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5/5/90
Dear Harry
Thank you for your support. It does help knowing that you still think highly of me and want to be my friend. Your letter made me feel a lot better, I wish you were here to talk to me in person, it would have helped me feel more confident returning to school the Monday after it happened.
You're right, I did go back to school and face my bullies, and tried as hard as I could not to show them how much they'd hurt and frightened me. I even reminded a few of them that I'm twelve and they're legally adults. What happened, taking my clothes off, would be considered a form of sexual assault of a minor and if anything came out about it, they could all kiss their futures goodbye. I hope at least that will stop the story from spreading too far outside the school. If it isn't already too late that is. I don't think that anybody had a camera there, I didn't see any and I hope not, I don't like to think of someone having photos of me in such a humiliating situation. Worse if they made copies and kept putting them where I would see them.
I'm trying very hard to believe you that it wasn't my fault and that I didn't do anything wrong, but I also don't want to think of myself as an assault victim. I want to move past this, I just wish I could leave now and go to Caltech but I haven't got things sorted for Mom yet and if I leave now, I won't have my high school diploma and the last five months will have been for nothing. I'm also not entirely sure I could convince myself to ever come back if I was able to leave Vegas the weekend it happened. Not even for Mom, if it meant having to see any of them. But because I had to stay and face them they don't have that power over me. I'll be able to go to school and come home on weekends without worrying too much about seeing any of them. I wish I had your power thing, I bet I could make being unnoticeable work right now. Another 14 days of school to go. I can do this and walk away with my head held high. Funny thing is the guys who actually tied the knots were squirming in class today as if something was making them uncomfortable, I'd like to think that it was the rash you wished on them but I know realistically it couldn't have been. Still it made me smile internally.
Mom still doesn't know what happened, she was delusional all weekend and the bruises and grazes from the rope, healed up before she noticed them. I spent most of Saturday hiding in the hideout, rereading your letters. It feels like home again now. Our home, where we are both safe from the bullies and can comfort each other. If I close my eyes and imagine hard enough I can almost believe that you're there.
Luckily one of the librarians packed up my books and kept them behind the counter but I have to wonder if she did it because she heard what was happening, but didn't want to get involved in front of half the school. Anyway, I didn't end up losing anything other than my clothing which never turned up. Someone probably took it home with them, I hope they threw them away. I don't like to think of one of them keeping my underwear as a souvenir.
Anyway, not to dwell on bad things, Mom's been taking her medication again and is improving, she's back lecturing to her imaginary classes but at least she's getting up and ready to lecture and not trying to leave the house and find her way to the university. Her lectures have been quite coherent and it's interesting to listen to her, or at least to the lectures I haven't heard too many times before.
In my spare time I've been researching the history of treatments for Schizophrenia and the developments of the understanding of the disease. I have to be glad that Mom was born into this time and not any time in the past. Some of the treatments they inflicted on sufferers in their ignorance were truly horrific, and the fact that they were making money by charging admission so people could come and gawk at the asylum inmates like they were zoo animals makes me furious. But I'm sure most if not all of the practitioners were acting from good intentions and some of those treatments have proven effective for other mental illnesses, even if others ended up being merely torture. They medications they use now are slowly being improved but they don't work for everyone and a lot of people stop taking them for some reason, some of them because of the side effects. I understand why Mom doesn't like taking them.
How is your reading going, are you ready for more book recommendations yet? I read a book the other day that I think you would like 'The Time Machine' by H G Wells. The science is preposterous bit the narrative is well written and the idea catches the imagination.
How is the restaurant, and school and the Dursleys. I hope everything is going well for you.
Your friend
Spencer
A/N: Thank you to all those who reviewed followed or favourited this story for your support.