Everyone is staring at me, but not because I’m new. Not because I sit in a chair at the front of the room, preparing to answer pointless questions about myself. They’re not staring at my outfit or my new shoes. They aren’t really staring at me at all.

They’re staring at my bright red scarlet letter.    

There are two of them actually, one on each wrist. I could have worn a long-sleeved shirt to cover them, but that would be wrong. I have my scars for a reason. They are my punishment, my shame.

            No one gets to walk away from suicide without paying some price. For most, its death; the end of any chance to make right the wrongs in your life. But for me, it’s ignominy. I have to spend the rest of my life knowing what I’ve done, and accepting the repercussions. Like sitting before my peers with my shame lain out before them. Answering to not only to God’s judgment, but to theirs.

            I know the one question on everyone’s mind is the one the teacher will not ask. Why? Why would anyone want to take their own life, and give up all the opportunities the world has to offer?

            Would you believe me if I told you that I did it because I was guilty? Because I didn’t want to live with the consequences of the things I have done. So instead of owning up to my mistakes and rising above them, I took the easy way out. At least I tried to.

            Easy. That’s what they called me. Kids can be so mean, but it doesn’t make it any less true. I had no respect for my body, and it doesn’t matter why.

All that matters is that I was willing to give up everything. Everything I loved, everything that loved me.

You would think that dying would be harder than that. That there would be more involved than just waiting for death to take you. You would think there would be fear. But my only cry for help was drop after drop of blood splattering on the floor.

             How could I have skipped the first four of the stages of death? Where had denial, anger, bargaining, and depression gone? How could a sixteen-year-old girl land right on acceptance?

            I suppose I had been killing myself for a long time before I ever decided to take the final step. Since the day, my mother moved us to East L.A., but that's an entirely different story.

But anyway, that’s why I’m here, and to answer the question, “My name is Jesse Stevens, but most people just call me Easy.”