You Could Have Saved Me

A Fresh Start

I walked into my new school feeling nervous. I got into the class and after just forty minutes, I noticed that the girls here were way crueler and savage than those in middle school. They took every opportunity to gossip and find fault in their fellow girls. I got into my figurative shell to hide myself from all this hate but I soon found myself making friends. Every single day I went to school I could not help but notice how mean girls were. It was commonplace to hear despiteful comments.

Oh, did you see the hole in Cassie's sweater? It was mad big!" This was said by one of the "friends," my classmate Cassie thought she'd made several weeks earlier. As the cries of laughter poured out from the cheerleaders, Cassie stood with her back to the five girls, ignoring them. It hadn't taken long for them to shove her out of the group after she'd caught an attitude with the group "leader."

Truthfully, I didn't care that they were laughing at her, because she wasn't my friend and I thought the hole was big, too. But when I found myself laughing, too, I stopped and realized I was being just as mean as they were.

"Why do we girls treat each other so badly?" I wondered. We take advantage of each other, compare ourselves to each other, and put each other down. We can be petty and fake people on the planet.

I saw this a lot in school. At lunch, I usually hear at least one group of girls talking about another girl they're supposedly friends with. I feel annoyed when I hear things like, "Didn't she wear that dress two days ago?" and "I don't know why all the boys are chasing her ' Obviously she's not all that cute.'

Luckily, my friends weren't like that. My friend Hannah always seemed happy and tried to lift my spirits when I'm having a bad day. Trisha's one of the smartest and most honest people I knew. And Rachel was kind and considerate.

On the rare occasion that I had a problem with my friends, I felt comfortable talking to them about it because we've become like sisters. We could be completely honest with each other. We don't talk behind each other's backs, unless of course, we're saying something like, "Her hair looks nice today.

Rachel always seemed to be the one who needed the most attention. Whenever our friend Kendall was having a private conversation with her boyfriend, Rachel would go up to them and start annoying them. And she always talked on and on about her family and people we didn't know, while my friends and I sat there saying "Uh huh" the whole time. Sometimes, I admit, I just ignored her.

One day we were all sitting together by the entrance, where we always chatted during class. After finishing one of her long, boring stories, Rachel left to go to the bathroom. Trisha, Hannah, and I looked at each other with relief.

"I was trying so hard to listen to her but she just kept talking on and on," Trisha said. "I wanted her to be quiet." We laughed.

"Yes, she's always talking about her cousin and what she did to her when we don't even know her," I added. We kept talking about her until she returned from the bathroom. I knew it was wrong, but I felt relieved that someone else felt the same way I did.

After that, we started to feel comfortable saying anything about her. We began talking about her out of habit. A few days after that day, Trisha, Hannah, and I were in the lunchroom together.

Hannah said, "I don't mean to talk about Rachel's hair, but do you see how it looks? She hardly has any hair coming through her ponytail." We all laughed, and Trisha used her hands to mimic how much hair came through Rachel's ponytail.

TRYING HARD NOT TO BE A BULLY MYSELF

I started feeling bad talking about Rachel behind her back. Her hair was somehow more personal than whether her conversations were boring or not. It was something she couldn't control, so it felt especially meaningful to talk about it. I knew Rachel would never talk about me behind my back. She may be a little annoying sometimes, but she's a loyal friend. Suddenly I felt so awful I had to say something.