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Catherine Logan

Dean Leonard

English 1101- 233

26 January 2016

Rubber Band Incident

As a child, I tended to be a bit more careless than other children my age. I did not realize

that it was a possibility that I could hit someone in the eye with my book bag zipper if I swung it

around in the air or if I pushed someone to the ground while they were going full speed on a

skateboard they could seriously get injured. I never thought of the consequences of something

before I did it, and every chance she had, my friend, Emma, reminded me about all the times I

have recklessly injured her even when I had forgotten about them, except this one time in

particular.

It was a sunny and warm summer’s day, perfect day to play outside with the

neighborhood friends. This day, about ten years ago, my friend, Emma, and I were both ten years

old and at this point we have been best friends for about five years. We played outside with each

other almost every day and sometimes our brothers who were one year younger than us and other

neighborhood friends tagged along. On this day, ten years ago, it was Emma, both of our

brothers, and our across the street neighbors, Michael and Kyle, who were all playing outside

together in Emma’s front yard. Her front yard was not anything special. It had a slight hill with

dead yellow grass and a medium sized tree in the middle of it. We were all checking out Emma

and her brother, Eric’s new toy they bought, which they always had something new to show us,

and honestly I was a little jealous about them getting new gadgets all the time. This time they

had a two-foot long pink rubber band to show us, it does not sound like something too amusing
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but to us it was so exciting, almost like the feeling you get when you have opened up all your

Christmas gifts and the rest of the day getting to play with everything. Emma asked me if I

wanted to stretch the rubber band with her to see how far it could go and of course I was all for

it. On the ends of the rubber band were loops so Emma and I hooked our fingers into it and

started to back up opposite from each other. Our brothers, Michael, and Kyle all stood around us

to watch. Emma and I stretched it out about thirty feet and we could start to feel the rubber band

getting tighter to the point where we could no longer back up or else it would snap. Emma and I

stood there across from each other, fingers still hooked to the rubber band and Michael came up

to me and started whispering in my ear.

“Cathy, you should let go of it and see what happens.”

Before I go on, there’s something that I should say about Michael. He is about a couple

years older than Emma and I and I was absolutely “in love” with him. He had thick black hair,

dreamy sky blue eyes, and a drop dead handsome masculine face. How was I to resist such a

perfect human being? I could not. Emma and he were a lot better friends than he and I, so I was a

little jealous of her spending so much time with him. She always told me he was not the perfect

guy I thought he was, that he was a lot more aggressive and manipulative than what he seemed

but I did not listen, I was too blinded by his beautiful face than I was worried about his

personality.

What happens next may be the most unthinkable thing I have ever done. After I realized

that Michael was speaking to me, I was positive that he hypnotized me into letting go of the fully

extended rubber band that Emma was standing behind. The rubber band immediately snapped

back towards my dearest friend and smacked straight into her stomach. Not even seconds later all

you could hear was the biggest gasp Emma made from getting the wind knocked out of her, she
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soon wrapped her arms around herself and bolted while screaming into her house. I stood there

frozen for about one or two minutes trying to gather in my head everything that had happened, I

was in complete shock that I could be so naïve and listen to such a jerk. Before I could collect all

my thoughts about this terrible thing I had just done, it got worse. Emma’s mom came barging

outside fuming, you could almost see the steam pouring out of her ears, and Emma silently

followed behind her.

“What happened here?!” she shouted. “Why on earth does Emma’s stomach look like

this, who did this?”

As she lifted Emma’s shirt all you could see an “S” mark engrained on Emma’s stomach,

it was blood red and enflamed, I have never seen anything more disturbing.

“I did it.” I confessed in a shy voice. “But Michael told me to do it!”

“I do not care if he told you to do it or not,” she viciously responded, “you should have

thought about the consequences a little more.” She then turned to Michael. “I cannot believe you

would tell someone to do something like this, I am very disappointed in everyone. I am sorry to

say that it is time for everyone to go home, now.”

“I’m so sorry, Emma.” I cried as I was turning to go home. I have never felt so small in

my life, I did not like hurting people and I especially hated getting screamed at by parents. I

thought that Emma would never forgive me for such a terrible thing I had done.

The following day, Emma came to my door. I could not believe it, she was actually

asking to play with me after what I had done to her.

“Cathy, I forgive you. You just need to learn to be a little more careful.” Emma

explained. That day forward I have never forgotten the rubber band incident. I definitely learned
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how to be a lot less careless, but I still have my moments. It made me realize I need to put more

thought into my actions and not to give into peer pressure.