Finding It

Finding It

A so-called reformed bully seeks to further reinvent himself by helping others see the good in their lives and help them see they are worth something, but before he can get a good footing in this new direction tragedy strikes and his life goes on a downward spiral from the guilt of his prior acts of bullying and his failure to help someone he cared for.

Finding It

Quinzhane leaped off her bed for nearly the fifth time in close to fifteen minutes, raced to the bathroom, barely making it then plopped down on the floor on her knees, over the toilet, hugged it then commenced to throwing up She was anorexic and she did everything she could to make this trip several times a day, even thought the only reason she puts any food in her mouth was so she could then throw it up, to assist her in her quest to become skinny.

Quinzhane had learned everything she could through a throng of books, as well as material she located on the internet about dieting and none of it served her purpose in her quest in becoming a size zero, so she concocted her own way of achieving this, her way of finding it, as she claims. Her journey so far has lasted the past eight months. Some of which included six days in a hospital bed and counseling she readily refused.

She kept her secret away from her mother as long and as best she could before word started getting around about what she was up to but Quinzhane refused help from anyone, even her own family.

Kids at school began to notice Quinzhane's dramatic weight loss and started commenting about how her clothes were not fitting properly anymore, something she was sometimes overly aggressive about making sure of. Some of the kids murmured behind her back, especially the girls, that since her clothes do not fit any more, she should just take them all the way off.

"You're as skinny as a light pole girl. What's the use in you wearing clothes anymore? A belt won't even hold your clothes up on your narrow behind no more," one of the girls said.

"Yeah, skinny Minnie. You aught to try eating a piece of bread or some soup or something. Or at least one cracker," another girl chimed in. "Then maybe you won't look all skinny and nasty looking."

When Quinzhane spoke up and told the girls to mid their own business, they became aggressive and shoved her in a locker and slapped her on the back of her head, even though she was fragile and weighed less than one hundred pounds, not good for a fifteen year old girl.

uinzhane had a small group of friends who felt sorry for her and wanted to help but she pushed them away, hating for anyone to stick up for her. All and all, Quinzhane was a fighter and had no choice but to stick up for herself, even though each time she did fight, she usually got beat up.

There was one boy who refused to stand by and allow Quinzhane or anyone else to hurt her. Aaron Brown was not actually a close friend or even a friend, of Quinzhane but he hated what was happening to her. He'd seen her face around school for a couple of years and thought she was cool people, regardless of what she looks like now. He knew her when she was that bright, healthy girl who was outgoing, not the closed off girl he's been seeing the fast few months.

The following school semester picture time came around and Aaron caught Quinzhane at her locker and asked for one of her pictures. her response was not what he expected either but neither was his.

"What's up Quinzhane?"

"Nothing, what do you want?" she hid her face behind the large turtleneck sweater she wore, always wearing something that hid her face.

"Why do you always hid like that? You do't have to you know."

"How do you know what I have to do? You don't know anything."

"I know you're cute."

"Whatever. What do you really want?"

"Nothing, I was just passing by and noticed you standing over here and so I stopped."

"For what? I don't think your locker is over here."

"It could be but you're right, it's not. I also noticed you're holding your school pictures and..."

"Yeah and so?" She tossed the packet in the locker and slammed the door "If it wasn't for my mother I wouldn't have taken those stupid pictures anyway. She's the one who wanted them not me. She paid for them so I just took them, which I shouldn't have."

"I bet they look pretty..."

"Did you come over here just to make fun of me? I get it if the other kids put you up to it. That's all they do anyway." Quinzhane glanced around the halls, small groups of kids walked by. Two girls walked right into her and Aaron pushed them away.

"Stop that. You shouldn't hit girls."

"I didn't hit them. I shoved them. There's a difference and they shouldn't be bumping into you the way they did and not say excuse me. That's not cool."

"Look, I gotta go. As much as I hate being in school, I gotta go to class."

"Wait. Can I have one of your pictures?"

"For what? You don't even know me. I'm surprised you even came over."

"That's because I'm not like everybody else. I mean, I am but I don't act like them. Besides, it's only a little picture. It won't hurt anything if you give me one and just because I don't know you personally don't mean I can't get to know you. I'm sure you gave somebody a picture and you don't know them. I'll tell you what, if you give me one of your pictures, I'll give you one of mine." Aaron leaned his back against the next locker.

"You know what," she snatched the locker open, pulled out the packet of pictures, tore off a 3 x 5, grabbed a pencil then asked his name.

"Just write, To my friend Aaron on it, Love Quinzhane." Aaron smiled.

"Alright, don't get cute. I didn't give it to you yet now, what's your real name?"

"Come on girl. You know my name. We've only been going to the same school for two years together."

"So what, that doesn't mean I'm supposed to know everybody's name. I don't even know most of the kids in this school because I don't want to. I just want everybody leave me the hell alone."

"Don't make me embarrassed girl..."

"If you're so embarrassed, why don't you go and ask some other girl for her picture?"

"I don't mean embarrassed like that. I don't want a picture from them, I want one from you."

"Aint nothing special about me."

"That's way you say but I say different. Can you just write to Aaron on the back?"

Aaron had plans to help Quinzhane get her look back and make all the other girls eat their words for picking on her. Kids usually picked on others when they were by themselves and thought by doing so they would look better or tough in their friends eyes but Aaron hated anything that thad to do with that, being a former bully himself. He saw how it made him look and feel inside after he'd treated other kids bad and vowed to help where he could. Quinzhane was the third person Aaron vowed to help. The other two fared well after he intervened in their life.

Sadly, Aaron only got the chance to see Quinzhane two more times after he'd received a picture from her and each time she received his intrusion well, but then she had gotten really sick and the other kids spread the word all over school that Quinzhane has AIDES, which was far from the truth. Two week later, Quinzhane died of severe complications from her abrupt illness of her self imposed gravitation toward anorexia and what she believed she would gain out of her life by being a small girl, a size zero, something that ultimately helped her lose herself, her life, not find it.

Aaron Brown was on a good road to recovery from his prior bullying days mentoring and helping other kids shun that life in telling them that is no way to treat other people and they do not deserve such treatment but after his brief encounter with Quinzhane whom he wanted to see back on the right track had died, he almost immediately relapsed into his old ways, but took a different direction this time.

In a matter of nine months, Aaron had managed to do the opposite of what Quinzhane was attempting, he'd gone from a normal somewhat athletic build 16 year old weighing 170 pounds to a morbidly obese 360 pound unhealthy hunk of flesh.

Aaron was now not only barely getting around, he was also barely breathing easily on his own, do to his drastic and sudden weight gain Every step he took was torture and he was walking around with an oxygen tank. His image was diminished.

He had become the laughing stock of the school and was in turn, relentlessly talked about. He felt like he was now in Quinzhane's former shoes and he does not like it one bit. Two of the kids who once bullied other kids with Aaron now bullied him. They called him fatt butt and a multitude of other names that felt just as painful as getting hit with a brick.

Aarn cold now truly see and feel exactly how it feels to be on the other end of bullying. Over a short period of time, Aaron had become so withdrawn that his mother was forced to withdraw him from school but that did not stop him from overeating. If anything, being so isolated allowed him to binge even more in private, especially since his mother was not helping the case. She bought him everything he asked for and more.

Aaron swallowed himself in self-pity. Even though Quinzhane was on a direct course of deterioration, Aaron blamed himself for her death. Because, as he pit it, "If I hadn't forced her to give me a picture of herself when all she wanted was to be left alone and stay hidden in her own little world, instead I jsut had to go and meddle with her, she would still be alive now." Two days later, Aaron was lying up in a hospital himself.

The personal pressures Aaron was going through caused an overload and him to attempt suicide. He cut his own wrist because he could not deal wit the pain he'd convinced others in his shoes they could deal with but he did not receive the assistance he had given to others and now it was his turn to be on that other end. He was laid up with the oxygen tank strapped to his mouth, his right wrist bandaged and an intravenous tube in his left arm.