In the tenth grade, I had a friend named Grace. Grace was diagnosed with Hypothyroidism. Hypothyroidism is a dysfunction of your thyroid gland, which plays a key role in your metabolism. That being said, Grace had been overweight for most of her adolescent life and was bullied because of it. She was bullied over something she had no control over and one day Grace made a conscious decision to take her own life.
It was during spring break on a Saturday afternoon that Grace's parents were out of town tending to family matters. Grace knew that her dad kept a revolver in the night stand beside his bed. Grace retrieved the revolver and went to the back patio and readied herself. As she was removing the gun from its sheath, she heard a car pull into the driveway. It spooked her so she hid the gun. It was me. I had come to give Grace a casserole my mom made knowing that she was fending for herself since her parents were out of town. I could tell that there was something wrong with Grace, but she was quick to dismiss my suspicion. I got back into my vehicle not thinking much about her odd behavior and headed for home, only a few miles down the road. After I left she put the gun back in its place, locked herself in her room, and cried. One of her countless emotional breakdowns. She saw it as a sign from God that it wasn't her time to go yet. It wasn't until three months or so afterwards that Grace and I became really good friends and she told me about her attempted suicide. .
Now, Grace and I were only acquaintances at the time of the assault. I knew of her from school and our mothers worked together at a doctor's office, the only one in town. Our school was relatively small, my graduating class being somewhere around fifty. I knew that Grace did not have many friends and that she had been picked on because of her weight. She was very quiet and liked to keep to herself. She almost came off kind of rude when you tried to strike up a casual conversation with her but she was quite the opposite once you really got to know her.