A few days after arriving home from Pittsburgh, my mom and I received a text from A, asking why I had been in C and my ex's hotel room. I explained the bathroom situation and A was satisfied with my answer, but we were frustrated.
Neither my friends or I knew what prompted A to ask about that, or how she even knew about it, but we could only assume it was due to another accusation by my ex.
"How do they keep getting off the hook for this stuff?! Does their mom even know about what they've been doing?!" My mom shrieked as I sat in her bedroom crying.
"I don't know."
"Then I'm texting her. This has been going on for too long."
"What're you gonna say?" I sniffled.
"I don't know yet, but I'm sick of this."
——
I don't remember anymore what my mom said, or what my ex's mom responded with, but you can imagine my surprise the next morning when I saw their mom walking into the school as I got off the bus after transferring from my first period class at our sister high school.
"She's here to complain about me!" I told my friends, ten minutes later.
Our second period class had been cancelled and I instead found myself laying on the floor in the lobby with S and MS.
"She's gonna say that I'm the liar and that I've been hitting my ex and then I'll get in trouble instead of them!"
"Calm down," S told me. "You don't know that that's what she's here for."
"Sure," I rolled my eyes before closing them and laying back on the hard tile floor.
A few minutes passed in silence until I heard MS quietly say, "Hi A."
Shocked, I looked up to see our color guard coach walking across the lobby. She gave us a slight wave before heading down the hallway.
"Why is she here?" I asked, once she was out of earshot.
S shrugged, but I knew that I was the reason she was there.
——
I walked into my third period class on shaky legs, still nervous after my two encounters from earlier in the morning. I was panicking and needed an adult to talk to.
"Can I go to the guidance counselor?" I asked, standing in front of Mrs. G's desk.
"Actually," she started, looking up at me. "I'm supposed to send you to see Mrs. M in the office after class."
My heart skipped a beat. This was it. They decided to believe my ex instead of me and I was in so much trouble now.
With wide eyes, I sat down at my desk. We were writing an AP practice essay that day, but all I could do was stare at the poem in front of me and worry.
I only had half a paragraph written by the time the bell rang and I made my way, in terror, downstairs to the office. The secretary let me in and I knocked weakly on Mrs. M's door.
Sitting at Mrs. M's desk, I prepared myself to hear the worst.
"So," she began, placing a sheet of paper on the desktop. "We're going to be giving you a cease and desist order."
My eyes widened. A cease and desist? Finally!
"It states that you will not talk about your ex with anyone. If you have a problem or you need to talk about something, you can come here and talk to me or to the guidance counselor, but as long as you're on school property, you will not talk about them with anyone. Not your teachers or friends. Got it?"
I nodded.
"They have a copy of the same document that they signed so they've agreed to all the terms too. They're not allowed to talk about you and neither of you can have any contact with each other anymore. If they're around, you just ignore them."
I nodded again, excited to finally have this protection put in place.
"We're not taking sides or assigning any blame by giving you this. You're both getting a cease and desist. It's not a one way thing."
My heart sunk a bit. Essentially it was either both of us were being punished or none of us were. I'd hoped my ex would get at least a little bit of karma, but I guess this would have to do.
"So you just need to sign here."
She pushed the document across the desk and handed me a pen. I signed it without any hesitation. I'd been waiting for this ever since she first brought it up all those weeks ago.
"Alright," she said, ripping the copy paper away. "This one is for you, and this is for me."
I took the paper and sat there gazing at it in awe. "For bullying and harassment," it had said in big letters.
"By the way," she added, before I left. "We've talked to both of you and concluded that your friends have been lying to you."
I nodded and left the room, but as I walked down the hall, I couldn't understand what she'd said. Nearly everyone I knew was colluding to tell me that my ex was lying about me? What messed up thing had my ex said to make them believe that? How could they believe the word of one psychotic person over almost a dozen others?
YOU ARE READING
Look What You Made Me Do
Non-Fiction"Don't tell anybody about this." "If you just ignore it, it'll stop." "There's nothing I can do to help you." And so I did everything I was told. I shut up. I put on a brave face. I followed all the rules. But that was the past and it's not who I am...
