Words Hurt: Worst Time of my Life

Chapter 1

I pulled my phone because it buzzed a few times and I was tired of listening to it. Little did I know it would ruin everything. And here's a portrayal of a conversation that ruined my relationships...

Anonymous: you're annoying and no one likes you

Me: who is this?

Anonymous: does it matter? None of your friends like you. You should just leave them alone

After many hateful messages and a long night of crying I decided to beg this anonymous number for any information on who it was. Or did I want to know?

The only think that I had hoped would comfort me through this rough experience of pretty much being bullied was my best friend Kylee. Well, she was acting weird the entire time I was sobbing to her over the phone. So, I just left her alone and decided to cry by myself on this friday night. So yep, all of my friends hate me and they think I'm annoying? That sounds like a great way to start my weekend.

My mom had no idea what was going on and she took me shopping the next morning after my little sister went to a birthday party. I remember the whole time I was shopping I was worried of whether I would get more texts from this number.

Papaya. It's one of my favorite stores and definitely one of the most memorable. My mom went to a store that was across from it to shop for something, and she told me that I could go look for an outfit at papaya. I was in the dressing room trying on outfits that I really liked when I heard my phone buzz. Oh gosh. Here it goes, more messages.

Well, I was wrong. The message was from Kylee. It said "me and your friends were the ones that sent those messages"

I immediately broke into tears in the dressing room. How could this happen? Why would my friends send all of those rude messages anonymously? Why couldn't they just tell me how they felt?

I felt as if my life was ending, but I didn't want my mom to know what was happening. That's probably the only thing I regret about this whole experience.

When I was done putting on an act and smiling with my mom as we walked around the mall, we headed back to our car. We were going to go visit one of my moms really close friends. When we pulled into her driveway, my sister hopped out of the car but I couldn't help it: I started balling my eyes out in the backseat. Of course my mom was alarmed, so I had to explain what was happening to her. It felt like I was a little kid picking a scab to a wound that I knew would hurt once again as it was being re-opened.

Chapter 2

I begged my mom to let me stay home from school the Monday after the weekend of hell I had just faced. But my mom refused because she told me.." Alissa you can't let them control you. You have to go to school and be strong." And she waved bye to me as I walked to my bus stop to face the worst day of my life.

Lucky me, all of the friends that had sent those messages rode my bus. And I'm not even kidding. All of them.

The awkward silence was worse than I imagined and I felt like the silence was suffocating me. I felt all of their eyes staring. I felt the whispers. I felt the friendships being broken.

Just as I thought my life couldn't be any worse, my friends walked up the bus isle to sit and gather in front of me. Why would they do this? All I could think as my heart was racing was, "please leave before I have a panic attack". I just feel like 5 versus 1 isn't very fair.

I wasn't expecting sympathetic looks from any of them, but when I looked up from my phone screen, that's all that I got.. This is so awkward. Why me?

Kylee was the first who spoke up (as always) and she said, "we didn't really send those messages, Alissa. The anonymous number texted us too and said that if we said it was us that they would stop harassing you"

I only said okay because I thought it would make them leave me alone. But that wasn't going to happen.

To be honest, I never trusted them. Maybe I did a little, but I didn't trust them nearly as much as I did before this whole fiasco.

Chapter 3

It's nearly a year later and I never found out who really sent those anonymous messages. That is, until today.

I was in study hall and I was eating my lunch next to one of my new close friends. Somehow we started talking about this girl named Julia. My new friend, Marie, and her played soccer together. My whole mood went from laughing and smiling to tears about to spill out of my eyes when Marie told me that Julia had admitted to the whole soccer team that she bullied me and sent those messages.

I was definitely upset that she sent the messages, but it made me even more upset that she brought it all up again to the whole soccer team. And the soccer team is just where it started, within the next week the story made it all around the freshman class at my school.

Nothing was worse than feeling vulnerable about something that happened to you in middle school.

The whole situation got even worse when my crush tried talking to me about it. No thank you. I couldn't help but be rude to him because it was honestly still a touchy subject with me.

You would think something like this was a minor conflict or something that can be swept under the rug. But it truly shook my confidence and made me question everything that I stood for. How could I ever be friends with people that let this happen? Or how could I be friends with people that I still think were involved in tormenting me? And mostly: how could I be friends with people that didn't feel the same about me?