One time my friends and I stood idly by. In middle school I was never good at making friends because I was always socially awkward. So, it was easy for me to always stand idly by since I was always a quiet person to begin with. Plus, I never wanted to get on anyone’s bad side.

My first friend was Kristen, but when I made friends with her I quickly found an enemy that would try to ruin our friendship. Brooklyn was the devil of middle school; she never liked anyone but her two friends. She was always mean to everyone and tried to pick fights. When Kristen wanted me to read a poem of hers Brooklyn immediately took it and threw it. She yelled at Kristen and all I did was stand there. I was too scared to really do anything, but I regret not helping her. Maybe if I would have stood up for her, things might have been different after that.
Later on it seemed as though Brooklyn just focused on me and tried to create problems for me. In Science, she started whispering things to her friends about me. I ignored her and tried to focus on talking to my friend about the lesson. She thought I was talking about her. That’s when she stood up and just started yelling at me in front of the whole class asking if I wanted to fight but I sat there while she just created a scene. After that she was sent to the dean, and the teacher talked to me after class like I provoked her. Sometimes I wish one of my friends would have had my back and tell her to leave me alone, but I guess she didn’t want anything to happen to her.

I now realize that what she did was for nothing, and I should have told a teacher about what was going on. But later that year Brooklyn moved, so I went through the rest of the year enjoying time with my friends. Whenever someone gets picked on I try my best to stand of for them, I do that because I’ve been there and I know how it feels to be there.