A Mistake Made

I remember when I first saw her. She was small and shy and quiet, her desk right next to mine. Our third grade teacher stood in front of us and told us to turn to our neighbors and introduce ourselves. She looked at me awkwardly and smiled a very small smile before sticking her hand out for me to shake, saying what her name was. Jade. I smiled back and shook her hand before telling her my own name.

“I like your name, Curtis.” She said quietly while looking down at the desktop. She was smart, I noticed as the months passed, but she didn’t have many friends. In fact, I couldn’t remember seeing her hang out with anyone at all during recess. I felt myself grow fond of the quiet, awkward, jumpy girl next to me. I was never public about any feelings I had, but I was slightly nicer to her than the other students.

Years passed and I watched Jade transform from a small, gawky, young girl to a mature, gawky, not so small young woman. We were often in the same classes through out middle school, but we never really spoke to each other after the introductions in the third grade.

Our seventh grade history teacher decided to assign groups for a project. Jade was in my own group and I found myself seated next to her. Many times I would casually find myself “bumping” feet with her in a not-so-innocent way. I saw her blush but, like myself, she acted like nothing was happening and continued with the group. She had grown out of her silence and would often fight with another guy in our group, David, who would constantly tease her and tick her off. She was still smart, but she would get so frustrated as her witty comments bounced off of David. It was almost fun to watch her glare and yell at him when he would make a remark about her sarcastically. Every day for the project Jade and I would sit next to each other in the circle of students and every day we would casually rub feet while both acting like nothing was happening.

Now, I am still not an emotionally public guy, so when she approached me at recess to talk to me about what was going on, I didn’t say anything. I was cold to her, and I know it from the way she walked of with a sad face. I’ve seen that face more and more as time went on. Jade wasn’t popular at all, and I rarely saw her with other people, and I think that I wasn’t helping her with my cold shoulder.

Jade didn’t speak to me at all the rest of the year. I think she was mad at me for confusing her and sending her mixed signals. I didn’t really want to fix what was going on, because if anyone knew I liked her, my social status would drop. Shallow of me, I know, but in middle school and high school people can be cruel. I didn’t really feel like being attacked by mockery and insults and teasing. I think that’s why I was always private about her.

After a while, I think Jade’s anger finally stopped at me, moving on towards David and his buddies for leading her on. I remember hearing them talk one day about how David had Jade’s private home phone number, and his buddy deciding to prank her and call her up. Her mom answered and nearly fainted with joy when a boy was calling for Jade. Jade knew this guy was friends with David and wasn’t sure what to think, but when he asked her to be his girlfriend, she couldn’t let her mom down and told him yes.

The next day, before school even started, David’s buddy walked up to her. I saw the whole thing out of the corner of my eye. She got really mad at him as he walked off and I figured out later that it was because he told her the whole thing was a prank and that he never liked her or wanted to be her boyfriend.

I had noticed over the many years that I’ve known Jade, that when I met her in third grade her eyes were just scared and shy. But as time went on, and people treated her so poorly and mean, her eyes started turning cold and distant. Jade became even more suspicious of peoples’ motives for talking to her and I noticed she was untrusting of anyone. She didn’t look the same or act the same as the girl that smiled at me and said, “hi, my name’s Jade.” There was still a sweet girl in there, though. She may not have been liked by anyone, really, but she always stood up for what she thought was right and for what she believed in. There was one time, when we were out at recess there was a bully in the older grades kicking one of the guys in our class in the stomach multiple times. The guy was not friends with Jade, nor was he even nice, making fun of her whenever his ‘buddies’ were around. I had never seen someone stand up for another person like she did, especially a person that they didn’t like, but Jade jumped in there and told the bully to stop. When he didn’t, she jumped in front of the other guy. The bully punched her in the face, knocking her into the jungle gym, but not off of her feet. She stayed standing and before anyone could blink, Jade reeled her foot back and kicked him square in his…well…you know where. I think that is what made her earn my full respect. Not that I showed it, but it was there. I had never seen a girl stand up to a guy like that and to win the fight without getting knocked off her feet? Well that was something.

I can’t really blame her for changing like she did. She was still nice, but only to new people and adults. I guess I didn’t help her at all with my own attitude towards her. Jade didn’t make friends easily for a very long time because of her suspicious personality, but there were three or so people that broke through the cold and untrusting exterior. She only opened up to those few and they were the only ones that really knew her. Her friends, themselves, also were like her. They didn’t have many friends either and Jade and them stuck together like glue. Secretly, her new friendship with those few people made me glad that she wasn’t completely alone anymore.

Time moved slowly and I felt myself stop thinking or even paying attention to Jade, she seemed like she was doing good now. Her friendships had gotten stronger, and she had added a few more people to them. I also think she stopped noticing me, as well.

Our lives had just moved on and we became just acquaintances that happened to be in many of the same classes. I found my thoughts taken by another girl, and, well honestly I don’t know about Jade. I think she started having problems with the other students, but, then again, she always did. I had never seen her actually physically fight again, but she stood her ground against any argument and opposition.

I know that many times she’d cry, but she would refuse to let a single tear fall around the bullies that teased her and hurt her feelings. She was one of the strongest girls I had ever known when it came to student abuse.

I remember that she changed religions openly from Christian to Atheist in Middle School. I think that was the toughest time for her, ever. No one let it go and everyone was making fun of her, yelling at her, calling her things, and saying that they would pray for her or that they would see her in Hell. Through it all, though, Jade never broke down and never gave them the pleasure of giving them a reaction. She would just smile, shrug and say, “Love thine neighbor.” Jade was strong against all the rumors and jokes and cruel things said. I know she was depressed, though, for a long time. I noticed marks forming along the under part of her arms. There was also a week when she wasn’t around at all. I heard rumors that she was sent to Prairie View for depression and talks of suicide. It wouldn’t surprise me if that really was why she left.

Time flew by and soon we were freshman in High School. Jade had her group of friends, and I had mine. I think it had been about two years since we even said a full sentence to each other. We weren’t really in each other’s lives besides classes.

One day, in health class, we had free time for the rest of the day. I was on email, like most of the classmates, and I just happened to glance up and look around the room. I sat behind her and a row over. Her screen had a game on it, where you can talk and hang out with other players. It was a game that I knew but never really saw anyone in our school play.

I saw her open her email when she noticed a new message. It was from me, I knew this. All it said was the name of the game. Jade, obviously didn’t know that anyone in school knew about it because I received her reply saying, “yea, how’d you know?”

I think that is what started it. We added each other as friends on the game and on Myspace. We started talking on the two sites, small talk at first. As our conversations carried on, I noticed her open up to me. She told me of the two crushes she ever had, and the extreme heartbreak she felt for both of them. She told me how whenever she trusted a guy, he’d turn around and betray her. I actually opened up to her, as well, telling her things I didn’t really talk about to other people.

Eventually she told me something that took a lot of courage for her. She told me that she had feelings for me. I still liked another girl, so I told Jade that I would probably hurt her and she didn’t deserve to be hurt anymore than she had been by those other guys. She took it well, because she never expected to be my girlfriend, she just wanted to tell me.

I told her that we could still be friends, and she liked that. Our conversations continued with no more talk of crushes or relationships. Occasionally she would be feeling depressed and self-hating and would ask me things like “am I pretty?” or “am I a good friend?” I would answer kindly and make her feel better. At least I thought I did.

I don’t know what happened, but when our sophomore year started, I stopped talking to her. I wouldn’t answer her emails, pm’s on Myspace, and I never logged onto that game. She was hurt and confused. I didn’t even tell her I didn’t want to be friends anymore. Not a word to her. Not even a goodbye. I received a message asking me why and what she did but I would just delete them. Eventually she sent me an email about how mad I made her and how hurt she was and she was never going to talk to me again. Still I didn’t reply.

Jade turned very cold toward me. I never received a smile anymore, and if she did glance at me, her eyes held hurt, anger, betrayal, and hate. I wouldn’t show any emotion to her at all. She refused to speak to me unless she absolutely had to. Even then, it was very short specific sentences. Jade often avoided eye contact with anyone for along time.

I don’t know why, but her anger and pain didn’t seem to affect me. I betrayed her. I told her that we were friends and that I didn’t want her to get hurt again like when those other guys would hurt her. Then, I went around and broke her heart. She thought I was different, that I would be a good friend.

Sophomore year passed into Junior and I started to feel the hate and anger melt away from her, leaving just the hurt. She still didn’t speak to me, or look at me unless she had to but one day in History, we both missed a day and were given a video to go watch. We headed out into the halls together to find a TV with a VCR. We mumbled some very small talk, but it was pretty awkward. Together in a small room, alone, we watched the movie for about an hour or so. It was awkward and I would mumble something and she would nod or reply with small, one word sentences.

Jade was not about to begin trusting me. Talking to me was proving a challenge for her, but she at least tried to answer my questions when I rarely asked her where someone was. She seemed to be more normal that year, trying to at least make sort-of friends with the other girls and guys in her classes and the drama club, but she was still an outcast among the other people. I noticed that people would rarely talk to her without her speaking first, something she told me she noticed back when we were ‘friends’. She often sat alone or with a freshman girl, but barely spoke to them.

Something I did notice about her, though, was that she took to a freshman boy, John. He was big and intimidating, but she had no problem laughing at him and teasing him about things he’d normally get horribly mad at. He didn’t seem to mind her, in fact, I think he liked her. I suspect he got jealous when she was poking at another actor’s pillow-stuffed shirt and giggling about how poofy it was. I, myself, felt myself get a twinge of jealousy as I saw her talk and joke and poke on John, though it wasn’t noticeable at all.

Jade always had a tough time with people, but she tried to get along with most of them. She wasn’t one to hold a grudge or to stay mad long at anyone. I guess I envied her for all that personality she had. She always tried to look for the bright side of everything and always tried to find something to smile about.

I can’t help but think that she always had that depressed side of her, though. I sort of wonder if all the smiles and laughs were just a façade, a mask of her own depression. No one really cared to find out, and I sure wasn’t going to try. I wasn’t one for showing my true feelings publicly.

Jade was just like a rubix cube. The more you tried to figure her out, the more complicated she became. There was always something new to learn about her, but after so long, I stopped trying to figure her out. She had too many layers for my taste, and I didn’t want to take the time to peel them off.

I suspected that she was doing well because she seemed to get better grades, talk to more people, and smile a lot more. Jade looked like her life was on track and constantly talked about college and becoming a school guidance councilor. That didn’t shock me one bit. I always figured she would find an occupation to help kids so that they wouldn’t have to go through what she did. She was always trying to help people, despite the fact that she said she didn’t like people.

Even when she was doing well, she always said she disliked people in general. I can’t blame her, after all she’d been through. It seemed that no matter how she changed and grew with her social skills and her personality she always had that piece inside her that was frightened of those around her. It’s understandable, after all that happened to her. Scars don’t ever completely go away. It goes along with that ‘once bitten, twice shy’ theory. Of course in Jade’s case, it would be ‘hundreds of times bitten, infinity shy’.

Despite being unpopular and nearly friendless, Jade always found a way to join in something. She went to the football games, school plays, and extra-curricular clubs. I don’t know if it was to try and make friends or if she just liked the idea of being somewhere, but she was always at them and sitting alone. I guess a part of me wanted to sit with her, just so she wouldn’t have been alone. I never did, though.

I should have. There was so much I could have and should have done for her, but I never thought about it until the news reached me. It was the day of graduation that it happened. They made the earth-shattering announcement to us all before we lined up. Jade had been killed in a hit-and-run on her way to the ceremony.

I couldn’t believe it. It just didn’t seem real to me at all. I would never see Jade’s face again and the fact hit me hard. Everyone was silent and looked around at the shocked faces of our classmates. A few Jade’s friends burst out crying while some just slumped to the floor, speechless.

The funeral was outside. Jade wouldn’t have wanted to have it in a Church. I stared at her portrait that was framed and standing beside the closed casket. I still couldn’t believe it.

One by one students, friends, and family left the graveyard to head to the reception until only a few people lingered. I stood in front of the headstone and stared down at the engraved writing. I was never one to publicly show my emotions, but as I stared down at the letters that made up her name, I cried.

THE END