I’m so sorry this has happened to you. I’m so sorry. I wish, more than anything, that someone with the power had truly seen the devastating circumstances you were trapped in and pulled you out before it was too late.

It’s selfish, and practically cruel towards you, but truthfully, I almost wish I could turn back time and not learn your sad story.

In my adult life, I have the luxury of faded memories. My experiences, once scalding like hot iron, are just sour flashes of light. I survived, and it is a gift that the suffering endured in that time starts to diminish. Kids will be kids, so they say. It means, that time comes and goes.

You were not given the time to escape the circumstances and heal your aching heart. You were not awarded the right to a safe space, built by your peers and parents and professionals. I do not blame any one person. I do not blame your parents as their pain is great and I am sure what you have done was unthinkable to them. I do think your teachers and administrators committed a grave crime against you, and far worse were the crimes students around you, regardless of their youthful stature. Will they be held accountable? I do not know. Probably not. I wish the easy answer was yes. But it’s not, and that’s why you had to say, enough is enough. They were never held accountable, and as a result, your life came to a screeching halt as you endured an endless punishment. Kids will be kids, right?

Kids will not be kids. They will be adults. They are capable of enjoying the same things in life. They can suffer the same circumstances and inflict the same kind of pain. They need the same things. A kid is learning and adults are teaching whether they think a kid requires such lessons. Do the administrators in your life realize the fucked-up monsters what they are sending out into the world when they allow your peers (which might as well be your coworkers, or your future partners, or your next door neighbors), to bully you to d e a t h ? At what age would it be enough for them to consider it morally criminal to stand by and do nothing as you were helplessly abused?

Under the guidance of their own parents and your shared administrators, these kids were allowed to continue their behavior, and as a result, you are DEAD. You lost your entire life to this unthinkable failure. It is beyond fucking devastating, and it is terrifying to think that there are still people out there who actually think that these things are a natural and unavoidable part of life—a result of kids just being kids. It is a lie. A kid your age knows what they are doing to another person, just like you understood no one around you was ever going to stop them. Forced to go to school every day and face this physical and mental torture is truly a war of the mind, and I do not blame you for not wanting to fuck with that shit for a single minute more. I truly wish you had, because maybe, just maybe, help would have come—in some form, a little too late—but we both know I am just being selfish, and neither help or future would reach you before you had enough.

I want those so-called monsters kids to feel the matured weight of their atrocity, because those monsters kids are unsurprisingly going to be fully grown criminal psychopaths adults one day soon, and to not know what they did was wrong would be a disgusting failure on their upbringing. What kinds of everyday people are they expected to turn into after this otherwise? I want the administrators to feel the weight of their cruel neglect of you and to know that they could have done something to put an end to this. Someone could have stepped in and protected you. Someone SHOULD have said enough is enough but they let those kids act the way they think kids do. They not only denied you an adult future, but they denied your peers the opportunity to learn the gravity of their acts before taking your life. Unaccountable kids stay kids forever, and time dictates one day they will join society, planting in your community or mine, utterly lacking in basic humanitarianism or apathy or morals. You already saw them for the heartless monsters they would become when uncorrected by those responsible for your safety.

You weren’t a kid, Jaylee. You did not get to live like a carefree kid and you did not commit the act of a kid. You were a beautiful, complex, wonderful soul, as precious and sensitive as anyone can be at any point in their life, and you felt the weight of the torture like any adult would. I know your pain was long and grown—not at all a naive or childish or normal pain, not a scrape, not a bruise, but a breaking, gnawing, disease-like torment that steals away any love for yourself, sucks the fun out of anything you do, and annihilates your faith in everyone in the world. You don’t even get to leave it at school, because they take every opportunity to make a miserable lasting impression, ensuring it was the first thing you felt when you woke up in the morning, and the last thing when you went to sleep at night. That is torture. That is a grave punishment you did not deserve. If that’s kids just being kids, what are adults just being adults? When do we hold a person accountable for the suffering they inflict on others? We should, always. And to write off the stalking they did on you, the harassment, and assaults, as mere child play is a disgrace to your memory and the absolute savagery you endured.

You beautiful, wonderful girl, I hope, from where you soar now, that you know well and good that you did not deserve a single second of that suffering. You were loved, and you deserved to feel that love more than anything else. I am so sorry you were robbed of the simple comforts and safety and learning experiences childhood is meant to provide. 

I acknowledge your pain. I see myself in you and know that my own story could have ended the same way. I am so sorry Jaylee, that things have not changed since I was a kid. I guess that’s just the way kids are. But I’m with you, saying, enough is enough.

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