This year I had a fight with this girl I knew since grade 7. Back then we weren’t close. We weren’t friends. I didn’t know her name just knew her as the girl I saw crying in the north washroom in middle school. She was shaking violently and when I went to comfort her and ask what was wrong, a scared pale face turned towards me. Her eyes were red and puffy and her face contorted as another wail left her lips. Turns out she snitched on a couple of the girls for cheating on the math exam that morning, and they were giving her a hard time ever since. The entire class had to write it again, and the teacher said she was going to make the new version even harder. I was pretty proud of my answers on that long test and was kind of peeved that she’s the one who had all my hard work go down the drain. But she was crying, so i should have forgiven her right?

Past that day she didn’t have many friends. Everyone managed to distance themselves from her and she looked miserable. Then grade nine rolled around and she would walk into every class with a bright smile. Every class she would manage to crack a joke that would make the class erupt with laughter but made herself look like an idiot in the process. It seemed like a fair deal though because after that she got herself into a close knit group of friends. They were weird kids, but I was proud of her for making friends, good for her. In grade nine she tried really hard to reach out to new people and make more friends. This lead her to excessively complimenting students. Including me. After the usual “you’re so pretty” and “you’re so nice” she moved onto whichever weird compliment she could think of. One I distinctly remember was “wow you’re such a good circle cutter”. I thought she was really strange. She was sweet but after grade nine I didn’t think I would ever see her again. Then grade ten started and we were enrolled into the same highschool.

Soon I left that school and came to Queensland High School. She followed. We were on the same bus and we had a mutual friend that attended this school one year before me so she already had an established group of friends. The mutual friend was also on the bus with us and I sat with her. The girl had already known the mutual friend years before I met her. So they often studied together at the mutual friends house.

One of these nights of tutoring at the friend’s house, she had left the friend in a bad mood and she came to me the next day to complain. This was the first mistake. Who would gossip about someone when that person you’re talking bad about is sitting across from you able to hear everything. Would I want my friends to be bad mouthing me while i sit across from them none the wiser. The friend finished her complaints with a relieved sigh. The strange girl was really quiet the entire bus ride. She remained quiet and had her head buried in her backpack the entire time. This was a stark difference from her usual boisterous behavior. We hadn’t thought much of it, I said goodbye to everyone on the bus and left.

Later that night I had a class to attend and the girl who we were talking about was balling her eyes out explaining to the class how she was really upset because her closest friends were gossiping about her. My heart sank, i knew it was wrong and we shouldn’t have done that. Yet, there was a flame of anger in the pit of my stomach, I was pissed. Who gave her the right to bash our names like that and expose our private fight with 30 strangers. She was crying really hard saying she had depression and anxiety and now this had caused her to develop trust issues. I was angry, but I should have forgiven her right? I mean we were the ones who wronged her. Why should I be upset.

Later that night the strange girl had posted something on her instagram. “I can’t believe I just cried in front of a class of fakes and snakes” she was referencing the class from a couple hours ago. Immediately I convinced myself that she was calling me out. She deserved to be upset but had no reason to bash me I convinced myself as I made my way to her direct messages. We fought for a bit, and as the argument continued I lost more compassion towards her and her situation. Somewhere in the mix she began getting really aggressive with me and was not trying to resolve the issue anymore. She was more upset with me then she was with her close friend that was saying really saying nasty things about her. I didn’t think this was fair so I stopped being nice. Petty insults and comments was all I thought was gonna come out of this disagreement but the strange girl had something else in mind. She had made it her goal to tell as many people possible of this fight. And how terrible of a person I am and made sure to tell her mom who told all the moms in the community thatI was a rude girl. The girls evidence for this claim was backed up with the secrets I had trusted her with when we were friends. But I was the one who hurt her first so I should’ve forgiven her. It doesn’t matter what came after, I had to do with the initial incident. So its my fault?

Eventually the fights got more intense and within a week my friends from other schools had heard from the community of this fight. One of these friends was a girl I was friends with since preschool. When I explained to her what had gone down she was really upset and got involved right away, and thank god everything got resolved.