I floated through middle school unnoticed and was close to no one besides my cat. I was the type of girl who people looked over and didn’t give a second thought to. My name is Addie, but they called me fatty. That was my nickname for as long as I can remember. Some of the girls even sang it as a chant. Thanks mom for the awesome name, I really appreciated it. In eighth grade all of the other girls were finding their friend groups and their new “best friends”. I was that girl who sat in the bathroom alone and ate my Pb&j sandwich. You thought that only happened in movies right? Well true story actually, I did it everyday.

Surprisingly I made it freshman year, and suddenly everything changed. I grew out of my baby fat just like mom always said that I would and everything filled in. By everything I mean I grew boobs like overnight and I had a nice booty, and boys did notice if you know what I mean. I learned the skilled art of applying make up and how to dress myself in a presentable way. I no longer hid in my treasured sweatshirt and sweat pants.
The girl that had scarred me with the name “ Fatty Addie” suddenly started giving me compliments and asked me to eat lunch with them. No more eating lunch in the handicap stall of the bathroom!
As time went on I started to be a different kind of girl. I was now that girl. The kind of girl who everyone wanted to sit with, the girl that all of the boys wanted to ask to the school dances.
I remember what I had told myself on the last day of middle school. I remember thinking that no matter what I need to keep my head up, and become the best. I would show all of my peers that kind of girl that I could become, and boy they were in for a surprise. I would show them what it felt like to be on the bottom.

Freshman and sophomore year came and went in the blink of an eye. As the days and months went on, I learned how to manipulate people into doing what I wanted. It felt as though I was on top of the world. I believed that I was the goddess of the school and everyone worshiped the ground that I walked on. That’s right, I was the queen bee. I was on top of the world.

I was mean to everyone who pissed me off. If they were on my bad side, I manipulated everyone around me to hate them. I would make up lies and spread rumors. Every nasty thing I said, every mean comment that I made, every girl that I made cry gave me a sense of power. I used my words to rip the self-confidence of girls to shreds. I loved feeling in power. I had the entire school wrapped around my little finger. I soaked it all in like rays of sunshine. I was addicted to feeling in charge; I loved the feeling of power and self worth.
One day I was looking back at some old photos of myself from back in the day, and I thought, look at how far I have come. I used to bullied and depressed and now I am on top. I won, I thought to myself.

My four-year sentence that was high school went by so fast, before I knew it, it was time for college. I was so excited! I could not wait because those were going to be my glory days. Parties, boys and my friends to surround me. It turned out that several people that I knew including some of the people I considered my best friends, were going to be going to the same college as me.

The first day of classes started and I thought it was going to be a great day. Unfortunately I was sadly mistaken. Girls that I had known from high school were in some of my classes. I tried to be nice and make conversation but could you guess what they did? They ignored me! I couldn’t believe it. How dare they, I was the queen bee, I was their leader and they just walked away. I was astounded and then could you guess what happened next. Some girl had the nerve to tell me that no one liked me because I was a b**** and people had only been nice to me because they were scared.

That was the wake up call that I needed. I needed to figure out how to become on top again and if that meant starting back the bottom then that’s what I would do. Sometimes you have to be mean to get ahead. That was my goal, to get ahead. I had to gain the fear of my peers again. College was a whole different life from high school I had to work my way up again. My favorite quote is “Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the floor each morning the devil says, “oh s***, she’s up”. “ Watch out people, the b**** is back.