Chapter One: Amanda

Jeez! Give me a break!

I can’t believe that I have to wake up at 5:30 every morning to get ready for school. Something that will be over in just three short years! I don’t know how I will cope for the rest of the year, but I’m sure it will be worth it in the long run.

I rolled out of bed and padded through my still dim room. I felt around the wall until my hand met with the light switch. I turned it on and I was instantly blinded. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror,


















































































my god now I know why I have to wake up so early! I turned my shower to the hottest possible temperature. Taking off my pajamas I stepped into the shower. The water burned my back just a little, but it felt good.

It’s sophomore year and I have my own car. I have a stud-muffin boyfriend Vladimir and an awesome group of friends. This year I will be on the cheer squad (no freshman allowed!) and I will be at the top of my class. It seems like hard work, but for someone as socially poised and talented as me...it will be a piece of low-fat, gluten-free, organic vegan cake.

Here I am, at school. No longer a bottom of the food chain freshman; but rather a somewhat insignificant sophomore.

**********************************************************************************************************

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN!?”

“My aapologiesMiss. Silverton, but your tryout was not satisfactory so you will not be on the squad this year. Try again next year sweetie!”

“O...o...okay. Thank you for your time Coach Goldman.”

**********************************************************************************************************

So, I guess I won’t be on the cheerleading squad after all. But this will not be forgotten and I won’t back down quietly, I thought. I ran to my two best friends: Delilah and Brittany. I told them all about how I hadn’t made the squad Brittany empathized but Delilah seemed almost like she was expecting this, all she said was that it wasn’t the end of the world. Oh, and that she had made it onto the cheer squad. I don’t know how to take this. Oh well, they have been my friends forever, if I can’t trust them who can I trust?

Delilah is a sweet girl; she is simple but wonderful in her own way. She takes a lot of criticism but she is so comfortable in her own skin that she barely noticed it. She is a pretty girl and she has a great fashion sense. Her only flaw is that she tries too hard to control everything and make her life as perfect as possible. It stresses her out, you can always tell when she is trying to fix things. I think that she feels like if she can make even one small aspect of her life perfect then the rest will be okay. But...she is only human.

Now Brittany on the other hand has enough energy for our entire grade. She bounces happily around school chatting with everyone. She doesn’t care what people think and she just wants to have fun. She loves to play sports and be outside. It’s like she can barely contain all of her energy so she has to let it out in every way shape and form. Though, she is the type of person who you really wouldn’t want to mess with.

The three of us has been inseparable since pre-school. I love them dearly and I couldn’t imagine living without them. This year might be tough but with my three best friends and boyfriend Vladimir I’ll be aye okay. But I do feel a bit bad for Delilah. I have Vladimir and Brittany had Charlie, but she has no one to love her. I can’t imagine why though, she is the prettiest, most loving, deep, caring, and real person in our grade. I would say that that is me but I know myself way too well for that.

**********************************************************************************************************

Three Months Later

Dear Diary,

Delilah Brooks is now TOP on my hit list. She has been such a total dog to me! She even stole my boyfriend. I mean he did ask her out after I dumped him. But still there is a rule about that! I know that I said she was awesome and stuff but now I can’t even remember my reasons for saying that. What and ever that girl is so dead to me. I will get my revenge, even if it kills me. I know exactly how I’m going to make that girls life miserable as well. I will leave flyers with one juicy gossip bit on it each day in the girl’s bathroom (no video cameras). Then each day the girls will go in and read it. Then they will spread the information to everyone that they know. I’m so brilliant, I should be on top!

-xoxo a very mad Mandy

**********************************************************************************************************

Day One:
The Truth About Delilah Brooks

#1: She rigged the system for class president elections. You are all being lead by an imposter!

-A very credible source

**********************************************************************************************************

Chapter Two: Delilah

‘Why would someone say this?”

“I don’t know sweetie, but I promise we will find out who it is and make sure that it doesn’t happen anymore.”

I was talking to my most wonderful boyfriend Vladimir and he seemed just as upset about this scandal as I was.

I turned to Amanda “Do you know who could be doing this? I mean, you do spend almost all of your free time in the bathroom redoing your makeup, do you see anything suspicious?”

“Sorry but no, I will tots keep an eye out though.”

“Oh well, I doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t care what people think or say about me. Let them say what they want to, I’m sure all of this will die down sooner or later.’

I really, really tried to mean what I said but it was hurting, a lot more than I cared to admit, on the inside. I have always tried to be nice to everybody and to be the best person that I could. I’ve never intentionally hurt someone so I just don’t know who would so this. It just makes me sad to know that people think of me this way. Maybe it was more of a cruel world than I thought. Maybe... if people wouldn’t ease up on me I’d just have to be harder on them.

**********************************************************************************************************

Chapter Three: Amanda


Good, I’ve got her right where I want her. She doesn’t suspect a thing; it will be easier than I thought. But they way that Vladimir came to her rescue today was absolutely sickening. That just fueled my fire a little bit more.

**********************************************************************************************************

Day Two:
The Truth About Delilah Brooks

#2: Delilah Brooks has a kiss list. It’s like a hit list, but it is made of all of the people she is planning to kiss in the next year. Watch out, you could be next!

-An extremely reliable source

**********************************************************************************************************

After my most recent post about Delilah having a kiss list (it’s not exactly a lie, well I mean I bet she has one in her head. How can she not? I do) the whole school went crazy! I think that this bit of info even reached the middle school. Everyone was making kissy faces at her and calling desperate. I am quite pleased about how well everything turned out. People seemed more than willing to play along with my little game and they jumped at the chance to put others down. Which I'm most glad of because if they didn’t I would definitely be singled out. Everywhere I went people were making fun of her, even if she wasn’t there. It must have been a thousand times worse to see this through her eyes. I almost felt bad. But...I didn’t feel quite bad enough. I would not stop now. I would be victorious, but how will I be able to tell when I’ve gone too far? I guess we will cross that bridge when it comes.

**********************************************************************************************************

Day Three:
The Truth About Delilah Brooks

#3: Delilah brooks waxes her mustache!

-Your new best friend and Delilah Brooks worst enemy

**********************************************************************************************************

Day Four:
The Truth About Delilah Brooks

#4: Delilah Brooks is developing an eating disorder!

**********************************************************************************************************
Day Five:
The Truth About Delilah Brooks

#5: Delilah brooks is u.g.l.y. ugly! Oh, but wait that’s not a secret!


**********************************************************************************************************

Two Months Later

Chapter Four: Delilah

It’s been two months and nothing has changed, I’ve talked to my parents, teachers, friends, everyone! Nobody knows what to do. I have told them just what they need to know. I have not let on about how truly awful this is getting. No one is talking to me but there isn’t a single person who isn’t talking about me. My life is terrible and I just don’t care anymore. I have done everything that I could. It’s useless. I surrender life. I’m going to kill myself. Nothing and nobody will stop me.

Ssssss..... I had to breath through my teeth to prepare myself for the pain that I was ultimately about to feel. I looked back at my short meaningless life, thinking about all of the things that I’ve never accomplished, never done; all of the things that I would have done but I was too scared to try them. The kind of person I was like until all of this torn brutally away from me. I looked in the mirror across from me, I saw a sad, pathetic ghost of a person. My life was yanked out of my desperate hands and that left me drowning. I was looking for something to hold onto, something that could make all of this better. I needed a constant, a happy place, my savior? Some way out of my own personal little hell. I just wasn’t strong enough; I just can’t find the will. Everything I cared about...gone. My life is crumbling around me, what else is there to live for; everyone was clearly better off this way, even me.

All of a sudden my world went black. I felt nothing, saw nothing, cared about nothing, heard nothing, and smelled nothing. It was easier than I’d thought. Almost like falling asleep. Falling into a silky black sheet of bliss. I’d taken care of everything, left a will, and a suicide letter. Now I’m merely just a memory.

**********************************************************************************************************

I stood at a lectern Wearing an elegant black dress. I looked out into the mass of people. I saw Delilah’s mother and father and her little sister Rosemary. She looked just like her sister did when she was little.

Rosemary was just seven and all that she understood was that her sister was dead. She used to have such a gleam of happiness in her eyes. That was gone now I had killed it. I had killed her sister. I saw Vladimir, Brittany, my parents; I looked back at Delilah’s family. Then I looked over to the open casket. I saw my bestfriend laying there cold and dead. I owed them all this much.

I tapped the microphone twice gently just to make sure that it was working. I cleared my thought and begun talking.

“I came here with a eulogy written for my best friend. But, thinking of it now, it barely begins to describe what I really need to say. Delilah was the most.... well I can’t describe It.” it was then that I started crying. “Delilah didn’t deserve to die, not even close. I was the one who said all of those terrible and untrue things about her. I started this all, and I am responsible for her death.” I looked out at the crowd, there were so many disappointed and hurt fasces. Not a dry eye out there. “I know,” I pushed on “That i’ll never, ever is able to make up for this. But I’m so sorry.” I couldn't handle this anymore, I stumbled back from the lectern feeling the eyes of all of the people in the church boring into my head, what was left of my soul was being eaten alive. Suddenly I regained feeling in my body and my ears stopped sounding so muffled. All of a sudden everything was in sharp focus, it was too much, my legs had a mind of their own and before I knew it I was out the back door in hysterics.

I’ll never be able to forgive myself. But I know that Delilah was such a good person to the core that she would really want me to be happy, no matter what and she wouldn’t want me to blame myself. But how could I do that? I’m going to try my best to keep her memory alive, and to be the person that she thought of me as. Seeing her sister today reminded me of just where we started. How far we’d come.

I found out later that year that Vladimir was planning on giving her a promise ring the week that Delilah killed herself. He loved her so much, I wasn’t even aware. I had hurt him so much by hurting Delilah. And to think that I was so jealous of their relationship I ended it by letting Delilah kill herself. I found out that Delilah’s parents were planning on giving her the car that they had bought for her for her 16th birthday that week. I was the reason that all of this went to waste. Delilah was set up for an extremely happy life, but I was just so terrible that I couldn’t let her have it.

I said that I would get my revenge even if it killed me. But I never thought for one minute that it might kill Delilah. I said that she was so dead to me, and I made that my own reality. I don’t know that Delilah really had developed an eating disorder because of the things that I was saying, I thought I made that up; and I wish that I had. And little did I know that when I said I would wait and figure out how far I could go with this, and that I would cross that bridge when I got to it; that that bridge was going to be a toll bridge. And the price was Delilah’s life.

Epilogue

I was on summer break from my sophomore year in college. I was home and I decided to drive pass Delilah’s house. I was in my car going about thirty but it seemed like i was barely inching by at a snails pace. As I approached her house a wave of panic and sadness washed over me. I had been put on trial for murder, I got away without a scratch, thankfully, but it still makes me feel like a criminal every time I am around here. The car suddenly got ten degrees hotter and all of my limbs felt like jelly. I saw the tree that I had planted for her in her front yard, it had grown so fast. It was healthy and ripe with fruit. It was a peach tree, Delilah had always loved peaches, and I thought that it would be nice for her family to always have some around. I saw little Rosemary reading a book under that tree. She was eleven so she must have just finished fifth grade. She was so young, I had already put her through much more than any average middle aged person would have gone through. I made her grow up too fast. it was like she was asleep, oblivious to the terrible world around her. I woke her up before she was ready.

The promise ring that Vladimir had bought for Delilah maintained a permanent residence under that tree. I was so nice to see that things were still moving on. Even with Delilah gone. As I passed the Brooks’ house Rosemary looked up at me. I almost stopped the car right there. Her face was a mirror image of Delilah’s. I thought that it must be some sort of mind trick. That it was just something to make me believe that Delilah was still alive. That I was delirious, it must have been the heat. But I knew that it was Rosemary, there was no way it couldn’t be. I smiled at her then she waved back. In that moment a ray of sun filtered down onto the tree. And I knew that Delilah wasn’t really gone. She never would be. I forced her out of my life, but I knew she would live on in the hearts of others.