I’ve had a lot of people hurt me in my short lifetime. One of my closest friends,Acacia, in particular. I don’t blame her though. See in our sophomore year of highschool she tormented me. Brilliantly might I add. She set up an elaborate story of how I was bullying my other close friend Vinata. Prompting everyone to dislike me, lecture me even on my “actions”. When I look back at the dark year of high school, I notice that it really started the last quarter of our Freshman year. That year it was Vinata who was Acacia’s target. She went after her viciously and wrote her this cruel message of how Vinata is “cocky”, “self absorbed”, “selfish” and told her it was God’s plan for her to tell Vinata all of these things. I should have noticed the downslide of our friendship then. It was like the small tumble of snow before you’re struck with an avalanche. The small drizzle before the flood. The scent of danger lingering in the air before you’re sucked up in a tornado.
It’s the end of freshman year and Acacia has been planting seeds of hatred in everyone’s head towards the oblivious Vinata. With the constant watering of complaints and over dramatized stories the seeds flourish into vibrant plants. There was one thing Acacia did not take into account, however, over summer when we aren’t consistently under her watch and storytelling we realize how wrong we were. Without constant watering plants wither and die. Here in Florida we don’t have cacti. So when Acacia sent Vinata the message the week before our sophomore year started she did not receive the praise she thought she was going to attain instead she was welcomed with utter disgust. Like every good little Christian girl she took the oldest excuse in the book, “God told me to do it.” Knowing that she’s religious to the core the friend group as a whole decides to forgive and forget, even Vinata. Though Vinata keeps her distance and begins to cling towards two of the most incredible friends Karida and Arnia.
Now at this point in time Acacia and I were inseparable. In fact, I spent most of my time with her and not with the others. So when it was my turn to feel the lethal dagger of my tormented friend, well saying I was dumbfounded would be an understatement. My heart ached with despair, never would I have predicted that she would want to cause me pain and look as though she enjoyed it. Never in my two years of knowing her did I imagine this. I didn’t notice right away. I was blinded by the naive hope of pure kindness and friendship. I was foolish to think that my new friends I made in high school wouldn’t be filled with the childish drama that nearly took me to a self made grave in middle school. I was foolish to believe that some people can’t hurt you. I learn this again in my junior year, but I’m skipping ahead.
The insults and murmurs behind my back or really across the classroom started to become more apparent. When it really struck me that I was all alone, that after she isolated me from the rest of the group and decided that she was done with me, finished with being kind. I went home and cried like I hadn’t in years. I layed in my bed, fetal position, and just cried until there were no more tears left and my head felt as though it was smashed against concrete walls. That’s when I thought of Vinata. That’s when I remembered what Acacia had done to her the year before. I physically became sick and hugged my toilet for over an hour. I couldn’t bring myself to think of the pain that she had felt, the pain that I was involved with. I didn’t understand what she meant when she said she felt utterly alone, I found the idea laughable, because she was surrounded by friends all the time. But in those 180 days of hell, I understood. You can be in a room filled with hundreds of people, if not a single one of them cares about you or notices your pain it’s pointless. You’ll never feel as though you’re surrounded by other human beings you’ll feel well...alone. It wasn’t the insults of the pointed glares that got to me. Nor was it the tarnishing rumors and stories she spread. It was the fact that no one believed me. Not even my mom, she said that it’s probably not that bad and that it’ll blow over. She would get angry at me when I brought it up and even once yelled at me. She wasn’t yelling at me because I was being bullied, more because I was ranting about Acacia and she was sick of hearing about it. My mother is the best mother in the world and I wouldn’t ever say otherwise. I don’t think she knew how bad it was or she would have never gotten frustrated with me.
