Boring Girls(4)

The thing with me was, they victimized me but it didn’t have the effect they wanted it to.

One day in ninth grade, I was sitting by myself in the hallway eating an apple. I was wearing a dress I liked, green with a purple paisley pattern. One of the biggest wastes of the earth’s resources I have ever encountered, Brandi Stone, came and stood in front of me, arms folded, flanked by two of her idiot friends.

“That,” she said to me, “is the ugliest dress I have ever seen.”

Brandi was one of the school’s beloved, celebrated and gorgeous. She was in my grade but partied with the older kids. I had seen many a nerd attempt to take her cruel fashion advice, only to set themselves up for more abuse.

“This dress?”

“Yes. That dress. It is the ugliest dress I have ever seen,” she said, smiling at me. Her friends giggled and all of them awaited my response.

I had no idea what to say. I couldn’t believe their ignorance. Hadn’t they seen the teen movies? Couldn’t they tell that they were parodies? Didn’t they know that they are the sort of bitches that everyone is supposed to hate?

I puzzled this over while we looked at each other. I guess I was supposed to cry.

“I said, that is the ugliest dress I have ever seen,” she repeated. “Are you retarded?”

I didn’t say a word. I was so stupefied by their ignorance of themselves, of who they were.

“Retard,” one of her friends sneered.

I sat like a statue. They stared at me. I’m sure they started feeling kind of stupid. I was supposed to weakly defend myself. I was supposed to snivel, Leave me alone.

“Stupid bitch. Stupid weirdo,” Brandi yelled at me, and they traipsed off down the hall, where they joined some older boys by their lockers and started giggling.

So that was it. I was a stupid bitch and a stupid weirdo, a fact that they never failed to remind me of for the rest of that year. And not just Brandi and her friends; apparently they felt that my failings needed to be communicated amongst their entire social circle. Kids in the older grades who I didn’t even know shouted stuff at me as I walked to my classes. And I started feeling like shit about it after a while.

See, it wasn’t being alone or disliked that I minded. It’s that I couldn’t understand where the hell the other people like me were. I didn’t just want a friend. I wanted an ally. I wanted a partner. Someone else who would get it. Someone who understood what it was like to not have the desire to be accepted by these people. I started feeling very lonely, which pissed me off in principle. I liked being alone, but I was starting to think maybe I was insane or something, because all I saw, all day at school, were *s and people trying to kiss up to them. It disgusted me that it was making me question myself.

Brandi seemed to develop an intense personal dislike for me, which I found baffling, as I had barely said a single word to her and she knew absolutely nothing about me. And yet she would literally go out of her way to call me names, to verbally assault and mock me. Teachers let her get away with things, boys adored her, the nerds worshipped and feared her. I couldn’t understand her. I hated that I was even wasting energy on trying to, but it became a daily thing that year. I hate to say it affected me as much as it did, but at least I always kept my head high and pretty much ignored what they said to me.

It was towards the end of my grade nine year, which I had spent friendless and tormented, that something changed me. I had not gone out once, I had spent all my time in my room, but I was proud of myself. I’d done well in my classes and I had focused so much on my poetry and writing. My parents were fine with me. Sure, my mother would occasionally ask me if I’d met any new friends, but I wasn’t getting into any trouble. I was a good kid. There was no reason to really worry.

It happened at the end of that school year. All that was left were exams, then a few months away from the *s. The school was pretty empty that day, just a bunch of exam-stragglers kicking around, and I was heading out after writing a geography exam. It was very hot outside, and as I opened the back doors of the school, a rush of heat swept over me, contrasting the air-conditioned cool of inside.

I saw Brandi leaning against the wall. Her eyes narrowed when she saw me. I was confused. She wasn’t a bully who would wait for their victim out back. I began to walk past her.

“Hey, bitch,” she called.

Of course I ignored her.

“I said, ‘hey, bitch.’ You should listen to me when I’m saying something to you,” she hissed and grabbed my shoulder from behind, turning me roughly around to face her.