• Tyler's Journal Entry #6
    March 18, 2010

    tab The moment is still a vivid picture in my mind. I had picked up Stacy's diary, hands trembling as I flipped through the wet, wrinkled pages.
    tab How did it come to this? Why did this have to happen?
    tab Those questions rang in my head over and over again, until I felt something trickle down my face. Slow, warm, wet...Not the rain, I knew that.
    tab A tear? Was I crying?
    tab A storm started brewing around me. Thunder crashed after every lightning bolt flickered the sky. Dark clouds loomed over me, the rain steadily getting harder and harder. My clothes were now stuck close to my skin; drenched, uncomfortable, and unbearable.
    tab It was ironic how the weather matched your mood. Such a fitting background. Like it was all planned; like there was some director up there composing a background as if I were in a movie.
    tab I sat there, diary tightly clenched in my hands, and head buried in my knees.
    tab Why? Why was this happening? What did I do to deserve this? And then, as if in answer, the movie of my life just replayed in my head.

    tab Coming back to school the next day, I found quickly that I hadn't gone unheard, as my acts the other day were the talk of the school. I wasn't a freak anymore. I wasn't a dork for wearing odd clothing.
    tab I was a hero. Not just popular. I was a hero.
    tab I felt content then, as if it were ok that I didn't know about my past, as long as I had this to look forward to.
    tab Stacy wasn't happy, though. Well, at least not like everyone else. Wouldn't talk to anyone, just gave people one of those small, phony little smiles when they asked her what exactly happened the other day. She wasn't the Stacy she was when she stood up for me in the lunchroom. She was a completely different person.
    tab I had changed too. Significantly. Slowly, as days went by, I developed into a person more fit for a high-schooler, rather than a walking encyclopedia. I began to wear T-Shirts, I began to tell jokes, I began to make friends.
    tab Lots of friends.
    tab In midst of my evolution to an average teenager, I hadn't spoken to Stacy. It wasn't that I had forgotten about her, per se, but...I guess my rise in popularity kept me distracted.
    tab Distracted, maybe, wasn't the right word choice. Popular kids, who only a day earlier hated me, were now crowding around me, trying to dig up some information about the event that made me so famous. At first, I uneasily shrugged it off, and changed the subject, not really wanting to go into such an uncomfortable conversation. But just as my physical presense changed, so did my personality, and before I knew it, words were spilling out of my mouth.
    tab It was all a big mistake. One that I would regret.
    tab "Well, I saw Jacob there, dragging Stacy behind with him," I began dramatically, maybe overly so, "and then--"
    tab "Stacy and Jacob?" a boy interrupted. "Going into the same bathroom? Wonder what happened there!" I winced. I remembered Stacy's face when she was talking about the scene with me. Regretful, depressed, mournful...What happened in the bathroom more than just bothered her. It was more than just something temporary. It was a permanant scar, and I knew that I shouldn't have made it any worse by telling everyone the full story.
    tab "Well..." I replied uneasily, stopping in my tracks and kicking the carpet.
    tab "'Well' what? What happened?" The whole crowd fell silent, and for a few seconds, we all just stood there, waiting as I thought, weighing the pros and cons of each alternative. Was it right to tell the truth? What about Stacy? How would this affect her reputation, the way people saw her? How would this affect her life?
    tab "I--I can't say..." We continued to walk, snickers echoing amongst the crowd of boys.
    tab "Geez, man, we were just joking" one boy piped in, a large grin gracing his face. "I'm pretty sure we know what happened." My eyes bulged with surprise. He already knew?
    tab "You guys--you already know?" I gasped, stumbling backwards, completely in shock.
    tab "Yeah, sure!" he went on. "Well, at least, after what you said already." This wasn't good.
    tab "A boy and a girl in the same bathroom together? Man, it's so obvious!"
    tab "It--it is?" I asked, still awe-struck.
    tab "Well, yeah! They both went in there for some privacy, to do their, ya' know..." He leaned into my ear, and whispered quietly,
    tab "Private things." Immediately, I got the picture, and quickly objected,
    tab "No! No, that not it..."
    tab "Then what is it?" I was about to say it. I was just about it blurt it out. I really was. But once I thought about it, the truth wasn't any better than what he said. In fact, it was pretty darn similar. I lowered my head, hating myself for being such an idiot. Hating myself for letting this happen.
    tab "That's what I thought," the boy continued after a couple moments of silence.
    tab "Please...please don't tell anyone else..."
    tab "Why not?" I was taken by an incredible amount of surprise the moment those words came out of his mouth. "Why not?"? Wasn't it obvious? Would any of them like the talk of the school about how they were almost raped in a bathroom?
    tab "Well, because...because that's mean."
    tab "So? It's the truth, man, and people gotta know the truth."
    tab "Not all the time, they don't...Sometimes, it's wrong to tell the truth." I paused, and quietly added, "The truth hurts."
    tab "So you would rather us lie?" a boy challenged. "People oughtta know what happened in that bathroom. People oughtta know what kind of a person Stacy really is."
    tab "But she's not...she's not really like that..." I felt my argument slip away. It didn't matter what I said. I could tell their minds wouldn't change.
    tab "Yeah? What is she like?" Before I could answer, another boy quickly added,
    tab "You like her, don't you?" I opened my mouth to protest, but the words were stuck in my throat. What was I supposed to say? Did it really matter? Did they really care?
    tab I stopped in my tracks to think, expectinng the rest to wait and stand there with me. But they didn't. They continued to walk, talking to eachother as though I couldn't hear what they were saying.
    tab "Geez, what a dork!"
    tab "Yeah, and can you believe he likes Stacy too?"
    tab "Ha-ha! Yeah, Stacy! What a slut!"
    tab It was at that moment that I realized that none of them were really my friends. It didn't matter what I did, how I talked, how I dressed. I was still Tyler Woods, the uncool new kid who no one cared about.
    tab It was all an act, I saw. In their eyes, I wasn't a friend, or even a real person. As soon as something big happened, like what happened in the bathroom, people would go to a source. And that's all I really was. Some gossip machine, simply there to stir up rumors. And once this machine is done with it's duty, the people would leave him, forget about him, may even make fun of him.
    tab What a twisted world we live in. People don't care about eachother. Not really. They just want to have something to talk about. But once all is said and done, it just ends with people being hurt. Nothing good comes out of it. So why do we keep doing it? That's a question that no one can answer.
    tab I said earlier in this entry that I was the hero. But once I thought about what would happen to Stacy in the next coming days, I'm really not.
    tab I'm the villain.
    tab So if I'm the villain, who's the hero?