Love and Family | Port Orthos 4

chapter 8: harlow is disgusted

chapter 8: harlow is disguested

~harlow~

       "Harlow," Kaylee says as she walks over to my locker. "Did you see the most recent post for our school's drama page?"

       "No, I never look at it," I say. "Since it's student run and not actually run by the school, it always has baseless and even hurtful rumours."

       "Oh, I agree," Kaylee says. "I never look at it as well, but my boyfriend sent me the link to the most recent post saying I should at least be aware of it to prepare how some people might act at school."

       I furrow my eyebrows. "Is it about you?"

       "Not just about me." Kaylee takes her phone out of her pocket, unlocking it and opening up the post before she hands it to me. "It's about every girl in the school."

       I take a look at the post and it doesn't take me long to realize it's a list ranking all the girls in school by their beauty. Every single girl in the school. I don't even bother trying to find my name on the list because I don't want to entertain it at all. "This is so gross," I say as I hand Kaylee's phone back to her. 

       No one even knows who runs the drama page, so we won't even be able to try to get whoever is behind it to take it down. I don't even know if they would listen if we tried.

       "I know, right?" Kaylee puts her phone back into her pocket. "It feels so gross knowing that someone at this school thought it would be a good idea to rank all of us. At least we know it's likely a guy that's behind the page, or at the very least posted this. I highly doubt a girl would be behind this."

       "What about someone like Charity?" I ask. "She might be shallow enough to make something like this?"

       Kaylee shakes her head. "I doubt it. I walk by her on my way here and I heard her talking to her friends about it. She also thinks it's gross."

       "At least we agree on something," I say. "Is there anything we can do about it?"

       Kaylee sighs. "Nothing yet. Freddie got here early for practice so he went to talk to the principal about it. Since we don't know who's behind it, she can't do anything to get it taken down. But I think she'll give an announcement about it."

       "I doubt whoever is behind it will take it down even after an announcement," I say.

       "Yeah, I agree," Kaylee says. "Unfortunately, I think the only thing we can do right now is try to ignore it. The less people that pay attention to it, the more likely whoever is behind it will get bored and put their focus on something else."

       "I don't think it's going to be that easy to ignore."

       As it turns out, I'm right. It's very hard to ignore the stupid list when a lot of people talk about it throughout the day. I try to tune out any conversations I just so happen to overhear about it, but it's difficult because the more I hear about it, the more annoyed I get.

       The list is just objectifying us and making it seem like our looks are the only thing that matters. Who cares about anything else? It's so disgusting. I can barely concentrate in class because I'm too busy trying to think of which asshole thought it would be a good idea to rate girls.

       "I'm going to murder someone," I say at lunch right as I sit down at the table Fern, Forest, Kiro, and Aleks are at.

       "Is this about that list?" Kiro asks.

       "So you saw it too," I say.

       Kiro shakes his head. "I didn't look at it. I don't want to give them the engagement. I just heard people talking about it in class."

       "I just wish I knew who was behind it." I crack my knuckles. "Then I can give them a piece of my mind."

       "I'll keep an ear open at hockey practice since a few guys on the team go to this school," Aleks says. "They might admit to it in the locker room thinking that everyone will be on their side. But if it's no one on my team, all we have to do is look at any misogynists and sexist people at this school."

       One person immediately comes to mind, and I narrow my eyes at the thought of that scum. "Chaz."

       "Could be him, but I doubt it," Kiro says. "I scared him pretty well after he called you a bitch. He probably wouldn't do something like this afterwards, but I'll double check with him."

       Fern frowns. "Are you going to threaten him?"

       "Of course not," Kiro says. "I don't threaten people. I just get inside their heads so they think I'm threatening them. Then they'll do what I ask."

       "That sounds like a threat to me," Aleks says. Kiro shrugs.

       Charity suddenly walks over to our table and I have to try my best not to roll my eyes. Well, at least until I hear what she has to say. If she says something stupid, then I will roll my eyes. "I need to know if any of you who is behind the school's drama page," she says.

       "Yeah, I'm pretty sure if any of us knew, we would have had that stupid list taken down already," I say. "It's stupid, sexist, and gross."

       "Huh, and here I was thinking you'd like the list since you're rated high on it," Charity says.

       "Ugh, please don't tell me where I place on the list," I say. "I don't want to know anything about it. And I'm not as shallow as you."

       Charity glares at me as Aleks says, "At least you're rated high on the list."

       Charity then glares at Aleks. "Seems like you're interested in the list. You better not have anything to do with it."

       "Oh, please, if I wrote a list judging people's looks, Forest would be the only person on the list," Aleks says.

       "Why?" Forest asks.

       "Because you're so attractive," Aleks says. "Please, just give me a chance."

       "No."

       Aleks sighs. "Yet another rejection."

       I look at Charity. "It's obvious that it's likely someone sexist behind the list, so we're going to be keeping an eye out for any sexist guys. Chaz is at the top of the list since he called me a bitch for turning down what he called a 'compliment'."

       "If that's true, wouldn't Chaz put you lower on the list since you didn't accept it?" Charity asks.

       "That's... actually a good point," I say. "But his compliment was calling me hot right after my volleyball game, so there's still that."

       "I'll still look into him," Kiro says.

       "Kaylee said her boyfriend already talked to the principal about it, and she's going to make an announcement about it," I say. "Maybe that will be enough to put whoever is behind it on edge and make it easier for us to find out who it is."

       "I hope so," Charity says.

_________________

you know it's bad when harlow actually agrees with charity (harlow will normally disagree with charity for anything just to spite her)(charity puts cereal before her milk? harlow does milk before her cereal).