I was in a kind of an elite high school. It had a lot of pressure, a lot of rich kids (I wasn't) preparing to become politicians, engineers, pediatricians and whatnot. And most of the teachers hated me. I was frustrated 100% of the time and was kind of a dick. I made graffiti around the school, broke things, destroyed property. I scribbled on the desk and kept my area quite dirty. At the time I though I was "showing them" or whatever.

Along the corners of the desk there was some plastic covering the side of the wood. It was glued in pretty well but I was always pushing my pen in it and one day it popped off. I put it back on like nothing happened.

About a month later some girl fell from her chair, hit her head and died. We used the class room for one half of the day and another class took over for the rest of the day. Like shifts but in school. We never saw those guys but they sat on our places. Turned out the girl was sitting on my place. They said it had happened because she was sitting funny and the desk was clapped-out.

What I believe had happened is she was sitting on just the hind legs of the chair and holding on to the desk for balance. A lot of the kids did this. The plastic thing I had broken came off she'd lost balance and fell backwards hitting her head.

My friends always reassured me it wasn't that and it can't be my fault. But I always felt strong guilt. I used to think about it every night in bed and twitch. Afterwards I became really neat and never did any graffiti or property damage again.