The Club

Chapter 3: Heartbroken

For about the next two weeks, McKenna, Lilly, Patty and I had lunch together every day. I even started to iron my hair straight and started to wear long flowery dresses, just like the girls, to fit into the group. For a while, I felt like I was the happiest girl in the world. But one day, they started acting differently. Something seemed a bit off. When I said something, they continued talking like I never existed. I asked McKenna to partner with me on an English project, but she said no and then picked someone else as her partner. Eventually, one day when I went to the oak tree for lunch, McKenna and the two girls were not there anymore. Did I say or do something wrong? I tried hard to figure it out, but I couldn't.

What's even worse, was that I got my math test result which was horrible. I covered up my score right away but Gary seemed to notice. He called Peter, who sat next to me, and asked him to grab my test to reveal the score. Peter hesitated for a moment, but then he snatched my test and gave it to Gary.

"Give it back to me!" I was growing mad.

They looked at my score and then Gary laughed and scoffed, "Only 63%? Such a low score! You are such a LOSER! Look, everyone, Tasha only got 63% haha!"

I felt so embarrassed. Eventually, the boys gave it back to me. I kept my head down and really wanted to cry but I did not want to feel even more embarrassed. I just wished that the day was over so I could go home, tell my parents, and cry.

Of course, bad things always came in twos and threes. I was doing the mile-run for PE, which was pure torture to my legs and body. Because it was a hot day, I started to sweat pretty hard. My eyeglasses started to slip, and so I tried to wipe off the sweat. All of sudden, my eyeglasses flew out of my face and dropped somewhere.

I tried looking for them because I really can't see anything without my glasses, and nobody stopped to help me. I was about to cry again. Luckily, my PE teacher noticed and helped me found my glasses. But unfortunately, they were broken. The PE teacher was concerned and had a student walk with me to the office so that I could call my parents. I tried to not let my voice break when I thanked her.

When I got home, I cried and told my parents about everything that happened today.

My parents told me, "We are so sorry that this is happening... ", "Can we give you a hug?", "It would be alright...".

Then when I was calmer, they analyzed the problems and said, "You don't have to copy your friends in order to be a part of their group. They should respect and accept who you are, as long as you are kind and respectful to them. Just ignore the boys who are grabbing your math test. Sometimes when you react, they will pick on you more because they will feel that it's fun. We are really sorry, Tasha, that this is happening to you."

Unfortunately, over time, my parents' advice did not make things any better. Things got worse - the girls continued to ignore me for no reason, and Gary and Peter got more people to make fun of me. I felt like the whole school was against me. This was exactly what happened in my old school - feeling so sad, alone, excluded, and no one backed me up. Every day I dreaded going to school.