I have never been one to deal with people being rude. I’m not alone in this, I’m sure. I can’t stand them. In my mind, a rude person is something like the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse. Of course, that could just be me. Be wary, for this will be one of the pettiest, most typical ‘high school’ things you will read.

I was taking an English class. It consisted of about sixteen people, which was remarkable. Now, some of these people were struggling with English. I was really quite good at English, and I often helped these people who struggled. I just wanted everyone to do well. Now, there was a girl in my class. Her name was Harper. Harper thought that she was the most wonderful thing since peanut butter. I wish she had been. In truth, she was quite possibly one of the meanest girls I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. She was also shallow in her thoughts, and held the idea that the young men in our class would think she was more attractive if she acted like a ditz. She often ridiculed other girls who weren’t as athletic, pretty, or ‘demure’ as she. She took pleasure in making fun of the Chinese Exchange student’s English. That was the kind of girl she was. We had clashed over social issues before, and it had apparently left her with a bitter taste in her mouth, whereas I had thought nothing of it.

Some of the other students requested that we make a group message in case we needed to recover files, communicate, and whatnot. Our professor consented, so we did. None of us put our names, for some odd reason. Only our numbers showed up on screen, and for the life of me, I’d never memorized them. Either way, I never looked at the chat. I had never needed to. One day, we were all doing some studying. Our professor had given us the rest of the day free- there was an impending exam that we needed to study for, and we were her smallest class. Now, I happened to make the mistake of looking at the chat during this time. Here’s what I was greeted with:

“Someone check the server.”

“Hey, is the server down for our website?”

“I don’t know. Ask Maria. She’s smart.”

“She’s also a massive bitch.”

I felt sick. It was a small jab. It was an insult that should’ve met nothing. I could’ve laughed it off. However… it stung. For some reason, it really hurt. I supposed it was because I always valued being nice to people. As far as I knew, I hadn’t done anything to deserve being called names. As I stared at it, I tried to think of anyone who could possibly want to call me a bitch. Was I? Well, I was outspoken. I disagreed with things I thought were morally wrong and was vocal about it. I didn’t let people say nasty things about other people. I don’t know why it angered me. Then, it hit me. Harper. I don’t know how I jumped to this conclusion, but it seemed to be the most logical.

I turned around in my seat, facing her. I plastered a smile on my face, laughed, and said…

“Oh, Harper. I’m not a bitch. I am THE bitch.”

I turned around and didn’t look back. I wish I could say that I was doing it to be cool, but in truth, I was kinda terrified with myself. I could hear her sputtering to answer, but there was nothing. According to my class, her face had gone bright red and then had gone pale. She apologized later. Man, I’m so glad I was right.