Breaking hate

Sasha looked up from the homework she had been pretended to be doing. She looked around. Her glance bounced off of the girls who hadn’t bloomed yet and landed on the guys who were high-fiving each other and messing around in the study hall. She smiled charming and innocent at the teacher, her eyes blinked and her smile changed. Aiming at the guys who listened to mp3 players, the innocent smile became seductive and beckoning. Her eyes hinted at promises and offers mature and out of context for her at 14. The boys must have felt some energy or some presence shift because they looked up and noticed. The room grew smaller, separating this girl who seemed mature, from her giggling and hyper-excited friends. 1

The teacher saw nothing, only a class separated nicely polite and working hard. The legs resting in walkways intending to trip looked like nothing but an accident. The slight movements and discreet looks that defined the hierarchy that passed among the girls vying for power, were just ignored and assumed harmless and natural. Exclusion didn’t happen and the groups were sorted voluntarily. None of the teachers were willing to see the fear in the exiles faces when they were put on the spot in front those who did have power. 2

In an instant, as another girl called to Sasha, she, still flirting turned swiftly flipping her night colored hair and raising her eyebrow at the one who distracted her. Everything had to seem deliberate so the mature one could do no more than glare at Isabelle. 3

The girls deemed outcasts and not good enough sat alone, vulnerable. Even to the guys and the nicer girls it was apparent they were different because they refused to compete for anything. They didn’t care if they were popular and they just didn’t care about the competition that defined that world. When they were something, they were scapegoats, mocked by the rest of the class. The exotic looking Sasha, who had been deviously flirting seconds before was conscious that her striking features drew jealous and admiring glances. She squinted her eyes just slightly, barely tensing up. Her smile faded slowly yet quickly and no longer was she seductive or innocent but cruel and predator. Her eyes laughed at the banishment she had instigated towards the other girls. They had done nothing yet she hated and destroyed them. 4

A girl with wide set open brown eyes looked fearfully over at Sasha afraid of what she might see. Cassie sitting in a room surrounded by people had never felt more alone. Her limbs were stiff and she felt deserted. She could barely stand to look at Sasha, much less stand up to her. Her friend Ariana, who earlier was avoided in the halls sat comfortably in her chair with her body extended out. She feigned ease and tried to coax Cassie out of her fear into a conversation. 5

“Cass, what classes do you have after lunch? Have you finished our English essay? Oh my god, do we have P.E later? Lets hope it rains then we won’t have to run”. Ariana bombarded Cassie with questions and comments attempting to keep Cassie from being bothered by the cruel girl. She alone out of all the outcasts had the pride and the strength not to sink. She was strong because she still remembered how she used to be. She had the bittersweet memories of what it meant to be friends with those girls. She remembered when they were best friends and when she led them. Ariana remembered what it was like to not be hated.6

She turned to the cruel girl and matched her stare with a reserved semi friendly smile and pity in her eyes. Sasha could not find purchase on this girl- a girl who refused to break or submit. They were almost equals in manipulating and people skills and charm. That’s why Sasha tried to destroy her out of desperation and jealously. 7

“ Leave them alone. They have done nothing to you. I am not going to break because you are cruel and think you are strong. You hate me because I refused to be anything but equals with you. You try to break me by breaking them and you are a fool,“ Ariana conveyed in her proud tilt of the chin, and her clear brown eyes reflected Sasha’s cruelty right back at Sasha cutting away the façade and rendering the girl harmless by her nonchalance. She looked back at Sasha refusing to look away- determined to fight this if not win it. Arianna knew the other girls would probably never know why Sasha told them to ignore her offers of friendship and shun her in cruel silence. She knew they would do what Sasha told them to because they were afraid to admit that if they didn’t, Ariana could legitimately refuse to ever take them back. The bell rang ending the stalemate- for now Sasha hurried out of the room upset at being defied and not even bothering to conceal her defeat.8


Ariana put her books in her bag, carefully stacking the notebooks in her backpack pretending to not hear the beats leaking from shared headphones as three laughing girls in their own world took their time at leaving the room.
She blinked furiously, refusing to allow tears to fall, even having won a small victory just then. She put the tiny earbuds in her own ears to numb the pain of being alone by P!NK's "U+ur hand". Navigating the social land mines of cluttered cliques gathered at lockers, and groups of friends holding on to each other as they made their way through the crush- everywhere everyone had someone. Middle school students, midgets to the towering sophmores and juniors made their way down cement steps to the red squared hallway before the cafeteria. Cutting friends in line, waiting together comparing notes about how their classes went, a trading system rewarding in status. Ariana searched the line for someone she remotely knew, sixth graders low enough in the general hierarchy to reject her , but they had all gotten their lunches already. 9

She pretended to study the announcements on the wall as a group of eighth graders walked by laughing and flaunting their friendships. She stared at the tiny print on the wall, at the dust particles on the heater, anything but the siblings of her old friends who had turned the seventh grade shunning into pushing in the halls, tripping anyone who said hi to her, or associated with her outside of class. Walking forward through the doorway to the cafeteria,she grabbed her tray only to stand at the edge of the steps leading towards the large patio where everyone ate. Wavering she looked around, searching for the table her old friends always sat at- where at least there might be a emtpy seat. Holding her breath and then letting it out, she savored the three seconds of not having to go anywhere while she pretended she had friends to look for. Locking eyes on the table, she noticed as four girls' snickers and tumbling words became something else- as Sasha looked up to notice her and poke Isabelle. Ariana pulled herself in, putting up walls to block out the wya they didn't want her, and crafted a smile on her face. Chin held high she walked carefully towards the table, setting her tray down on the other side of it, far enough way to not pollute their atmosphere.
Resigned to the silence at the lunch table, she puts her headphones in hoping someone else in the seventh grade will notice and say something and break the silence.
The princess of the seventh grade , Isabelle, crowned so by her ethereal flawless looks and blond hair and sparkling blue eyes glared at her while she sat alone in a corner,invisible to friendship. She sat at her table everyday at lunch and watched her whisper with the girls who used to be her friends too as they made up a secret language and then proceeded to point and giggle at her. . They whispered but she heard, there’s no way she could have not heard, when someone’s talking about you, you know it. 10

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