Facts about Feminism | ✓

12

Guy | Girl

It was darker in the detention room today, cooler. Not the same stuffy hotness they both were accustomed to. Dark clouds loomed ominously over the fields, rain pounded on the windows, and the storm raged on outside. The potted plants by the window looked extra-wilted today and the two students that frequented detention had both mellowed out.

All afternoon clubs were either cancelled, rescheduled, or moved indoors. But detention was not to be touched, even if it meant that one of the unlucky students being punished would be forced to walk home and brave the wild storm. 

Even Mr. J looked gloomier than usual. His mood clearly matching the weather. 

The bad weather, as rain often does, brought back memories.

"Hey, do you need a ride today?" He asked towards the end of detention.

"Huh?" She startled from where she was working on her homework.

He grinned sheepishly, "It's a bad day and all and I don't think you have a car. You probably don't want to walk to the bus stop in pouring rain."

"I'd love a ride, thanks."  They both sat in comfortable silence for a moment until she spoke up. "Do you remember the last time we were in the same car?"

"Yeah, I do. After swim practice right? Before you quit." They used to swim in the same league, it's how they first met. She quit only a few months in his league, but to be perfectly honest, she wasn't that good.

"Yeah, your mom came to pick us up. You were my first friend in this school." She looked at him nostalgically, stuck in the memories.

"A lot has changed, hasn't it?" He looked at her in that charming way of his, expecting her to laugh. "Now, we're on a punch and run basis."

"I was friends with all of you." She didn't need to clarify, he knew who she was talking about. She used to be close with his current girlfriend and some of her preppy friends.

"What happened? I don't remember."

"You never knew or you don't remember?" At his guilty expression, she started her story. It didn't matter at the end of the day if he ever bothered to defend her. What's happened, happened.

 "It was two months after I got to this school, eight grade, Halloween party. Jimmy Carter kissed me. I didn't even like him. And his mouth tasted like a wet slimy mop." She gagged in memory of what her first kiss had been like. "But apparently he was dating Emma Sullivan at the time. She made sure that everyone at the school the next day knew that I was a slut and a cheater."

He looked horrified at her words. It was quite obvious he didn't know this part of the story. 

She chuckled harshly, curling her knees up in her chair. "It was funny. Because I didn't know Jimmy and Emma were dating. And even then, Jimmy was the one who initiated it. Not me."

"In every cheating story, it's always the girl's fault. She should have known better than to hook up with another girl's boyfriend. No one ever thinks that maybe the guy is just a pile of cheating crap. He was the one who chose to make the commitment to the relationship, shouldn't he be the one upholding it?"

"What happened to girls supporting other girls? Instead, why do girls always villanize girls?  In movies and books too, women always write about women hating other women."

"And what bugged me the most is that everyone just accepted it. People stopped talking to me in the span of a night. But I didn't care about the lot of them, but you, you did too. "

"So maybe, if girls didn't hate on other girls. If we supported each other. Maybe Emma would have dumped Jimmy's useless ass a long time ago. Maybe we -" she gestured towards the two of them "- would still be friends."

He sighed. "Maybe we would."