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Joshua


I always liked Joshua. He was a nice kid, if a bit slow. He was radically unpopular the way one person always is in a school. Too beefy to be good at any sports, too clumsy even if he slimmed down. Hardly smart enough to even stay with the rest of his class, consistently scraping by with D’s across the board. His writing was particularly chicken-scratch. He spoke well enough, but it seemed like he couldn’t make those same sentences on paper.

But I liked his big, goofy, uncoordinated self.

Some kids might smack his books out of his hands (unnecessary, he likely would have dropped them in a few moments without any help, tripping over his own feet) or slap an “I’m Stupid!” sign on his back (again, unnecessary. According to rumor, he had the lowest scores in every subject, and everyone knew it), and I would always help him gather his stuff back up, or tip him off there was something on his back.

When I woke up this morning, I found a letter taped to the outside of my window. It’s not easy to reach that window from the tree branches hanging nearby…

Amanda,
Don’t come to school today. You’re the only one, the only one, who ever treated me like a human.

I’m sorry to say I’ve been planning this for a long, long time. I knew I was in a group of bad people, but I wanted to see how bad. How they’d treat someone they consider inferior. It was all a ruse.

In this petri dish, you are the only thing worth saving.
·         Love, Joshua

­­–
Credits to: Mattpayhan

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