Free Bird

We meet up with the rest of the guys and the girls (Juliet, Ella, Alice, Lauren) at the bowling alley. After a long game of complaining and almost strikes we sit down for pizza.
"Hey Neveah," CC asks from across the table,"who was that girl in your dorm room, I mean obviously she is your room mate but the way she talked about you was like she knew you."
I stopped mid sip of my soda, and placed my cup down slowly on the table. My heartbeat sped up and I think I turned pale. I was seriously hoping that him or Andy wouldn't of brought it up, but obviously that isn't going to be the case.
"Um, yea..." I hesitate,"We went to uh, high school together."
"You don't sound so sure" Juliet says teasingly
"No, no, I'm uh sure. Trust me, I will NEVER be able to forget my high school experience."
I look at Andy, hoping he'll get my look is a look of pleading for him to change the subject, but he isn't looking at me, he's looking at his phone.
"That bad" Jinxx wonders
Tears threaten to form as I nod my head, but I hold them at bay, just as Andy catches onto the situation and tries to change the topic.
"Wait, I'm curious." Ashley pipes in from his spot next to CC.
"Ash, let it go man." Andy says while trying to give him a look like now is not the place, but Ashley doesn't see it. he's looking right at me, a gleam in his eyes.
"Well," I begin as I try to talk over the lump that's rising in my throat,"she was one of my bullies."
Shock crosses everyone's faces. Juliet puts a hand on my shoulder, and to my right Ella hugs me lightly as I continue.
"She started bullying me seventh grade year, shortly after..." I swallow and hold back tears, but I know I won't be able to talk about it so I try to skip over it," Anyway,"
But Ashley wasn't having it, "After what?"
"After Jessica died," I answer as the tears I have been fighting fall down my face, " I became depressed, and she used my weakness to her advantage. I was given the nickname NOT for my initials, and was told for years I was not important. I should just kill myself, not even my own mother wanted me that's why she left. I was bullied every day in school from that day on, I had no friends, and the situation at home wasn't any better. But that's another story. Um, the last time she bullied me was a week or so before graduation. I was in the bathroom after I had just gotten beaten up in a closet by my boyfriend at the time, and I was trying to leave when her and her group of friends walked in to gossip and smoke cigarettes. Well they closed and locked the door, and formed a circle around me. I don't remember much after the first two or three hits because I was still so weak from Chris' beating. But I woke up two days later in the hospital. They busted my nose, lip, added more internal bleeding and bruising to the damage Chris had done, and they are the reason my left eye is white. My left eye is completely blind. I lost 15% of function in my right eye, and doctors give me until the age of forty before I am completely blind."
I tell them the ordeal of my bullying and when I'm done all their faces are pale. Juliet and Ella look like they might hurl, Ashley's gleam is long gone and replaced by concern and pity. All their eyes hold pity, except Andy's and it makes me so mad!

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