“It’s hard to be good.”
I read that the other day, and thought about the different ways it could be interpreted. First, there’s the obvious That’s What She Said. Then there’s the idea that people try to be “good” but sink back into smoking, or being bitchy. Last there’s the way it applies to me - being good is hard.
I switched schools for this year, hoping to enter a learning environment where everybody didn’t hate me. I was sick of the whispers and giggles, the rumours that made me laugh at first and grew to hurt. I was tired of having the classmates I was closest to hurt me the most. My new school was fantastic. Everybody smiled and said hi to me in the hallways, laughed at my jokes, invited me to spend time with them. A few months into the school year, I discovered that a girl in my class (for today, her code name is Scar, on account of she reminds me of the villain in The Lion King) was being abused at home. I was shocked and appalled, having only heard of anything like it in the newspapers or on TV. I couldn’t imagine anyone going through what she did, getting beaten up and threatened by her dad. I needed to do something, I don’t have it in me to hear somebody in pain and not do everything I can to save them.
I couldn’t believe that her friends at school had known for six YEARS and done nothing. I had known Scar for less than four months and I was already planning to help her. We weren’t that close, and I didn’t like her enough to want anything to do with her after the year ended and we weren’t at the same school anymore, but I didn’t let that stop me. I called Social Services about her dad, something she was too frightened to do herself. Then I begged my parents to let Scar move in with us while Social Services found her a home. They finally agreed, and Scar was sharing my (ridiculously tiny) bedroom, using the bathroom when I needed it most, using my laptop (which I consider my inanimate child) without my permission, borrowing my clothes and hairbrush (I rinsed it out afterwards with boiling water. It’s not that I think she’s diseased or anything, I just hate Essence of Other People in my hair), and talking to me. We went to school together, are in the same class for all our cores, hang out with the same friends, came home together, and shared my bedroom. This went on for FOUR WEEKS. I wanted to scream from all the time NOT spent alone. I’m a bit of a loner at heart - I love my big pack of friends, and I surround myself with people that love me, but I crave space like nothing else. Clingy people terrify me, and within two days of spending that much time with one person, I wanted to revert to a child and lock her outside until I felt better. It took a week for her to notice.
When she did notice that I was cold and distant, she told her boyfriend. Reading paragraph after paragraph from him on facebook, calling me a bitch and saying how much he hated me (before she moved in, he and I were friends) hurt. Especially since she was using my laptop without asking, so I was reading it from the family computer. Then I went away for a week with my family, and when I returned to school no one would talk to me. My friends wouldn’t even look at me. It took me a few days to figure out what was up. Scar had been telling all our friends that I was a complete bitch, that I ignored her, my mom called her ugly, my dad yelled at her, my family didn’t feed her, etc. All lies. All eaten up by my friends. Everyone hated me. It never occurred to any of them that if my family and I were that horrible, we wouldn’t have taken her in in the first place. It didn’t occur to Scar that she might have been dead if I hadn’t offered her my house, or how pathetic it was that she was backstabbing the one person who did take her in to all her friends that wouldn’t. And she was still living in my bedroom, using my baby without asking, snoring at night, pretending she wasn’t purposely making people hate me. I went through the week one day at a time, being ignored by everyone as a result of doing something incredibly kind.
On Friday, I discovered that (code names are in use) Orange Juice realized how unfair to me Scar was being. She and her sister Wiggles were the only people at my school willing to stick up for me, and be my friends. I couldn’t appreciate these two more, it makes school bearable know that I have two people who believe in me enough to know that Scar is lying about how horrible I am. If I wasn’t an atheist, I’d ask god to bless you two, you deserve something wonderful in your lives. At the end of the sixth week of Scar living with me, she was (FINALLY) placed in a foster home.
I think Scar is a disgusting human being for being so incredibly ungrateful, and for purposely ruining my first good year in a while, after what I did and gave up for her. I think her boyfriend is an asshole for repeatedly saying that I’m a bitch, both to myself and to my best friend. I want the people at school to realize the mistake they’re making, and grovel for forgiveness from the kindest person out of all of them, but I don’t want their friendship back. People who would believe such utter bullshit about me, turn on me without a word, and stand by while Scar was hurt until I did something, are not the kind of people I want as my friends. I’ve gone through school friendless, isolated and completely miserable before, I can do it again. There are exactly 69 days left in the school year, and that’s it. Then I plan to never see these people again.
Love,
Just Joan
