vicious names that middle school would shout at her.

Delicately, she touched the glass and her hands began to tremble. Tears gathered in her eyes with the intensity of what had been going on.

"I have to be as hideous as they all say. I was never pretty. I was just that ugly duckling in the corner that no one ever got to know." She whispered to herself as the first tear slipped from it'd duct and rolled down her face.

Am I meant for Middle School? She got up on the counter and sat on her knees. Her eyes stayed fixed on her appearance the whole time. For almost five minutes she just sat there, staring. Finally, she bowed her head, and let the tears flow freely from her eyes and fell onto her skinny knees. Callie was a fragile, skinny girl and never had low self-esteem until now.

She slowly climbed off the counter and put her back against the wall directly behind her, and sank into the ground. Outside was the sound of two car doors slamming. She wiped her tears away quickly and took some deep breaths. There's no way I can explain this to my parents. She told herself.

She swiftly got out of the bathroom and made it to the couch with the TV on before anyone walked in. Callie forced a smile on her face, but inside she still felt the crumbling pain and she still heard the screaming names. This wasn't going to go away very easily.

Callie laid in bed wide awake that night. Her thoughts were racing around her head in a never-ending spiral. It was all coming to fast.

"Maybe I should just die!" She muttered to herself. Death. It was an interesting idea to her. No one would have to deal with me anymore. It seemed clever. Callie was not the brightest on how she could kill herself though.

It would take a lot of plotting in her mind. Maybe she could pull it off though. Hm. It would wait until morning. Callie tried relaxing the best she could, but it was really late by the time she had fallen asleep.

When Monday morning came, Callie could feel her stomach doing flips. The closer her dad's car got to the school, the tenser she felt. The car came to a halt and Callie just about choked on the air.
She started climbing out of the car when her dad said, "Have a good day!" She smiled and thanked him. As she slammed the door shut, she instantly whispered, "Believe me, I won't."

The day began to drag on. The constant bullying started tearing her down slowly. She managed to hide the tears well, but didn't know if they'd stay that way. By her fifth period, Callie was sick of listening to everyone. The second the bell rang ending school, she ran out of the school and all the way home.

She went straight to her bathroom and broke down crying. Nothing felt real. Her mind kept trying to come up of ways to kill herself, but nothing came. Her want of death and blankness of her mind made her even more upset and frustrated.

The week slowly fell apart. Tuesday was Hell for her. Wednesday was worse. Thursday she felt the first physical bullying. She had been pushed into her locker really hard and was hit in the eye. It was Friday, though, that made her snap. The names, the hits, the taunts, just everything made her snap.

It was Saturday evening at last. No school all day, but her parents yelling weren't helping her any. They had finally left and both of her brothers were gone. She waited for five minutes, just sitting on the couch looking at the wall. Without thinking, she arose slowly from the couch and made careful footsteps into her parent's bathroom and locked the door.

She faced herself in the mirror. It was exactly a week ago that she had stood in that very spot, watching. This time, she opened the glass doors of the cabinets. Her reflection slowly started multiplying with the reflections from the other two glass doors.

Callie looked carefully for the right medicine that could kill her. Right where the fading sun shone through the blinds was a bottle of sleeping pills. Her hand gingerly reached for it and grasped it tight. When she popped the cap off of the bottle, she let it fall to the floor with a crash.

Steadily, Callie let the pills fall into her hands until she got a full hand of them. She twisted her hand side to side slowly and with very little movement, being careful not to drop on pill onto the floor.

She watched the sun shine upon the sleeping pills and give them a gleam, making them seem more like candies. Tears swelled up and started slipping out as she lifted her hand to take them. Before the first pill could slip in though, the phone rang. She stopped and looked curiously at it.

Callie set down the pills and cautiously made her way over to the phone on its cradle. She looked at the caller ID to find out it was her best friend, Lucy. Is this a sign perhaps? She gathered her thoughts quickly and answered the phone.

"Hello?" Callie tried not to make her voice shaky.
"Hey, what's up?" Lucy giggled. Callie looked into the bathroom with the phone firmly attached to her ear. I can't do this. She had to think fast of what to say, because it was embarrassing to admit she was in the middle of committing suicide.

"Uh, nothing. You?" She panicked a little bit and her mind raced with many thoughts. She couldn't do it, and she knew it. Her attempt at suicide had failed. She continued her conversation with Lucy. After a half an hour, she smacked her head really hard. I forgot to clean up all the pills!

She ran back into the bathroom and saw little blue and white pills scattered on the counter and floor. She swiftly picked them all up without Lucy noticing the noise, and threw them back into their bottle. She slammed it down back into the cabinet and doesn't dare go near the pills since.

If Lucy wouldn't have called that night and made Callie realize it was a mistake, she would have been dead. But the attempted suicide may have opened her eyes in sixth grade, but nothing would prepare her for the evils of seventh. The evils, which would make her wish Lucy didn't call, and let her die in peace.