She is not, she has never been a liar with any sort of skill at it at all. There are no magic tricks, no sleights-of-hand. 

They would like to think she is. They would like to believe that she is capable of that, because that is always easier than accepting a truth not their own.

Children are helpless beings, meant to be protected. But to protect one from another, causes harm all too often. Protect the wrong one, in the wrong fashion.

Humans are fallible beings. Overlook a child because they're doing well. Overlook another because it would be too much trouble.

This is, in some ways, humanity's essence.

She has nothing. No silver tongue, no sharp wit.

She will fail.

She will fall.

("There's no use lying. I know you did it," her supposed guardian, in loco parentis, says, her anger and disappointment righteous.

"But I didn't-" the girl protests, small and vulnerable and resigned.

"Look, it'll all be easier if you just tell the truth," the warrior for what? believing in herself above all else, coaxes.

"I am!" she shouts, so sure that the truth will always come out.)

There is no respite when one is systemically harassed and targeted by one's classmates for two years on end. 

You learn to get used to it.

If you are lucky, the thousandth time their words are knives, you do not bleed. 

If you are not, the thousandth knife feels as if it were the first.

If you are lucky, they will see that you are always,  always involved. And they will see, maybe, why you are.

If you are not, then you will apologize, again and again, because all they ever see is the reaction, of that action-reaction pair.

God is cruel, in this way.

(The path is smooth paved and new. It would be hard to trip and fall here. She follows her class out, a ghost that few pay attention to, but her tormentor and his henchmen.

He steps forward, laughs and makes an aside remark. What did he say about her?

"What was that?" she snaps, anger overcoming fear.

"Doesn't matter," he answers, brushing her off.

"Yes it does," the girl counters, clenching her fists. Control. Control is what she needs, fighting to keep her voice calm.

"No it doesn't," he snaps. It's a moment's work for him to shove her roughly down.

She gasps, in shockpainfear, and her vision blurs.)

There are surely cases like these that were dealt with justly. Surely.

Yet—six years under some type of harassment or other. 

That he only liked her, and perhaps she should reach out.

That she was only trying to be friends, why couldn't you be nicer to her?

That he was only looking for a reaction after all, and she should just ignore it.

("Apologize to the boy, girl," the teacher tells her. This is her justice, her rightful decree.

"He pushed me first!" she pleads. And has tormented me for years, she adds silently. 

"Apologize," she repeats, glaring now. It would all be over if these constantly squabbling children would only apologize and make nice.

"Sorry," she snaps, staring dully at the ground. Maybe she shouldn't have pushed him back. But it felt good, for one glorious moment, to have the power. Before he went crying to the teacher and she was punished like he never was.)

Your life is worth nothing. It never has been worth anything and never will be. 

You are useless. The people you call friends secretly hate you and want you gone. They stay with you out of obligation.

You are stupid. Everyone around you is so much better—at sports, at school, at being human—and you are only a pale imitation.

Your death would serve more purpose than your life.

(It's a quiet threat, made in the back of a classroom.

"I'll find where you live, snitch." Left unsaid: I'll hurt you. I'll kill you.

She is crying already. What did she do to make him hate her so? This makes it worse.

She runs to the teacher like she always does. Like a rat trained to push a button who has not yet realized that it shocks her. 

"What did he say?" the teacher asks, kind, caring, for once.

He said he would kill me, she thinks.

"He said-" she cuts off herself to keep crying. This is the threat she trusts.

Two years of her torment, no one has stopped it. She is too weak to. She has no allies, no friends, no one to aid her.

"I can't do anything if you don't tell me what he said," the teacher points out. Another excuse.

She shakes her head. How can she tell someone that saying the threat would make it real? How can she tell someone that she knows it will only get worse if she says something?)

God cannot be kind, all-powerful, and all-knowing. If He was, would He not do something, anything, for those driven to despair?

Would He? 

God must be cruel, for He abandons humanity to their fates.

Perhaps God is dead, and humanity did kill Him. Humanity is capable of such greatness and such horror, the angel and the demon both.

(She is not Peter, nor Simon, but Judas, without even those thirty pieces of silver.

"Snitch," a boy hisses, not the same, under his breath at her.

"Tattletale," a girl mutters, a different one, quietly, but not so quiet she cannot hear.

"I'm not a snitch!" she shouts, provoked again and again. 

"Girl, just ignore them," the teacher says, passing by them. Seeing the girl with her clenched fists and angry tears. 

"Snitches get stitches," the boy snarls after her.)

(It is in the dark of night that she realizes she understands yearning for death. An escape from a torturous life, however final, is an escape. 

She is ten, and she thinks, I want to die.

There is no world where she imagines being fourteen and living.)