It was back in my sixth grade year when I had my first run in with bullying first-hand. I had just gotten home from my friend, Kayla's, when my mom told my other friend, Katie, was looking for me. So, like a good friend, I went to go see what she wanted. When I found her, she was playing with our mutual friend, Hannah. I relayed what my mom had told me to both Katie and Hannah and waited patiently for Katie to reply when Hannah leaned over and whispered in her ear.
"I don't want to play with you anymore," Katie said, probably repeating what Hannah said.
"Well it's not my fault you didn't tell my mom that," I snapped.
"She's playing with me," Hannah interjected.
"Yeah, I see that," I said coldly.
"Well then leave, we don't want to play with you," Hannah said, snobbishly.
"That’s fine. I didn't want to play with you anyway," I said, turning and walking away.
"Yeah, cause you’re a brat!" Hannah called after me.
"Yeah, well you're a b****!" I called back before running in my house, slamming the door, and then racing up to my room.
The next day, I went to school and tried to talk to my friends, but they all ignored me except for Kayla. Kayla explained to me that Hannah started turning everyone she knew against me, failing to persuade Kayla though. I felt relieved that Kayla still talked to me, but she wasn't in the same class as me, making the partner work we had to do hard since no one wanted to be my partner.
Then one day the principle called me, Hannah and Katie down to the office. It turns out my mom had called the principle to tell her what was going on because I was so stressed and emotionally hurt that I couldn't bring myself to eat anything. The principle questioned Hannah, then Katie, both of them putting on apologetic faces and basically lying before they left, leaving me alone with the principle. While we were alone I finally broke down. The principle asked me what was wrong, and through the tears I managed a quiet: "It's just hard..."
She told me that I couldn't let the 'bullying' get to me and that I had to remain strong so that they'd eventually get bored and leave me alone. I just nodded and tried to stop my tears.
Even though Hannah and Katie both apologized, the ostracizing still continued. I felt bad for Kayla because while she was with me, no one would talk to her. I was ignored by everyone, except Kayla, until near the end of the year when I finally managed to get one of the girl's in my class, Beth, to listen to me. In almost an hour it seemed like the people who had been ostracizing me were acting like we had been friend's that entire time and started to ignore Hannah and Katie.
After a couple of days, Hannah couldn't take being an outcast and apologized to me. After that we had a pretty shaky friendship, working past the betrayal and becoming almost inseparable.