Your UnSlut Project

Submitted by @elise_fitzmaurice074, Author of the Strongly Angelic series

It all started in my eighth grade year. I had moved two hours from my old school to a small town where I had only been twice in my life. Now mind you, I was born and raised in a city. Not a huge city like New York, but big. My graduating class was supposed to be over one thousand kids, and my eighth grade class had at least three hundred.

Let me point out something: Small schools are not like big schools. In big schools, you're pretty much considered lucky if you hear rumors outside of what happens to the popular kids. In small schools, everybody knows everything about everyone. So picture this: A city girl, who was somewhat known, you can say, at her old school. Most of her friends being guys, and they all got along well. Short, curvy, and talkative. Imagine that girl moving to a small town. Another thing: Kids don't dress the same in small towns as they do in cities. Where I originally came from, every female wore makeup (you didn't catch any girl dead without face makeup). They wore cropped tops and leggings and Ugg boots. The small town didn't dress anywhere near.

When I showed up to my first day of eighth grade, I didn't look like anybody. I was considered pretty modest at my old school, since I didn't wear leggings or low-cut shirts or cropped tops (not that any of that is sleazy). So when I showed up my first day with my makeup layered on, a low-cut shirt with lace barely etching the bottom, dark jeans, and combat boots, I had no idea what would be coming. The girls didn't touch leggings, and most wore high necklines and/or sweatpants. Barely any had their hair done, and not one girl had face makeup on. I ran into maybe three girls who wore mascara.

I was surprised and nervous and I felt like an outcast.

Everyone swarmed me on my first day. While this sounds conceited, I had always known that I was fairly pretty (not stunning, but somewhat pretty)—but that was only because I heard it so much. I had long dark thick hair, thick eyebrows that were waxed to have shape, blue eyes with dark eyelashes, a small nose, and thin lips. I had flaws, just as any other person, however—acne, a crazy personality, eczema (a skin disease that makes your skin itchy), bad eye sight, braces, shortness, a big chest and hips, and a body that I really wasn't comfortable with.

Though, all the same, I was swarmed. Every person wanted my number and to get to know me, and at lunch I was quite literally surrounded by people. I kid you not. I figured that this was a good sign, because at my old school, I 'brought in' a lot of the new kids, and none of them had been swarmed like I had.

When lunchtime came around, all the girls were telling me about how the guys thought I was 'so hot', and how everyone had a crush on me. Again, I figured this was a good thing—when in fact, it really wasn't.

This whole 'popular' thing went on all throughout December (when I first moved). I wasn't happy and I missed my old friends. I wasn't my typical talkative self in school, and I honestly didn't have any real friends. A lot of my first couple of friends caused a lot of crap in my life. Plus, I didn't make an effort to the people who ended up being close friends of mine.

When January rolled in, I started to hear about the rumors. A boy (whose name will not be mentioned) sent me a text that said that people were spreading rumors about me. As in nasty rumors. Though he didn't tell me them. So I sent a friend of mine (who I ended up becoming really good friends with) a text, asking if she had heard anything.

"Yeah," she said, "they're really awful though, are you sure you want to hear them?" I told her yeah, and I ended up receiving a list of rumors.

"Here's what they're saying and calling you:

- Slut

- Whore

- Lost her virginity

- Sends nude pictures"