The Dumped Club

20-If Feelings Ruled Worlds, We'd Be Dead

The true loss of Janelle hit me on the final morning of our trip. I was so tired the previous night that I passed out and didn't even hear the tent next to us chat away into the night. I shook awake at about six in the morning and raced outside to fill my waterbottle with warm water before I made myself coffee in the tent. In my defense, I also had to pack and it was a cold morning.

I chose to pack to keep myself distracted from the thoughts racing in my head and to get it done so I wouldn't procrastinate later on. I started collecting my dirty clothes into a black bag and buried them at the bottom of my large rucksack. Next came my toiletries, medication, raincoat and miscellaneous little things. Prudence started stirring in her position and her eyes slowly peeled open, dark crescents hanging from her waterline.

"Good morning P," I mumbled, tearing my eyes away from my rucksack.

"Morning to you too," she sat up and grimaced, a hand on her stomach. "Ugh! My period must've come overnight- I knew I wasn't just irritated because of the gossipers next door."

"What were they talking about last night?" I settled back down into my sleeping bag, satisfied with my packing. Prudence was silent for a moment, her eyes bored into the mint colour of our tent before replying.

"Me," she answered so quietly but her words rang sharp and clear into my ears. I shifted to face her. She sighed and plunged back into her sleeping bag. Faith's head was in the way but I could still see the tips of Prudence's ear.

"They were all saying that I was a swot, an attention seeking cow and a fat swine. Nothing new I guess,"

My blood boiled and I felt the sudden urge to tear through both tents and punch them all. Prudence sniffed and turned to face the ceiling of the tent. "It broke my record of not crying myself to sleep for a month." A slight tint of purple lined the skin on the bridge of her nose as she spoke but it was barely visible. "I don't know why I expect them to speak golden words when it's just venom spewing out of their mouth all the time."

"How did it start? Why do they hate you?" I curled up in a ball and hopefully waited for her reply.

"It used to be me, Love, Amethyst and Kaydence. We were like best-friends for a long time; absolutely inseparable and we all just kinda 'clicked'. At one point of our friendship, they claimed that I was trying to separate Love from them and they started hating me. They nit-picked at the tiniest details and ripped me apart by highlighting my flaws. They wanted Love to join in and took her away from me while they left me on my own and didn't speak to me. Kaydence started spreading rumors and gossip around the school and soon I was known as 'Fatso'."

She was silent for a while before parting her lips once again. "Love and I weren't really close until we got lost on the beach of Amsterdam last summer. We had to rely on each other to find our way back to our brother and parents, and it was like oiling a rusted bike. Another reason why we weren't particularly close was because we got compared so much."

"I remember that," I said, propping myself on my elbow and taking a sip of my coffee. "People at school would cat-call you while Love would get praised and have a flock of friends surrounding her in all of the lessons and breaktimes and lunchtimes."

"They just didn't want to get to know me," Prudence's voice was strained. "People just assumed I was one of those boring girls who just studies and reads, which I guess I am. I'm not trying to pity myself but it really hurt me when they were shaming me because of the grades that I got or because of the body that I had."

Faith buried her head under the hood of her sleeping bag and I could make out Prudence's teary brown eyes. "It hurt like hell when they would always say that I wasn't good enough."