Note: I changed a lot of the names, and IT IS VERY LONG SO BUCKLE UP FOLKS
This one-shot has been something I've been wanting to do for a while. This a story about something that happened at my school that affected a friend of mine directly and me. I'm going to tell you the full story.
So, there's this jerk named Jackson. He was in a friend group with my kind-of-friends, Hailey, Jeremiah, and Skylar. Jackson has always kind of been a jerk to everyone, but especially, he seemed to target Sophia. I would hear him call her names and steal her stuff, and I'm ashamed to say I didn't intervene. The atmosphere was always playful from what I saw, and Sophia didn't seem too bothered by it.
However, on a video call, she would tell my friend Audrey and me how annoying, rude and insensitive he was. I knew that Audrey and I were both worried, but we didn't freak out about it.
A couple of days later, I saw Sophia in the library during lunch, (we eat there) backed up in a corner near one of the tables, and Hailey and Jackson had taken Sophia's glasses and were playing with them. Again, the atmosphere seemed playful, with Sophia laughing while trying to steal her glasses. I was sitting a few tables away, and I remember feeling uneasy about Sophia sitting with them at their table. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't jealous that she had switched tables from where Audrey, my friend Faith and I sat, but it just didn't feel right.
I don't see Sophia and Jackson together very much except for the mornings and lunch, so I didn't witness a lot of the things that Sophia confessed and Audrey shared in our next audio chat and Minecraft session. One day, I had just joined the call, when we started our first game. As we were playing, the topic of Jackson came up, and Audrey started ranting about him. Sophia was really uncomfortable and eventually told us everything that Jackson had been doing to her. I already knew most of it, stealing her stuff, picking on her; but what really shocked me was that he had been body-shaming her, and hurting her. Sophia is a pretty tall person, and Jackson had been calling her names related to her height. He had also called her fat many times. I don't know the situations where he slapped or hit her, but it only happened a couple of times.
Sophia even confessed that she didn't try to fight back, verbally or physically, because she didn't want to get slapped again. This really set me off, because Jackson was obviously bullying her. I know it didn't seem like a big deal on the surface, but underneath, it was harassment, physical and verbal abuse, and gaslighting too! Gaslighting is when you trick someone by guilt-tripping them or making them feel like they have to handle your problems. It was actually someone else who was burdening Sophia.
Hailey had been texting Sophia about Jackson, and when Sophia brought up Collin's behavior towards her, Hailey just responded with this:
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Like, what the heck is that?! Who's gonna break if you make them stop bullying someone? A bad human being that's who... Actually, we already knew that Jackson is a bad human. XD He also tried to do this with Audrey, like calling her names and nagging her about being "lesbian". Audrey just pushed it off and threatened to hire her 8th-grade brother to come and beat him up. XD
A few days later, Sophie and I went to the counselors about it, and Jackson got called down to the principals, even though Sophia really didn't want him to be called down. The vice-principal, Mr. Acosta told him that Sophia's friends were the ones who told on him. (I don't know why the heck he did that) Because of that, now Audrey and I were victims of his anger.
One day after he got called down, I got a text from Audrey saying this:
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I was reading a story with my dad at the time, so I didn't want to make a big deal out of it. I did tell him though, and it escalated pretty quickly after that. Before I knew it, my mom was considering contacting the school too.
I was actually pretty scared. It was scary enough when Amie had to go through that, but when you're afraid to go to school because someone might beat you up, that's a whole different story. Audrey was really nice though and offered her brother and herself as a defense.
Jackson is still bothering Sophia but he doesn't dare do anything bad.
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Rewriting all of this has sort of made me sad, the fact that 12 & 13-year-olds are pressured like this is proof of our society declining. Kids are introduced to the possibilities and dangers of bullying, sexual harassment, and depression much earlier now, because it's a possibility to experience those and many more at my age and sometimes even younger!
PM me if you want to share your story, or if you have another issue that you (for some reason, and thank you) want my take on.
