Emily

*NOTE: Some names were changed/abbreviated/omitted on purpose. It really shouldn't add/detract from the story.*





"Okay everybody, I'm going to give you..." he looks at the clock, "fifteen minutes to find two partners to work with for the stock project. Three people per group." Everybody gets up to find their groups. I know one partner, Emily C- my absent friend.

I turn around. "hey, Skylar, do you want to be in my group?" Skylar and I are friends-not best friends, but close enough to do projects together, and say hi in the halls.

"Oh, wow. I'm so sorry, but I already promised another person I'd be in their group. This is awkward. I'm so sorry!"

I smile. "It's fine. Don't worry." Emily D is approaching me. If ever there was a girl who would get into some serious trouble later on in life, she was her. Naturally, I want no affiliation with her. I'm straight-A, Honors/AP student in a regular economics class. Naturally, she wants every affiliation with me. Talk about a conflict of interest. Conveniently, there's another *slower* girl still sitting at her desk. "Tammy! Do you want to be in a group with me and Emily C?"

Then, "Hey- Can I be in your group?" her leering, smiling face looking down at my panicked one. "Sorry. I have a group of three already- me, Tammy and Emily C."

a laugh-scoff only she knows how to do, combined with hair twirling and fidgeting, is followed with, "But Emily's not even here today."

I ignore that last comment and tel the teacher "i have my group of three- I'm drafting in Emily C, and Tammy's in my group too." He gives me a notecard. I go back to my seat. I sit back down for a bit.

"Hey, so Mr. H said that since there's thirty-four people in our class we can have a group of four." Her triumphant smile flashes at me. I sigh, very obviously irked. She knows I dislike her, and the feeling is mutual. Why she wants to be in my group, besides for a free ride to an A, beats me. I reluctantly write her name on the notecard. It now reads: 1. Emily C. 2. Tammy G. 3. Emily D. 4. Dragon S.

"So whats our group name?" I ask, taking charge and making the best of this.

"How about... crisis?" Emily suggests.

Trying to be light-hearted, I ask, "Why do we want to be a CRISIS?"

Tammy just laughs awkwardly.

Our team name is supposed to be economics-related. Crisis was a conveniently bolded word on the page. Obviously the effort was not there.

"Ok, fine." she flips a few pages. "How about... Free Enterprise?"

I consider this. "Ok. We're the Free Enterprisers then. Who'll be our team leader?"

"I vote Tammy, Because she's the oldest. Right, Tammy?"

Tammy laughs awkwardly, like, I really don't know why you want me as leader, but I'll go along with you, I suppose. Something else I noticed about the present Emily- she'll throw you under the bus, anytime, anywhere, without any hesitation. I witnessed her do this to Tammy, in front of the class.

Emily continues on. "I pick Tammy, and she picks herself. I think majority wins on this one. Tammy will be our leader."

I'm not letting Emily get away with this. I want-no, need- to be group leader, if this project is going to float. All I say is "We'll see." I go up to the front whiteboard to write our group name and member list.

We all return to our respective assigned seats. Tammy and I sit rather close to each other, so later on, when we begin designing the group logo, she sits in front of me, with Emily sitting to my right. The teacher's desk is on the left side of the classroom, so my back is half faced towards Emily, as I listen to directions and begin brainstorming with Tammy.

"What should our logo look like?" I ask her.

"How about a guy standing inside a circle?" She suggests. I draw that on the notecard's blank side.

Emily R (there's 3 Emiliy's in this class), who sits in front of me, usually, asks to borrow a pencil, so I lend her the one in my hand and take out another from my battered and beaten pencil pouch.

"Hmm... Something's missing. I can't place a finger on it, though." Tammy says.

A tap on the desk Tammy is sitting in comes soon after- "Hey, turn your seat around. I'm in this group, too. You too, Dee."

"It's fine," I say. "I can just turn my body".

She asks, "Are you mad or something?"

I muster the most tired voice I can fake, and reply, "No, I'm just not feeling well today." I've used this excuse many times with her, last year in psychology class. We drop it there.

"How about..." Emily says something unintelligible to both Tammy and me.

Tammy and I both say "what?" at the same time.

"Oh, never mind. ahahaha." a clipped, very staccato laugh that's hard to explain without mimicking. Tammy and I both let it go. Emily next suggests, "how about flowers?" She repeats herself. "never mind. just kidding. ahahaha."

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if she's stoned or high on something. Even my sister affirms this suspicion.

Emily then leans in, towards Tammy. "Tammy, I'm only going to ask you this, because I know that Dee is going to, like, shoot down my idea if I ask her. How about dollar bills?"

I only elaborate on her idea. "How about we have the guy be holding money bags?" I ask.

"uhng, Nah. ahahaha." is Emily's response.

Hypocrite much? I'm seriously mad at this point, so I don't say anything else for the rest of that brainstorm period.

I guess Emily must have liked my money bag suggestion, though, deep down, somewhere, because a few minutes later, she suggests, "How about we have money bags?" She gets Tammy to draw money bags.

At this point, I'm royally pissed. I tell myself to stay calm in front of everyone, though.

The questioning starts. "Wait, aren't you, like, Budapest?" Emily asks.

No joke. This girl hasn't the faintest clue what she's saying, and I don't know what's going inside that airhead she has.

"No, I'm not from Budapest."

For those who have read some of my other pieces, or know me, I'm Buddhist, and I know that's exactly what she's referring to. She's just not worth my breath for that correction.

"No, I mean, like, y'know, the Buddha? Like, don't you follow the Buddha, or something? Y'know, like Buddhist?"

My next few answers are all the same monosyllabic word: "yeah."

I answer that question, then "Is your whole family, like Buddhist?", and then "Aren't Buddhists supposed to be, like NICE, and like, NOT HATE PEOPLE?" She puts special emphasis on those descriptions.

If looks could kill, I think we'd both probably be dead by now. I hesitate to say that I hate Emily, because I do have a passionate dislike for her, and unchecked, it could turn into something bad, I feel like. I breathe, and she doesn't say anything after that, probably pleased at having achieved her goal. Mr. H calls for our attention. I turn my back to Emily again, though my textbook is halfway on her borrowed desk. He tells everyone to take out a sheet of paper and to take notes on what we don't understand, while he plays CNBC for 10-15 minutes. Emily R. returns my pencil- we both say thank you. I put aside the one I have in my hand and use the returned pencil again. Emily D. now asks to borrow a pencil. I lend her the one i just put away. As we watch CNBC, I hear her clicking away at my pencil- not a good sign. There is lead in there, that i'm sure of. Then, I see her sweep something off the desk. If she's wasting my lead, I'm not surprised either, though I'd have no proof of that. She tosses the pencil onto my textbook once she sees me observing. I quickly put it back into the tattered pouch and refocus my attention on CNBC, which I must admit, is much more interesting than I would have ever given it credit for.

Once CNBC is over, and each group shares the confusing word/phrase mentioned on TV, everyone returns to his/her original seating chart seat. I keep the note card, since it is my desk, anyways. Class is about to end. The teacher calls for all the notecards.

I hope to hold on to it until after the bell rings, but upon seeing him proceeding to staple them together, I call out," I have one right here!"

He looks at it. "It doesn't have a leader or e-mail."

I star my name and put down my e-mail, indicating myself as leader.

The lunch bell rings.

I take my dear time packing up, and wait for everybody else to leave the room. "Is it possible to switch her out of my group?" I ask once the class is empty, as I approach the teacher's desk to turn in the notecard and ask about a test question. I'm near tears already, but I hold it in then.

"We have 34 people in our class. There has to be a group of four,"

I nod, then continue. "I mean, I'm pretty sure she knows I don't like her, and I don't think she really likes me either, so I really don't know why she would want to be in my group."

He looks up above his glasses at me, "we'll see what we can do next class."

I nod again. "Ok. Thank you." I turn and put the test back into my bag, and leave.

The cold air is refreshing and it helps stop my want to cry. I hide out in the library, and bump into Ashley. I ask the librarian, "is there any way you can pull me out of 2nd period from now until the stock project is over?"

I let my bag thump onto the ground and sink down besides it. I look up at Ashley, after the librarian shakes her head, "I can't do that. Sorry."

"Please. Have mercy on me. KILL ME NOW." I drop my head between my knees.

Clearly, she finds this amusing. "What's going on?"

I reply with a question. "How do you tell someone, nicely, 'I really don't like you. I can't stand your guts. Please, get out of my face.'?"

She says, "hmm. I'm not quite sure. Why?"

I tell her the basics of my predicament.

"That is an issue." She told me she used to be Emily's friend, in middle school, when, apparently, Emily in middle school was very different from Emily now. Ashley's final suggestion is to hole up somewhere and just stay there.

Taylor ends up coming in, to ask if club packets are out yet-they're long overdue to be available. We go to the ASB room together- the three of us, because it also helps take my mind off crying, again. We look around the Faculty Dining Room-converted to the ASB room, and come up with nothing. Ashley bravely asks the aides sitting at one of the tables if they might know where the club packets are. We look where one lady points, and don't find anything. Next door, the ESL teacher is on the phone, but smiles at us as we enter her room, waiting for her to finish her call. A minute or so later, she pauses her call to help us look online for the packet, to come up with nothing. The bell to end lunch rings, so we head back to the library and go to third period.

Frustrated with Emily, after school, I go over to talk with a teacher I had last year, but visit periodically. She asks how I am, and I regale the whole story to her. I end up crying, because I just can't hold it in anymore. Her take on the situation when I reveal that I'm at my wit's end as to how to deal with Emily is that she definitely knows she's bugging me, and is doing this on purpose. She knows that I don't like her, yet, I don't want to be mean to her, so I end up letting her get to me. She's utilizing the large psychological advantage she has over me, and utilizing it well to her advantage.

Apparently, that's bullying. I definitely wasn't aware of this, and the teacher told me, that this girl needs to be called out on her act. She marches me over to the counseling office, where she demands to see my counselor, who has, apparently, left for the day already. She settles with the vice-principal and head of the counseling department. We go into her office, where she makes me tell her the whole story- and afterwards, she agrees that Emily is definitely taking advantage of me. My teacher asserts that one of us needs to be moved, or else it won't stop. I affirm that I don't mind being moved groups, and letting Emily stay.

Ms. R, the vice-principal, gives me an "incident report" form for me to fill out, and tells me I can stay in her office and fill it out, if I wished, even thought it was getting late. I told her that my mom was probably waiting for me, but I really didn't want my mom to find out about this. Both the teacher and vice-principal agreed on this. Ms. R tells me to fill it out that night, and give it to either her or the secretary out in front if she is already in her meeting the next morning.

Ultimately, after meeting with the counselor, I decide to take on Emily myself- maybe the teacher will move her. I get to second period super early the next class, and talk to the teacher about moving Emily. I mention she was making rude comments, and I give him examples when he asks for them.

He moves her, and since we are taking a test that day, I have no interaction with her. Even when I go over to talk with Emily C, Emily D does not say anything, to my surprise. She sits right next to Emily C, to her left.

The teacher informs Emily D of her group change- and I know she suspects I'm behind it, but I have so far avoided interaction with Emily since then, and if we ever do have to talk, I'm going to quote my teacher, in saying, "Let's just get to the facts. I don't like you. You don't like me. I leave you alone. You leave me alone. Do we have a deal?"

If she says yes, then great. If not, and she tells me, "I can do whatever I damn please," or any other more vulgar variation of that, I can go back and report her as threatening me.

Sounds like a great plan.



After Wednesday's episode, I tried to stay away from Emily whenever possible. Friday was test day. I had a day and weekend to recoup after her verbal attacks. I wait for a minute or so after Emily has returned to her seat, so I can go to the trash can. I turn around, she is out of her seat, coming towards me, and almost brushes me. "hey!" she sings. I ignore her. "keep walking." I mentally tell myself. "Ignore her." So I do. Almost to my seat, and she's coming back around. "Can I ask you a question?" "This is the time." I tell myself. "Tell her off." Yet I don't. I wimp out. I wait, and since nobody's responding to Emily, I ask, "me?" all surprised. "yeah. Is the senior section done?" You know, I never even told you you could ask me a question. Maybe I'm sounding a bit antagonistic here, but I really don't want to deal with Emily. I use what my sister called a "dismissive" voice, and told her, "yeah. it's done and submitted. So you can't make any more changes." She's sauntered her way back to her seat by now, and tells me, "I wasn't going to make any changes. I just wanted to know." Yeah right. In the last decent conversation I had with you, you wanted to change something on your senior packet. I lied to you- again- saying you couldn't. OF course you don't want to change anything. her next line bugs me. "You don't have to be so mean about it." Umm, excuse me? You asked me a question. I answered. Now you're calling me mean? I go to my friend Skylar, and ask "did you hear that?!" softly. My eyes feel like they could catch on fire, and I had so much adrenaline I would've probably strangled someone if given the chance. "No, hear what?" Skylar asks. "She just called me mean!" "kinda rude, too, don't you think?" The next zinger comes. "Wait. Me?!" I ask incredulously. "Yeah! You're gossiping about me. Isn't that kinda mean and rude?" She asks. This girl really has some nerve. "You have no proof." I respond. I know that's a weak argument, but it's all I can think of at that time.

Tomorrow, if she does that to me again, I'm going to tell her off. I promised the teacher I would. I'm going to follow through. If she can get away with saying that stuff, so can I!