FicWad

To whoever reads this at the news station and cares -



My name is Robin Berch, and I want my whole town to hear this. Yes, I'm Robin, the town freak show. I'm sure most of you have thrown something at me or called me something.

What you don't know is that my best friends moved away after my father raped one of them and was sent to jail for it. Mom always lied and said he hit a cop in the city over and that's why he's in jail. And that was when I started turning into the little freak you all know and hate today.

When Mikey and Gerard left, they took a part of me with them. The happy, innocent little girl. And then when my dad went to jail, that weighed on my conscience.

It'd been all my fault that he'd done that. And my mom acted like it was all my fault, too.

To this day, every time I see her in the morning,she just glares at me. Every time I tell her good night, I get a grumbled insult or something worse.

And I can't deal with that. Not anymore. Everyone in the town thinks I'm some kind of insane teenager running around.

Well, you're part right. I'm sane to a degree. I don't talk to myself.

I so tend to snap on the walls in my room. I cover the holes with pictures and posters. And as for my arms and legs where I cut myself, well, lets just say those are the documents of everything ever done or said to me for the last three years.

And I remember each one and when it happened. Though you all don't think it, my mind is rather strong.

I remember dad's face in the courtroom twelve years ago. I remember Mikey and Gerard laughing and playing with me in my back yard.

I never told anyone, about anything really, since they left, but I had a crush on Gerard. I never told him before they left.

And now, unless he somehow sees this, he'll never know. He was the last person to treat me like a person myself. From five to seventeen, not one of you have shown me kindness.

Not one. But you are all very good at showing the opposite. When it comes to me, at least.

Our neighbor Ms. Madde used to be so nice to me. She would pick an apple from her tree, clean it on her shirt and hand it to me.

Now, she throws them at me. They used to hurt, but I've gotten used to it. Now, it's the rocks that hurt.

Once you all realized that things like cups and tightly balled up paper wads and apples didn't hurt me, you took to throwing rocks. Especially little kids.

None of you know that no matter what you threw at me it hurt. Not physically, but mentally. It weakened my already broken sanity.

And look where that has gotten us. All of you drove me to this. If you had shown support and friendship and understanding rather than fear of something different, none of you would have my blood on your hands.

And yes, everyone who would insult me or throw things at me or hit me, my blood is on all of your hands. If you think so or not.

The one who is the most responsible for me being here, cold in my bed, is my mother. The one person who everyone say you can rely on, who will always love you, hates me with a passion.

She feels it's all my fault that my dad went to jail. That if I didn't have friends that he wouldn't have touched them and that he would still be here.

She's never told me this, but I know it's true. My own mother hates me.

Honestly, I wouldn't have blamed her if she'd have left. I'd be in a foster home, still alive with nobody to look at me like they want to choke me out.

But I didn't choose how things played out in my life back then. I can now, though.

And my life has ended. I would have done it sooner, but I wasn't brave enough when I was five.

I remember the first time I was ever treated badly. It was Ms. Madde, throwing apples at me.

She'd hit me in the back. I expected mom to run out, pick me up and yell at Ms. Madde.

Instead, her face left the window and the door didn't open, so I was left to curl into myself on the ground as Ms. Madde thew every apple on her tree at me. Once she had left, I remember being really confused as to what that was about and crying.

When I realized Ms. Madde wasn't just mad and that mom had done nothing, the tears stopped. And I held my breath until everything went black.

But I woke up in the yard. And it was dark outside. I'd been outside all afternoon and into the night.

When I stood up, I felt all the bruises on my body. And when I made it to the door, it was locked.

So I slept on the back porch. And every night after that, I was cold.

In a way, tonight isn't that different, is it? Only I won't wake up to be glared at.

I won't have things thrown at me on my way to school and on the way back. I won't have to deal with any of you here anymore.

That's the best thing out of all of this. No more harassment.

So, now that I'm cold and hard, what will you do? Who will you torture?

I hope that the strangers in the news station go trough with my dying wish. And if not, please return this letter to the address it was sent from. Or not. It won't matter. Not here.




- The late Jessica Berch