About You

Life is filled with billions of things that either amount to something good or bad. My name is Cassidy Thorne (Cass for short), and this is the story of how my life went to hell and something amazing still came out of it.

I’m a 17-year-old girl with long black curly hair, who is also 5’10. I wouldn’t exactly call myself invisible, but I wish I were. I go to Cal Ridge High School in a small town 40 minutes from Chicago, and all I can say is high school is a fucking nightmare. People will do anything to make themselves look better (on social media or by bullying others), everyone gossips about one another, and no one knows how to be a decent human being. I’m not fully letting myself off the hook and saying I’m perfect because we all know that’s not true, but I can tell you that I never stand there and let people hurt others on purpose. That just isn’t me. I am the type of person who stands up for those when they need it, but I usually try to keep to myself. I don’t have any real close friends except for Kate, but she went to college in Scotland (she is a year older), so we don’t talk much anymore. I won’t lie and say I don’t feel lonely because I do, but without having any close friends, I never have to deal with the drama that no one will even care about once we graduate (which is only in 132 days). I was somewhat invisible my entire high school career until about a week ago when I saved a new student from harassment by other girls in my grade. I wouldn’t exactly say I kept her though because she was being harassed for about a week until I did something. My class is full of snitches and rich divas there is no good thing about them. They are their rude selves, and most of them are dating players on our football team, which shows their standards because all of the guys are douchebags. But that’s beside the point.

When I was younger around third grade, I just moved to Cal Ridge with my parents and my older sister (older by three years). We came from a small town in Montana, and there really isn’t anything there, so moving to the Chicago area was a huge change. Since my sister is three years older, she was in a different school because she was in sixth grade, while I was stuck in first grade. When I was in grade school, I was in love with reading it was my ultimate distraction from the disappointments in life. I had no friends for a while after we moved which didn’t bother me, but one day during recess I was sitting under an enormous willow tree reading Magic Treehouse: Summer of the Sea Serpent and a girl in my class snuck up on me. She was shorter for most girls our age, but she had her blonde, almost white, hair in two french braids and was wearing a pretty blue dress which brought out her blue eyes.

“Hi, would you like to play with me? My name is Haley. Haley Hanson” She asked kindly.

“I-I’m Cass,” I stuttered.

“Isn’t that a boys name?” She laughed.

“Well obviously not because I am a girl,” I said as I stood up. “Let’s play!” I said with a smile.

Haley Hanson. We were friends until freshman year when she said she didn’t want to be my friend anymore because I wasn’t popular or pretty enough. That is where our friendship ended and came to think of it I don’t even know why she was my friend, to begin with. I’m not going to lie and say I have felt particularly good about myself after she said that. To be honest, I never really had much confidence or self-love, to begin with, and she knew that, but she still went there and wholly shattered the tiny part of me that loved myself. She is, well might be dating Simon Krane, who is the captain of the football team. Simon Krane is 6’1 with dirty blonde hair and blue eyes (and quite muscular if I may say so myself), but of course, he is the biggest asshole I’ve ever met. I wouldn’t exactly call him a player because I don’t think he is, but he is an arrogant prick that believes everything he does makes him equivalent to god somehow. But he isn’t the only one who thinks/acts like that its everyone who does, and I’m the only person somewhat normal.

Haley and her friends think that it is fun to “haze” new students practically bullying people when they see fit. In freshman year they threw water balloons at me on my way to class, so ever since then, I’ve tried to stay on the down low so that it won’t happen again. The football players usually join in and a bunch of other people because I guess they think causing other people to suffer is funny to them. Last year, when people painted and keyed this one girl’s car (off school property) I was friends with I told myself never again, so whenever they decide to bully someone like that I try to intervene and stop them before any damage can be done. Most of the time I’m lucky and make them cease their actions. But I wasn’t so fortunate when it came to Avery. A new girl named Avery recently moved here, and right away she became Haley’s new interest. I don’t know if she just wanted to make fun of her or get Avery’s attention, but it worked. Before she left me as a friend she came out and told me she was Bisexual, and Avery seems to be her type (girly, brown-haired, and taller than her), so at first, I wasn’t sure what her intentions were, but I realized while in action what they were.

As I was walking from Chemistry to my English class during the passing period, I saw loads of people running to the same place, so I decided to follow them to the source. I pushed my way through the immense crowd to see what was going on and when I finally got to the front I was in disbelief. Haley was standing over Avery surrounded by all of her friends, and she was holding what seemed like a strawberry smoothie, and half of it was on Avery’s head.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I yelled as everyone fell silent and Haley started laughing.

“What do you think is going on? Are you that dumb?”

“Leave her alone. You don’t have to do this she did nothing to you,” I said while turning my head towards Avery. “Just go on I’ll handle this.” She didn’t even think twice, and she ran away sobbing.

“Why are you doing this,” I said with a hint of desperation in my voice as she started making her way towards me.

“I’m doing this because its fun,” said while standing right in front of me.

Then out of nowhere Simon Krane walked toward Avery and grabbed her arms and turned to her, “Avery that’s enough.”

Immediately after he said that she pulled her arm away, she started to tip the cup right over my head. “Don’t tell me what to do Krane and anyways I’m doing this because I want to.”

I stood there wishing I didn’t exist. I was in the middle of a never-ending circle of people all just laughing at me. As I looked up from the ground, I made eye contact with Simon and pushed my way past him and his friends, rushing to the bathroom. I won’t cry, I have to hold up a bit longer.

Once I get to the nearest bathroom, I lock myself in the biggest stall and drop to the ground crying. At first, I was confused about why I was crying in the first place. I mean, yes I was humiliated in front of a bunch of people, and now my clothes are ruined, and I don’t have any spare clothes. I can’t go home because dad’s working till 10 pm tonight, so I have no other option but to try and clean myself up and make it through the day. I take off my blouse and put it under the sink, luckily none of the smoothie got on my tank top I was wearing underneath, but just wearing the tank top was against the dress code. As soon as the shirt is somewhat wearable and dry, I hastily make my way to my history class even though it started 10 minutes ago. For a moment, when I arrive at the classroom, I debate whether or not I should enter. Will everyone stare at me and judge me? I used to not care what people thought about me until middle school, why did that have to change? Why can’t I be more happy with who I am?

As I try and sneak into the back of the classroom one of the football players, Aiden Callahan “clears his throat” while looking and me smiling.

“Ah. Ms. Thorne, I didn’t think you were going to be joining us see as your 20 minutes late,” Mrs. Allyway said.

“I’m sorry I’m late I was… I was…”

“Just take your seat.” I rushed into my seat without even thinking, and then I give Aiden the death stare.

“As I was saying… We will be starting our partner projects, and I’ve already chosen your partners. Once I say everyone’s assigned partner get together, and you can choose your period for your presentations.”

“Emma and Brant… Aiden and Tommy… Sarah and Amy… Simon and Cass.”

When she said, my partner was Simon I felt my heart stop. There is no way, NO WAY I AM WORKING WITH SIMON FUCKING KRANE! Right as she finished stating who was partners with who she made us all find out partners and plan out what we were going to do.

“Hey Cass,” he said unable to look me in the eyes. “I’m sorry about what happened today I tried to stop her, but you know Haley… always gets what she wants.”

I say nothing.

“I know you’d rather do this project with anyone else… well probably not Aiden, but you know what I mean. It’s just that I have a pretty low grade in this class and this semester’s halfway done, so it’s kind of like my last chance y’know.”

“I don’t want to be your partner, and you should have stopped her from doing that to Avery. You can’t just let yourself off the hook like what you’re doing right now. It’s wrong but what else would I expect from you,” I blurt out.

“What you’d expect from me?”

“Yeah, I mean everyone pegs you as an asshole, so this whole thing kinda just makes sense.”

He stared at me then looked down at the dusty ground. I don’t know why, but it kind of felt like I hurt a little puppy. I thought he was going to start crying and if he did, I knew my only option was run like hell.

“I’m not a bad person, and I admit I’ve done stupid things and I am sorry. Isn’t that enough?”

“If you are sorry and you want to work on this project together, will you tell Haley to stop harassing people… it’s wrong.”

“I’ll tell her. I promise you I will tell her.”

“Alright fine. We can do our project on the 1960s, and I’m not doing all of the work, so we have to work on this together, got it. And if you don’t tell her what I said I would do this project by myself and leave you behind.” Once I finish talking he puts on this expression (which I think is his thinking face). After a second he looks at me in the eyes and holds out his hand.

“I think we’ve got ourselves a deal,” he says smirking.

I shake his hand.

Am I doing the right thing?