Outsider, Why didn't we just listen?

    There she was staring at us like a deer caught in headlights. We were all staring at her, we were having a contest to see who would blink first. Her or us, we did not dare in case she disappeared. Then, the contest ended, she lost. She blinked and we knew in that instant she would not fit. She could never mesh like we did. We had been together since Kindergarten. Sure there had been a few new kids here and there, but they never lasted. She would leave by choice or we would force her out.
     The teacher introduced her, we did not care who she was, we did not need to. We all knew she would not be staying very long. The teacher placed her towards the front. She felt the stares and shook with the feeling of thirty pairs of eyes on her back.
     When the bell rang she practically ran from the room. A few of us followed to see where she lived. She knew we followed. This new girl, this outsider, went in circles leading us one way then leading us another. The sun was sinking fast, so we had to turn back and go home.
     We arrived at school the next day. She was already therein her desk just staring at the wall. She was probably waiting for the teacher to come back. Whatever she was waiting to ask she must have forgotten, because she flew like a sparrow trying to out fly a hawk when she saw us coming in.
     When the teacher came in we hounded him for answers about her. All he would tell us is that we should make her feel welcome. That she had never lived in a small town like this before. The teacher added as we left, "She probably doesn't have any friends, why don't you become her first?" Like we would listen to him. What did he know? We wanted her gone, out of our mind, out of our life. We were not about to make nice with this, this outsider.
     Over the next few months we were awful and horrible. She was fading and we knew it. She would no longer arrive early, she always sat as far in the back as possible during class. During lunch she would be outside in a corner, hoping no one noticed her. One day she stopped coming we didn't know why. We celebrated though, we cheered, and yelled through the halls.
     The next day, no one cheered or yelled, in fact no one hardly spoke at all. We all had seen the news, saw her picture as the top headline. We all thought the same thing: did we cause this? We got what we wanted, she was no longer here. But what was the cost? A girl had taken her own life something unheard of in this little town.
     We began wondering what if we had just accepted her, would she still be here? Would she have one day become head cheerleader or valedictorian? From that day on we began accepting people into our school, our lives. We became friends with them and we grew into better people. It was thanks to that girl. That girl we called outsider to cause us to join together.