*A/N: Again, please do not be alarmed at my rather vehement display of negative emotion. I promise, I am mostly a happy person. ^_^ However, I am only human, and therefore prone to nasty emotions as well. The point of these letters is honesty, and here you have it.*
...
Yeah, yeah. You’re probably happy to hear from me, you’ve missed me, all that meaningless bull that any given complete stranger from my old school will throw at me. Shut up, I don’t want to hear it. Why pretend you care now?
I would love to use your name. Oh, how releasing that would be… But there are people who follow me here who know you, and they’d be able to show you what I’ve written. And even though you know what you’ve done, I don’t feel like making enemies with you, not concretely.
You're the girl who wrote this note to me during my last week before moving to another school, something along the lines of: “I’m sure you always thought I hated you, but in reality, I was just jealous of how smart and talented you are. Text me!”
Oh, please. Don’t call me smart in a note designed to insult my abilities to read between the lines.
You’re one of them – a dance girl, as I call them. You go to the expensive dance classes for the popular girls, wear your fancy dance academy jacket with your name embroidered on it around school, form that little clique with the girls in your class who dance at the same school you do. Ugh. It makes me nauseated.
I just wanted to tell you how much those nasty looks and rude words meant to me. I’m sure you enjoyed it – making a girl who’s not as skinny as you feel worse with appraising glances and the cold shoulder. Let me know how far that gets you, okay?
Gah, I should be over this by now. The times you teased me incessantly, those times were in fifth and sixth and seventh grade, and I’m in high school now.
I guess, sarcasm aside, I really did learn a few things from you. One, never tangle with the dance girls. Two, never do what it takes to be popular (not that I’d try it, or that I ever have; why would I want to spend my time gossiping and bragging and the like?). Three, it is never attractive to twirl your hair and flash your dimples and act like you’re an empty-headed ditz in front of guys. It isn’t cute and it won’t get you a boyfriend, so. And lastly, there is a social totem pole that is an exhausting and pointless climb. I would never want to be on top of the totem pole, because being in such a place would mean saying terrible things about innocent people, and so much more than that to get there in the first place. But the bottom of the totem pole, at least being on the bottom in your eyes, is an awful place to be. You thought I was weak. You lashed out with your words and shot rude glares with your eyes too many times to count - but it isn't hard to count how many times a teacher noticed you doing this. No, it's no strain at all to remember - because you never once got in trouble.
Thank you, so much. You were one of the first planters of insecurity in me.
You’ve showed me how it feels to be treated like I don’t matter, like I’m not important, and most of all, like I’m not wanted anywhere. Do you know how it feels to receive that kind of vibe from someone, through just one glare? Do you know, and that’s why you treated others, treated me that way?
I’m a firm believer in treating everyone like they matter. I don’t care if everyone else in the entire school hates them – they were put here by God for a reason. So thank you, person who I’d really like to name but won’t, for teaching me how it feels to be treated like you don’t matter. Because while I’d like to let go of how I felt, I also never want to forget. I never want to forget how being treated like dirt feels, as a reminder to never, ever, ever treat anyone else that way.
Thanks, bye.
