Ruthie's Problem

Again, Ruthie was crying alone to herself, her face buried in her pillow to drown out her sobs so her sister Lucy could sleep. Ruthie had cried herself to sleep every night this week. She was very depressed, her family didn't notice, though, because around them she was always so happy, she was tired of putting on this phoney act for them, but she didn't want to bother them with her problems, they didn't need anything else to happen, they were preoccupied with other things.

Annie and Eric, Ruthie's parents, were trying to sort out her grandpa's will and stuff, he had died a few weeks ago. Mary, Ruthie's oldest sister, was living in Ft. Lauderdale, so she couldn't help. Matt, Ruthie's oldest brother, was married last year to Sarah and they lived in New York where the attended medical school. Lucy and Simon, Ruthie's older brother and sister, were busy with they're lives too. Lucy was engaged to Kevin, he lived in their garage, and she was busy planning a wedding and Simon was in High School, so he didn't want to be bothered with family things. Robbie was away for 3 weeks visiting his mom, Robbie moved in with the Camden's a few years ago, and he was like family, the twins, Sam and David were only four, they wouldn't understand Ruthie's problems.

When Ruthie came down to breakfast the next morning, no one was there except Simon. Eric was at the church, and Annie had to go to the lawyers and the twins were with her. Everyone else was busy or not living there. Simon drove Ruthie to school and she sat down by herself by a tree before the bell rang. She took out a notebook and began to write poetry. She was very good at writing. She wrote 3, then put her notebook away. A group of people from her school walked by, and said "hey monkey lover", "you're so ugly", "loser" and a whole bunch of other things, no one liked Ruthie anymore, and she wasn't sure why not. Her ex-friends hated her, her family was too bust for her and her grandpa died. She was about to cry so she ran into the bathroom and started bawling. She sat on the toilet seat and moved her wrist to the sharp edge on the toilet paper dispenser. She slid her wrist up and down the edge 5 times. She looked down at her wrist, blood was coming out of different scratches, she took a piece of toilet paper, wiped the blood, pulled her sweater down and headed to class. She usually did this at least once a day, she started it about a month and a half ago. Both her wrists now had cuts and scars all over them, it was hard to cover them up but she didn't mind because the pain helped her clear her mind.