Chapter Text
12/10/2013
BAGANI’S PERSPECTIVE
Bagani tended to keep to herself. Or atleast she tried to, but the girls in her class always found a way to make fun of her either way. A month ago, on the first day of class, she was asked to introduce herself and the first thing those girls did was make fun of her accent. She didn’t fully understand why at first, but after experiencing the torment for over a month now, she definitely did.
Bagani hated this school more than anything. She used to be bullied back in the Philippines, but she got even worse here in America. It was supposed be a fresh start for her, her mother and her little brother, but they just ended up poorer than before and Bagani just got treated even worse.
The girl who was responsible for the constant harassment was Victoria Stone. Or, as everyone else called her, Vicky. It was a group of girls that picked on Bagani, but Vicky was the leader of the group. The other girls surrounded her and just cackled like a gaggle of geese.
Bagani hated Vicky more than anything. She wore cheap, tacky clothes for someone with so much money, she stunk of body oder which was poorly covered up by a cheap body spray and she had the kind of laugh that resembled how an elephant sounds. It was like nails on a chalk board.
Today was like any other day, Bagani was outside of the classroom, bracing herself for whatever she had in for her today. It was a Monday, so Vicky probably had something creative planned. Or at least as creative as her simple mind would let her be.
Bagani wasn’t excited for it either way. Whatever. She knew she had to deal with it one way or another. So, she put her hand on the doorknob and took three long breaths— in for four, out for six. Then, she slowly pushed open the door, stepping inside of the classroom.
She almost let out a sigh of relief whenever she saw that Vicky wasn’t in her chair today, meaning that maybe, just maybe, she was out of class that day.
That was until she felt a cold liquid splash against her head and then start to trickle down her face. It wasn’t water. Too thick for that. It was milk. One of the hardest things to wash out once it had been dropped onto something. And she couldn’t go to the bathroom to wash it out now — she’d already been late for too maybe classes and she couldn’t be late for this one. Vicky knew this. And Bagani knew she knew, just by the smug look on her face.
Vicky was like a black hole that fed off of other people’s approval. The sound of her flock behind her laughing their heads off at the sight of Bagani covered in milk was clearly just making her grow and grow into a bigger black hole.
Bagani knew better than to react. She knew it would only make Vicky’s ego bigger than it already was. She hadn’t stopped for a second, not even as the milk splashed all over her. She kept her eyes on the ground and made her way over to her desk, sitting herself down as she tried to tune out the sound of the girl’s loud laughs and block out the smell of the milk starting to soak into her clothes.
They just never stopped laughing. These girls thought everything was funny. It took Bagani weeks to understand they just thought the way she looked was funny. The way she did her hair, the way she dressed herself, the way she had smaller eyes than everyone else. Her existence was like their own personal stand up comedy show. Bagani understood that now.
She only took her eyes off of her desk whenever the laughter had somewhat died down, knowing the teacher would be in the classroom soon and that she’d need to pay attention.
But that was when she realised there was another set of eyes on her. One that wasn’t necessarily judging her the way the other girls were — just observing. Dark eyes locked on emerald, and Bagani found herself looking right at one of the smartest and most popular girls in their school—
Rosie Wilson.
Rosie Wilson was one of those kinds of people who were popular for all of the right reasons. She was pretty, she was smart and most of all she was just sweet and polite to everyone she talked to. She stayed out of trouble, not interfering with anyone’s business.
Bagani didn’t trust it. She didn’t believe anyone could hold that kind of a perfect reputation without having at least some form of a secret to keeping it up. Back where she was from, people who were really smart turned out to be addicts who used drugs to get ahead. She figured that was what was going on with Rosie. Something like that, anyways.
Whenever their eyes locked, Rosie just ended up looking at her for a couple of seconds before casually looking away. To Bagani, it just looked like Rosie was being a snooty bastard like everyone else in this school so she just grumbled and brushed it off. It was normal for people to stare at her like she was lesser then. She was pretty used to it by now.
”Ohhh, Bagani! What you staring at Rosie for, huh?! Got a big crush on her?”
Bagani had learned over the past month just not to answer Vicky. To not even look in her direction. If she gave her a reaction, then she’d just keep going and going and going. If she didn’t respond, that would just make Vicky look pathetic if she kept rambling. So, she just averted her gaze back to her desk. Vicky scoffed at that before turning back to Rosie.
”Rosie, you gonna let this creep look at you like that?”
Bagani held back a sigh. She had a list of the different names Vicky had called her over the past month. There was a lot. ‘Freak’, ‘Dyke’, other slurs. But creep was a new one.
”I’m sure she was looking at the board, Vicky. Don’t worry about me.”
Bagani was honestly surprised that Rosie didn’t just bash her along with Vicky. Anyone else would. But…she’d take it. Not like they’d ever interact again anyways.
Vicky clearly wasn’t all that happy with that response, letting out a scoff and and sigh, crossing her arms over her chest.
”Whatever. But if I were you, I wouldn’t be taking any chances…”
”I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you.”
Bagani quite liked how soft spoken Rosie always was, even if it was directed towards Vicky right now.
She was entirely sure it was fake and put on to seem nicer, but it was still nice to hear someone her age actually being polite to people.
Most people would groan whenever the teacher came into the room and started to teach. Bagani let out a sigh of relief whenever their maths teacher walked in. With an adult present in the room, that gave Vicky no more opportunities to make fun of her. Fifty minutes of peace. Thank god for that.