In the months after Jim's untimely death, I remained very sad. Jim and I used to enjoy jogging together. I still enjoyed jogging, but it got lonely doing it alone. None of my other friends were interested in that. The bullying really picked up. My remaining friends would stand up for me, but that didn't stop the bullies from bullying me. Sometimes they would beat me. Many times, I would pretend I needed to use the restroom so that I could be alone to cry. One day, when I was sitting at home, I saw a pocket knife. I honestly don't know what I was thinking, if I was thinking at all, but I began making small cuts on my legs. Strangely enough, it made me forget about all my troubles for a brief period. I kept on doing it. One day, I went to school, and my friend, Chelsea, noticed that I was wearing pants. She said, "It's a pleasant day outside. Why are you wearing pants?" I said, "I just put something on. I didn't think about the weather at all." I then let out a sad sigh. She asked, "Are you okay?" I said, "I'm just fine." She said, "No, you're not." I rolled up my pants legs. She said, "Oh, my God! Aubrey, what happened?!" I said, "I fell while I was jogging." She said, "You're telling the truth, aren't you?" I said, "Chelsea, I don't lie to you." I felt so dirty, because I had lied to a friend for the first time in my life. If Jim had still been living, I could have told him about it. He would have understood. He was my best friend. However, I had only known Chelsea for a year, so I didn't trust her as much as I trusted Jim. That day, when I came home from school, my father asked, "Did you have a good day?" I said, "I guess so." He said, "You guess so?" He then noticed that I was wearing pants. He said, "You're wearing pants. Why is that?" I reluctantly showed him. He asked, "Did you fall?" I said, "Yeah, I fell." He asked, "Are you all right?" I said, "I'm fine. I'm okay." I lied again. I wasn't okay. I had not been okay since January, and it was early May. One day, when I was making another cut, my mother walked in on me. "Aubrey!" she cried. "What are you doing?!" I burst into tears. She asked, "What's going on?" I said, "Cutting myself is what's keeping me alive right now." She asked, "Why didn't you tell me about how you were feeling?" I said, "I thought you'd think I'm crazy." She hugged me and said, "I love you. You're not crazy." She began doing research on how to help me, and ways I could distract myself if I thought about cutting. I took an interest in music, and my father bought me a guitar. I started playing it, despite the fact that I never had lessons. It turned out that I had natural talent. I began writing a few songs, but there were days I still had to fight myself not to cut.
When I had entered the fifth grade, I was dreading it. I had heard rumors that the teacher was really mean. When I met her before school started, she seemed really nice. On the first day of school, I was wearing one of my Beatles t-shirts. She noticed it, and she said, "Darling, I love you already!" I said, "Okay, then." She would take up for me all the time. The other kids often called me glasses. She heard them and said, "She has a name, guys. Her name is not glasses. It's Winter." There was one day when another girl kept picking on me. I finally had enough and said, "I might look sweet and innocent, but that shit is for suckers, and I'm no lollipop." I looked at the teacher. She winked and said, "I heard nothing." I would have had her for the sixth grade, too, but unfortunately, I moved to Tennessee as soon as the school year was over. We both cried. We promised to keep in touch with each other, and we've kept in touch to this day.
