Was Any Of It Real?

Who Said That + Glass Break

Wednesday, November 22, 2023

Cameron, Jake, and I had started mocking each other. When the guys noticed that every time they tried to get me, I didn't care. The two of them thinking it would be fun made it their mission to try and find an insult I'd react to. That's when they started with the easy insults. 

"Whore," Jake said

"Slut," Cam added

"We both know I'm not a whore or a slut." I then shrug my shoulders because they could do better. After that Cameron lost interest and wasn't really going to try to insult me.

"Bitch," Jake tried. 

"And..." I rolled my hand in a circle motion, encouraging him to add to it. "What else? You really have nothing better than these basic bitch insults." I goad because I've been desensitized to being called a bitch. I realized that when you don't lay down and take other people's shit, you become a bitch. People had tried to go after me, but if they wanted to try to hurt me, I could do much worse. 

After I introduced that challenge, Jake started to really try to find something that would insult me. Reaching for an insult—something good. Something that I potentially had never heard before, but he couldn't.

"You're so gay." Jake said it like it was supposed to be an insult or a fact.

"I dated your best friend. We both know I'm not Sunshine." I use the nickname only I'm allowed to use, even though Selena came up with it last year. When she tried calling him "Sunshine" in passing the other day, he told her not to call him that. She then chuckled because he had never told me that. Because it was something just for me.

"Really, have you seen yourself near Diana and Selena." Obviously, he was really trying to make this one factual.

"What do you mean? It's just Sel and Danny." Danny, my nickname for Diana. "We're best friends and since I'm so very single, they fill in and take care of me." It's the truth. My friends take care of me and give me affection when I feel starved for it. They're the people I go to when I'm having a shit day and just need a hug.

"Yeah, sure, only friends, gay." He was really trying to prove his futile point.

"For one, that's not even an insult. Secondly, I've been called worse than anything you could come up with."

"Who's called you worse? What did they say to you?" He asks, with concern laced anger radiating through his voice.

"No one. Don't worry about it." I had been made fun of and beaten down, but that was none of his business.

"Bry, I'm asking you a question." The look in his eyes was steely, and he wasn't giving up on this. "Who said worse and what did they say?" I wouldn't tell him the words that had actually hurt me. One reason that no one I was close with knew about what happened was because I'm the happy sunshine girl.  I make everyone laugh and smile. That person who's patient and kind and helps everyone for no reason other than I can. I didn't need to worry them with the knowledge of old events. I certainly didn't need to tell Sunshine.

"Drop it, it was nothing." I told him my voice final, forcing him to concede.

"I'll get you to tell me eventually." It sounded like he was going to play the long game with this, but he still wouldn't win. 

"Good luck with that." I said in challenge and lucky for me, the class started. Since we were doing a lab, I got to move across the room to my wonderful lab group of girls I have in first period hell, also known as English honors. 

While we were doing the lab, I had been thinking about what I had to do for homework, and everything that I still had to do at home. Last night my dog had gotten sick, so we took him to the vet when I got home. I was horrified that something would happen to my fur baby. My dog was the most important thing in the world to me. I didn't get home till late and after all the anxiety because of my dog, I couldn't eat. Thankfully he was okay but I still worried because he wasn't acting like my baby.

After everything, I still did hours' worth of homework when I got home. I was worrying about my dog even after the vet and barely slept. I was tired on top of tired, but I was still smiling and pretending to have energy, which just depleted me more. Bad memories of last year circling my mind on top of all that. I guess I was thinking about too much and I didn't notice till it was too late.

I was careful but ended up breaking one of the 50-mL beaker. It wasn't my fault; I just couldn't get a good grip on the beaker. One second, I was holding the beaker full of heated water from the hot plate, and the next, I wasn't. When it dropped, the sound of the glass shattering scared me, the hot water spilling everywhere.

I wasn't hurt, just surprised. I had jumped, like when something pops out of a scary movie at you. Then I immediately felt so bad and sorry for breaking the glass and causing the mess. I immediately grabbed paper towels to clean the mess and pick up the glass. I was careful and didn't cut myself on the glass but was still rattled.

When I went to throw the glass and wet paper towels away, I had to go by my teacher.

"I'm so sorry," My voice was quiet, my eyes barely brimming with tears that I would never let fall, "I didn't mean to make a mess, but I think I got all the glass."

"It's fine, sweetie; it happens all the time." The simple reassurance was nice but didn't make me feel any better.

"I'm really sorry," I had told her again because it didn't feel like enough. The girls in my lab group asked if I was okay, and I told them that I was fine. When the glass had fallen, my hands started shaking a little, but I was able to hide the tell that showed how rattled I was.

I have always had a strong sense of remorse whenever I had done anything wrong or had to tell someone no. Feeling sorry even when people had told me I had done nothing wrong. It had become a reflex to apologize. Sometimes I didn't even know why I was apologizing or thanking someone; I just felt like I had to.

I went back to the counter in the back of the room where I had dropped the beaker and made sure it was dry. Double-checking that I hadn't missed any pieces of glass because I didn't want anyone to get hurt from my mistake. My hands had still been a little shaky, but the counter made it look like I was fine. That's when Sunshine pulled me to the side.

"Are you okay?" He asked, but I looked away, avoiding eye contact.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I told him as I pulled my hands into my sleeves, making sure that my shaky hands would go unseen. Luckily, he missed the action since his gaze was focused on my face.

"Are you sure?" He double-checked. I know it's because of the look on my face when I apologized to the teacher and the fact that I wouldn't meet his eyes to answer the simple question.

"Yeah, but I'll feel better if you grab the beaker for me from now on." This time, I responded to his face instead of the floor. I even gave him a small smile of reassurance.

"Sure Bry," he said with a chuckle.

"Thank you." was the last thing I said before I went back to cleaning up any remnants of the mess I had made.

For the rest of the year, I made Sunshine grab and move beakers for me because I was completely serious and didn't want to be anywhere near or touch one of those beakers anytime soon.

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Hey readers, I was honestly scarred. I hope you enjoy the first mix of confusing events in this story.

I hope the insomniacs get some sleep and the day people enjoy the sun.