One Step back 5 Steps Forward | Teen Ink

One Step back 5 Steps Forward

April 28, 2014
By Saskia Paret BRONZE, Miami, Florida
Saskia Paret BRONZE, Miami, Florida
4 articles 0 photos 0 comments

‘Not much has ever really scared me, maybe just the thought of being brought back to the past. I left it behind for a reason and I don’t plan on ever going back. I’m here to live during the present and the future; or just I say the ending. For weeks now I’ve been writing about how it is time for me to go. I’ve been telling my notebooks that I was done. Yet I’m still here. I have not gone anywhere yet, but that is about to change. Today I’m done with it all. I just can’t wait to get home and break down on the floor, grab my scissors and run them across my wrist. I will just lay there and bleed out afterwards.’
*Ding. Ding. Dinnggggg.*
That is the fire alarm, I was so deep into my writing that I spaced out on half the lecture, I let my pen fly out of my hands and start running toward the door, like all the other kids.
Mrs. Magnem, our English teacher, is standing in the door way while shouting “Calm down student! Everyone just stay in a single filled line.” No one seems to listen; they all simply push her out of the way and keep moving towards the exit. I simply follow the crowd on this one. I will not die until I’m done writing everything that there is to be written.
“Due to the unresolved fire alarm problem all students are to be dismissed at this hour of the day.” A voiced in the speakers announces. And suddenly hundreds of little murmurs set off in the schools courtyard.
All I can think to myself is, “this is great I’ll just go home now and do what I have to do.” When I get to the English class room my bad is where I left it, along with my books, but my journal is no longer on my desk. I run to my area and start throwing everything around as if I had lost more than just my journal. I can’t allow anyone to read that, at least not until I go. Kids start to fill up the room and they all start staring at me.
“Has anyone seen my purple journal? It is purple and I had left it right there.” My figure is being directed to my desk, which is honestly where I had left it. I repeat myself a couple times and yet no one reacts they all just stare at me.
“ What is wrong with you guys? I’m not crazy I just need my journal. I need it. I NEED IT NOW!”

“ Are you sure you aren’t crazy?” I see Lila standing in the middle of the crowd of students that had come to see the show. Lila and I used to be best friends… not anymore. My claws had been searched and she was about to get them.

I started running at a speed similar to a cheetah’s as an attempt to claw her eyes out. Before I could even touch her I felt myself being pulled back. I fight. And fight. And fight. But this person’s grip wasn’t budging.

“Yo, Sam a little help here.” So this person was part of the male species. Why on earth was he holding me? Finding this out only made me want to fight even more.

A tall, muscular, blonde guy walked out of the crowd and walked toward us. I’m going to take a wild guess and say that he is Sam.

“ Make them leave.” The mystery man standing behind me said. I’m guessing it was because the room was filling up more and more by the second. Sam went back towards the crowd but I could barely hear what he was saying something about getting the stuff and getting the hell out.

I was spun around and nailed on the wall. I had never seen this guy before.

“Are you ok?”

“I need my journal.” I tried whispering but I obviously failed, everyone was once again looking at me.

“Calm down. Calm down. I have it.”

“Who are you?”

“Jim. The hero of this story.”

What is even going on?

When the room started clearing out Jim let go of me and started picking up my belonging and stuffing them into my bag, including my journal. He zipped up my bag, which I took as my cue to grab it and walk away.

“ Sam don’t let her out.” Jim yelled from the back of the room, then he came running up to me.

“ What do you think you are doing? This is harassment… I think. I don’t know but let me out.”

“ I read what you wrote. Please don’t do anything you won’t have the opportunity to regret tomorrow.”

I am in a state of shock. I don’t even try to talk.

“Please.” He adds.


There is water streaming down my face, and my hands are shaking, and my heart is pounding, and everything just feels wrong. This is not what today was meant to be like. He took one step closer to me, and I took three steps back.

“Don’t.” I say. And that is all I say before I jet for the door but get held by Sam. Which is when I start to break down; I fall to my knees because I felt all the strength I had fly out of me.


I felt arms wrap around me, and I knew it wasn’t Sam’s since I could still see his legs standing right in front of me.

“It is my time to go. I have nothing left to give.”

He didn’t say anything, he simply kept his arms wrapped around me and kept swinging back and forth as if his life depended on it. We stayed in that position for what seemed like forever, until the school security came over and told us we had to go. Jim passed his hands around my neck and beneath my knees and carried me of the school doors. We stayed and sat on a bench across the street. No one talked; we just sat there in silence.

“ I need to go home.” I still need to go do what I woke up this morning deciding I was going to do.

“ You can’t. I won’t let you go alone. I know it might seem hard. And I do know it might seem like the only way… but it isn’t. I swear it isn’t. I refuse to let you go home and take your own life. You are not going to get out of life that easily.” He stopped for a couple minutes, then went back on. “ Life isn’t fair, but it is beautiful. I’ve sat behind you every day in English class for the past 4 months. Who will I sit behind if you go? It is at times likes this where you have to start thinking about yourself in three different ways; Who you are. Who you are going to be. And who you want to be.”

“ I’m no one.”

“ I was once no one as well, but here I am being someone. The same will happen with you. I promise.” He is breathing loudly and I can tell he is scared.

That night when Jim finally decided to let me go home, I packed all my sharp objects in a box and put it in the back of my closet. Because I realized that what I want is to be someone too.



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