Everyone has a distorted image of what small towns are really like. They romanticize about the close community but are oblivious to the negative impacts of it. I blame country music for this misconception, even though it's my guilty pleasure.
This past weekend my small village shattered into pieces. On a calm Friday evening, a quite neighborhood filled with cops and the house of a well-known family was taped off. I graduated with their daughter and considered her a friend. Almost as soon as the patrol cars pulled up to her house everyone knew the reason why.
I was at the mall when my friend called to tell me that the police were at our friend's house and that they were searching for the body of a baby in her backyard. The last semester of school there were rumors of my friend being pregnant but they never where confirmed.
One of the drawbacks of being in a small town is that we all know how others look when something is different. Seventy percent of our school has been in the same district since kindergarten so we have known each other for twelve years. When my friend's body started to change abnormally I suspected the rumors where true but I didn't ask her, I should have.
In a small town everything in your life depends on reputation. It determines who your friends are, how peers treat you, and even how teachers look at you. I have known the girl on a personal level for four years and I have seen the immense pressure her mother put on her to be perfect.
Being pregnant would have ruined her image and reputation so I understand why she tried so hard to keep it secret. We don't know what was going on at home during this but I know that it wasn't pretty.
As the day continued on more people found out as news from our local police department started to trickle out. That afternoon our world stopped, the skeletal remains of an infant had been found in the backyard of my friends home.
My heart dropped and I could not believe my eyes, what could have brought my sweet and gentle friend to do such a thing. Theories started to fly and social media blew up as angry classmates voiced their frustrations.
The night grew long and I started to blame myself. I had failed her as a friend for the simple fact that she felt she could not come to me. As a community, we failed her when we made her feel she had no other options. It makes me sick to my stomach to know that she was all alone in this decision and while it does not give her any excuses, it does make me sympathize.
