Despite The Doubt

Seven - Hurtful Words, Homework, and High Schoolers

"Your such a weirdo." Caroline said poking my cheek as we walked to science class. Suddenly, I saw Lara walking towards us with her head down, it looked like she was crying. "Hey Lara, what's wrong?" Caroline asked grabbing Lara's arm and stopping her brisk pace.

"Chelsea..." Lara said and burst into sobs again.

"What did she do?" I asked putting my arm around Lara for support.

Lara sniffed and began her story. "Well I was at my locker, and she has the locker next to mine, so anyway I was grabbing my book for Geography and she was like: why do you have so many pictures of you and those weirdos? You shouldn't even be friends with them all you guys do is lie about how good you are at swimming anyway." Lara said bursting into sobs again.

"I am gonna kill that girl." Caroline said, her jaw tense.

"Oh my gosh. That's horrible. I mean not just that she said it about us but I can't believe she would say that!" I said, unsure of what to do next. "We should talk to Mr. Bridge." I said

"No! Chelsea will get mad because I ratted her out!" Lara said drying her tears and crying at the same time.

"Well, Mr. Bridges will take care of that Lara, don't worry." I said taking her to the principals office.

~#~

"And then Mr. Bridges came into our class and handed Chelsea a detention slip in front of everyone! she looked so embarrassed, I mean I felt kinda bad but she did deserve it." Lara said finishing her explanation to all the girls at lunch.

"Wow. I can't believe she said that about us!" Chloe said obviously shocked.

"She is so gutsy." I noted shaking my head.

"I mean you broke club records!" Olivia said gesturing to Lara. "I mean Lara isn't the only one but, she said to you so.... Yeah I'm gonna stop talking now." Olivia said laughing at herself.

"It's ok Olivia." Claire said patting her shoulder and laughing with her.

"My mom says that when someone is mean to you its usually because they are jealous." Avery said.

"Yeah well she is gonna get more punishment then a flimsy detention." Caroline said narrowing her eyes. Caroline got a little aggressive sometimes.

"Calm." I reminded Caroline putting my hands on her shoulders.

"Ok so enough about stupid Chelsea. Is anyone going to study hall today?" Sydney asked all of us.

"I am. My mom is working late." I said raising my hand.

"Me too!!" Claire said giving us high fives.

"Great." Sydney said sighing with relief.

~#~

"Can one of you help me with this problem?" Claire asked looking down at her math worksheet. Claire, Sydney, and I had settled at a round table in the library at school in study hall.

"I'm out." Sydney said putting both hands up.

"Fine." I said rolling my eyes in defeat and going over to Claire.

"So I have to find the absolute deviation and then find the mean absolute deviation." Claire said.

"Ok so you have the absolute deviations done, so now just find the mean of that set of numbers." I said gesturing to the list of numbers.

"Oh that's it?" Claire asked surprised.

"Yep." I said popping the p and sliding back into my chair.

"Oh well that's a lot easier." Claire said looking relieved.

"Ugh, my French teacher is making us write a paragraph about ourselves." Sydney said looking at her assignment book.

"Who do you have again?" I asked not looking up from my science paper.

"Madam Evans" Sydney said rolling her eyes.

Just then the bell rang for the end of study hall.

"Well I will see you tomorrow." I said giving Claire and Sydney hugs.

"Ok!" Claire said grabbing her backpack.

~#~

"Alright everyone, please get in your seats so we can start class." Mr. Swan said as everyone entered the classroom.

"Did you do the homework?" Samuel whispered

"Yes! Of course I did the homework. And no, you can't copy off of it." I said whispered back.

"You probably did it wrong anyways. Its not like your smart." Sam said under so breath.

I can't believe he said that about me. Does he really think that? Does everyone think that? I get mostly B's with the occasional A. Is that now qualified as stupid? Or not smart?

~#~

I couldn't sleep at all that night.

Chelsea thinks I'm a bad swimmer, Samuel thinks I'm a bad student, what is there left? Is there even anyone who does like me besides my friends at school? Do I have any other friends at school?

I flopped down on my bed with my feet on my pillow facing my wall full of posters, magazine pages, book quotes, and anything that made me happy. It had started in fourth grade when kids were being mean to me, my mom had printed out big inspirational quotes and put them all over my room. Soon, I started putting posters up too. And I got addicted. Every inch of my wall was covered, I even named it Bernard. As I reminded myself of that story I remembered my favorite quote: "Be yourself; everyone else is already taken." -Oscar Wilde.

And with that, I fell asleep knowing that despite Samuel, and despite Chelsea, and despite all of the doubt in the world, that I would make It out fine. My dreams would come true, there will always be people who want to tear you down and tell you that your doing it wrong, but as long as you know in your heart that you can achieve your goals, you can.

~#~

"Oh no." Caroline stated.

"What?" I asked looking up from my water bottle after finishing my warmup.

"Avery just got out of the pool. She only gets out of the pool when she is hurt." Caroline said obviously very worried about Avery, but it was true she never got out of the pool otherwise.

She talked to Coach Will for a few seconds and then sat down on the bench near where all of the level five girls were. Anna came rushing over to us.

"She's okay, just an asthma attack. It's minor though, she told me to toll you not to worry." Anna said all at once. Then she rushed back over to her friends.