A smirk erupted on his face as she walked innocently past, wheezing from the steep climb of the flight of stairs. ‘You don’t need that chocolate Higgins, it won’t do anything for your oversized thighs or your pizza face.’ An echo of laughter bounced off the charcoal cement walls as the snide comment reached every student’s ears and oily grins spread wide across their faces. I forced a laugh, but as she looked at me with tears in her eyes, a feeling of disgust and guilt washed over me.
Taylor Higgins was not the most attractive, popular or knowledgeable person in year 9 and she paid for it.
Taylor had a bush of vivid red hair in spiralling curls that frizzed whatever she did to it. She was not overweight but stood out compared to the slender physiques of the other girls in the year. As with any normal teenager, she had an army of pimples erupting on her face but hers were significantly larger and had seemed to have discovered nearly every bit of her face.
For Taylor these spiteful comments were part of her everyday life at school. I desperately wanted stand up for her, but what would the boys and my friends think?
It was common knowledge in our class that Taylor had one of those teenage crushes on Alex Jenkins. Jenkins, who was the leader of the popular boy’s crowd, was an idiotic, imprudent, foul-mouthed teenager who lagged behind by the other boys in the year like drooling sheep. Somehow, the information leaked out and Taylor was left hurt and mortified as she was tormented even further and Alex was the worst perpetrator.
Ever since Taylor’s secret reached the gossip hungry ears of the Year 9 students and their teasing intensified, a change had started developing in her and this was no ‘turn over a new leaf’ kind of change. Her normal salubrious body started deteriorating, losing an enormously large amount of weight during a very short period of a few weeks. A few people noticed but did not even care that Taylor might have been in trouble.
By the end of the year her cheekbones and ribs were near to breaking though her skin, her knees were becoming protuberant and her weight plummeted drastically. Her face became sunken and hollow; her school uniform was nowadays at least five sizes too big. Her hair was once full of body and rich orange, but now turned sporadic and a carnation colour and her fingernails were now fragile, pallid and broken.
In late September, Taylor ceased coming to school, my other classmates seemed to enjoy her absence, but I become exceedingly worried.
Friday the 5th of December was the worst day of my life. The principal of our high school called a meeting with all Year 9 students. I will never forget the words that came out his mouth. ‘Anorexia Nervosa is an eating disorder, which costs the life of five to eighteen percent of known sufferers. Today it has cost the life of one of your class mates.’
I did not need him to say anymore. Taylor Higgins had starved herself to death. My heart dropped into the bottomless pit of my stomach. I felt like a murderer. It was all because of me, because of us, that she will not live the rest of her life. If I had stood by her, been her friend, put her in front of myself she might have lived. I took the easy option, instead of the right one. I could have saved a life, instead of ending one.
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This article, by Amelia Adam from Coonabarabran High School, was the Year 9/10 winning entry in What Matters? 2008.
What Matters? is a writing competition run by The Whitlam Institute that gives year 5-12 students in NSW and ACT a chance to say what matters in society today.
For more information go to: http://www.whitlam.org/whitlam/index.php
