I was on my way to the 'new' school with Uncle Tan on the wheels, driving in a luxurious brand-new black sedan.
How the hell did it come to this? Never in my (short & new) life have I thought that I would be going back to my old school. I begged and pleaded with the lady that I called 'mom' now but to no avail. Please, anywhere but back to this school. Also, our family's rich as fuck, why are they sending me to an average public school?
This was apparently my dad's wish.
In the past few weeks I have been resting at home, I had some chance to carefully probe into what this 'Jenn' was like before I snatched her body (and that probably meant the real Jenn was probably in my wrecked body, for which I felt infinitely sorry for…). People will accept some changes in my personality and behaviors, but I couldn't be out of character for too long or deviate too much. On one hand, it's because I did not want to get 'found out', but also because I knew what I was like before all this happened.
I was a pathetic, weak, soft, and bullied kid in my class. In fact, that is what drove me to jump off that bridge on that fateful day. I had endured half a year of being constantly bullied every single day by the boys in my class, with their bullying getting worse and worse day by day.
Then came a point where things had gone too far, and I felt like my life had crossed a line to the point of no return.
I once remembered hearing some psychology professor on a late-night talk show discussing this. More often than not, the biggest driving factor behind suicide is guilt and shame, not depression and sadness. Depression and sadness can be a byproduct of guilt and shame, or they can happen due to other causes. However, broadly speaking, depression tends to have more of a paralyzing effect on people. Suicide from depression tends to happen after a very long period of suffering. By the time it happens, people are often already dead inside.
Guilt and shame on the other hand can escalate very quickly to trigger suicidal thoughts and drive people off the edge - or in my case, off the bridge - in a relatively short period of time. It is not just about 'I do not wish to live in this painful world anymore'. It has a lot to do with 'I can't face people/my family/my friends/my lover again'. Suicide from depression is to end the suffering. Suicide from guilt and shame, in a way, is a way to escape the unbearably dreadful moment where the truth about you becomes known to others.
But this girl - Jenn - had nothing to be ashamed of. She (I) was exceptionally pretty, fantastically smart, universally adored, and had the confidence of a living goddess.
And also, she was a fucking brat.
It is due to this reason my Dad decided to transfer me out of a prestigious private school in the exclusive part of the city where the top 1% of the rich lived, to a plain and average public school that was unremarkable in every possible way. My Dad intended to teach me to be more humble, but based on little snippets of Jenn's past I have come to know, she would have found it humiliating.
So I was Jenn now. A beautiful girl that most boys could only dream about, going back to the school where I got bullied to death as a boy.
I was simply mortified.
"Miss. Are you feeling alright?"
Uncle Tan asked me while keeping his eyes on the road.
"No"
"Don't worry Miss. I have every confidence that you will do fine. I have never seen your father, Sir, make a bad decision. It always turned out to be right even if it didn't look that way at the start. You have two and a half years of high school life left now. I'm sure you will make friends and build wonderful memories"
Except that I already had horrible memories of this place, I appreciated Uncle Tan's words of encouragement.
Yeah. I am not who I was anymore. I'm sorry girl, but I am Jenn now.
I'm horribly sorry you are probably resting in my pathetic body right now if my assumptions are correct. And it's probably for the best that you do not wake up in that state. I'm also doing this for my real Mom and Dad. Who knows if this family is gonna continue to support MY family if I stop living the life as Jenn?
God gave me a chance to start over, I shall take it and make sure I succeed.
I lived most of my life blaming one thing or another, including myself. If I was only this way, if I only had that, if only that time turned out differently, if I was in a different class, if I was smarter, stronger, better looking...
I am all that now.