It really was a normal day. I had gotten home from school and shrugged off my jacket and boots. The boots were lined with a thick layer of late March mud. After sort of starting and almost finishing my much too difficult math homework I did what every teenager does, turned on my ipod and started flicking through social media. First Instagram. As a homework deflecting technique I chose to look at every single picture every one of my friends had posted. First Clara, the bff. Then her gay best friend Jamie. Now Jamie and I had never really been good friends, but I felt as though being on the high school swim team together brought us closer. What I found proved that I was just so wrong.

About half way down his page I see a picture. A picture from our swim season, a picture with me in it. The caption read “stupid blonde b****”. As I was the only blonde in the picture it seemed rather obvious who the caption was about. The moment I saw those words my heart fell. But it didn’t fall, it plummeted, I have never felt anything like it. Sort of a betrayal. I needed to see more. I needed to know what he had said about me.

Immediately I go to his twitter account. Not long after I started scrolling I found my name. “Lillie is a fat stupid c***”. The post had 5 likes. That moment I could not breathe. I had never realized how much someone’s opinion could affect me like this. There was no comfort that would make this moment better. I not only lost a friend, but realized he was never a friend to begin with.

Other people I knew told me I was overreacting. A thought that had occurred to me once or twice. Then I saw the post, the picture again and my heart dropped and my throat swelled all over. I did not overreact. He hurt me and now I finally feel secure enough to admit to myself and everyone around me that this affected me, it tore me up inside. I recovered from being hurt, but he will never recover from being a bully.