Crescendo

Mean Girls ~Rachel Crow

1st person POV

"Has she never heard of make-up?"

"I bet you 10 bucks that she has no friends."

"Is that her perfume? OMG, it stinks! What is it, eau de garbage?"

I kept my head down and made my way through the morning crowd, trying to tune out the constant barrage of insults and negative side-conversations. It wasn't working. I blinked back the urge to cry, so very familiar after moving to the school just two weeks back, and rushed to my locker. I was riding on the fact that I could get my stuff, run to class, and sit at my desk before the bell rang and/or I broke down.

Apparently, that was too much to ask.

Pasted all over my locker door were Post-It notes of every color, green, blue, red, purple, yellow. I barged through the throng and read over the notes, even though I already had a good idea of what they said. I guess I was rubbing salt in the wound now.

You don't belong here, freak.

Stop polluting our hallways.

No one likes you.

I didn't get it. Why were the girls being so mean? What did I ever do to them? Was I insulting them simply by...existing?

Unable to stop the tears, I ripped off the Post-Its and tore them into little colored bits, raining like confetti onto the tiled floor. More laughter ensued at my outburst. "Oh, look, the baby's having a temper tantrum! I guess she can't handle the truth."

The truth.

I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't open my locker or go to class—not without making an even bigger fool of myself. I just needed to get away from the insults, the snide remarks, the girls who found delight in putting me down. My grades were already screwed; why go to class when all I'd hear was more bad news?

Wiping my face with the sleeve of my sweater, I dodged past the bystanders and walked on. An outstretched leg appeared in my line of vision just a millisecond too late. I stumbled and caught myself before hitting the ground, triggering a bunch of disappointed "boo"s from the sadistic audience. I knew better than to stick around. Before anyone else could try to pull a fast one and laugh at my expense, I ran with blurred eyesight to my safe haven.

They called it the haunted bathroom.

It was all another stupid rumor, really. People claimed that some guy had died in there long ago and was still around, that was why the lights constantly flickered. The less dramatic truth is that the school was too lazy to change the light bulbs in there now that no one used it anymore. I didn't care about some made-up ghost or malfunctioning light bulbs, if the bathroom didn't have anyone ready to make me feel like a helpless bug, it was heaven.

I locked myself into a stall and dropped down next to a grimy toilet, tears still leaking from my face. The more I swiped at them, the more appeared. Giving up, I brought my knees up to my chest and buried my face in them, letting the salty water dampen my jeans.

I wished my dad never got an offer to work there. I wished we never had moved. I wished I was back at my old school, with my true friends. I wished I could spend one day, just one day without someone calling me a loser. I wished my grades weren't puke-worthy. I wished a lot of things, that day in the bathroom stall.

After my tears had been reduced to pathetic hiccups, I began to wonder, not for the first time, the motives behind the girls' cruel remarks. Maybe there was something wrong with me. Why else would they put me down all the time, every day, every minute? I wasn't a normal human being. I was strange. I was weird. I was...nothing.