He is now considered a sex offender. They are contemplating charging him with rape, even though we've never had sex. I am innocent because I have selective mutism and could not "verbally communicate with him."

Those things are wrong. I am not innocent- I am as guilty as him. I was not allowed to go to court, only my father was, in which he probably mentioned my mother and how I could not speak since then, hence my so-called "innocence."

The banquet ended as fast as the blink of an eye. Mr. Lee had spoken with the lady who caught us- Leanne Herfourth, her name was. Mother of Deanna Herfourth, a member from the cross country team who had commented on my selective mutism.

It's been a week since then, a week of skipping school, getting up out of bed at 1:00PM, dragging myself to the bathroom and back, not a bit of food in my shrinking stomach. My father constantly tried to get me to eat. He'd rub my back and let me heave and cry into his shirt, but I wasn't crying into him because he understood.

My father didn't understand it at all- he thought I was a victim as well. Everybody probably did, at least every adult. I only cried into him because my pillow was far too soaked, and I was sick of suffocating myself with tears into an object. I needed human contact, even if it was from my father who didn't understand.

I was standing in the bathroom now, a pair of scissors in my shaking right hand, my other clutching the countertop to hold me up.

The bags under my eyes looked more like bruises. My eyes were sunken in, my lips cracked and dry. My hair was shoved into a pony-tail and so knotty that you couldn't even put your hands through it.

I didn't care. I didn't care about anything anymore. I didn't care about combing through my hair after every shower. I didn't care about standing under the shower water, either, even when it was so hot that I would come out with pink, splotchy skin.

And I didn't care now, that I was getting blood on the bathroom rug after every slice the sharp edge of the scissors would cut into my wrist. I didn't have a razor blade- didn't want one, anyways, because now anything sharp would do.

Mr. Lee was in jail. Gone. No more cross country with him. No more laughing with him- the only laugh that has ever bubbled in my chest.

I would never be able to put my hands through his hair again, or feel his warm lips, or his stubbly cheeks. I'd never be able to look through those beautiful blue eyes, at least not until a year and a half from now, when I'd be in college, if that, and going on nineteen years old. That's supposedly when he gets out.

And when I returned to school two weeks later, when I let my self-hatred subside at least for a little while, I realized school was an absolute hell hole.

Every class I'd walk to, I would get stares directed in my direction. Whispers would echo around me, snickers and disgusted expressions constantly coming into view.

Even the teachers looked at me differently, with so much pity that I would begin to feel bile rising in my throat as tears threatened to pour down my cheeks.

When I walked to Mr. Lee's class, though, every emotion I was feeling heightened and became exaggerated.

There was a new teacher- an old man named Mr. George who had a monotone voice and would have put me to sleep if it weren't for my bubbling anger and sadness morphed together.

The class was going on as if nothing happened. They hardly cared that he was gone. I couldn't help but think about how they were all stupid hypocrites. Why the hell did they act like they loved Mr. Lee as a teacher, but now that he's gone, the class is going on as if nothing f*cking happened?

It was awful. It felt like my whole life was spiraling right before my eyes. Nobody else cares. I'm simply going through this alone.

Mr. George called on me for an answer about the Lewis and Clark expedition. Of course, I was put into a difficult situation, and if Mr. Lee was here, he would know to never do something like that to me.

But this isn't Mr. Lee. This is Mr. George, who sure as hell didn't deserve Mr. Lee's spot as a history teacher. This was Mr. Lee's job.

"She won't answer," a student said. "But I know the answer."

"She can talk for herself, but thank you." Mr. George said, gazing at me with curiosity. "Perhaps she was dozing off?"

"She actually doesn't talk," another student said. I didn't know which students were talking, and I didn't care to check. All their voices sounded the same.

I sat there in complete silence, the conversation around me sounding more and more like it was coming from the end of a tunnel- muffled and echoed.

My palms began to shake as one tear leaked from the corner of my eye. I looked down at my arm, the parallel cuts on my wrist already scabbing.

During a meet, Mr. Lee had told me to count to ten. I contemplated answering the teacher, but thought against it, because if I let out even one syllable, I knew my voice would crack and a tsunami of tears would cascade down my cheek.

One, I thought to myself.

Two.

Three-

"Poppy, please answer the question," Mr. George interrupted my count, in which he was clearly not informed that I had selective mutism. I gave up trying to control myself after that.

"Leave me the f*ck alone!" I screeched. I shot up from the desk and angrily kicked the desk leg, letting it slide to the side of the room.

"Can someone please contain the young lady?!" Mr. George hollered, the students instantly backing away from the area around my desk. He quickly moved to the side of the room and began to dial a number on the classroom phone, his lips moving but I couldn't hear a sound.

I noticed a few students take out their iPhones, holding the camera in my direction, recording my shaking form, my pathetic tears, my broken heart.

I began to sob and threw myself to the floor, my breaths wheezing, my throat feeling as if it were closing up.

"She's having a panic attack!" I heard someone yell, a boy with sandy blond hair, which is the only physical characteristic I saw of him because my tears blurred the rest of my vision.

Minutes later, Mr. Garcia appeared at the doorway, his expression so sad, laced with an undeniable concern, that it only made me cry harder. Vera also came into the room after Mr. Garcia, her expression concerned as well.

"Stop recording!" She yelled at the students, literally marching towards them. She looked like she was about to cry. "Do you jerks have any respect?"

Mr. Garcia cautiously walked towards me, his eyes focused on the cuts on my wrist.

"Oh, Poppy," he whispered. He sat next to me on the floor, his pants legs rising up, his black socks and dress shoes looking kind of funny with him crouched on the floor.

Out of complete and utter hysteria, for which I really didn't find it to be that funny, I started laughing. My laughs grew repetitive, short, even. I couldn't stop laughing, and a minute later, I began to cry again.

"Vera, call her father and get him to the school immediately. She's not fit for public education anymore."

Vera nodded wearily and exited the room. The students were guided out of the classroom, and eventually it was just Mr. Garcia and I, and the memories of Mr. Lee floating around.

"It's okay, it's alright," Mr. Garcia murmured, rubbing my back like my father did. But I knew it wasn't alright. It wouldn't ever be alright. I lost a man who was the reason I started talking again. I lost a man who was the reason I started laughing and smiling again. He took me out of my comfort zone, taught me how to open up to people, to not be afraid.

Everything happened so fast. My father arrived and held my hand as we walked out of the school, the whispers still echoing. My father glanced at my wrist and looked away, as if he already knew they were there.

And a day later, I was put back into the psychiatric hospital.