Words can be malicious. They can taunt and tease and embarrass, but they can’t get to you. They’re only words, that doesn’t mean they’re true. That’s what I believed until the beginning of fourth grade. It started out like any other school year. Go to school, eat dinner, sleep, repeat. But this was no ordinary year. This was the year we were introduced to Instagram.

Some children’s parents wouldn’t allow them to create a account, but many did. I was one of them. When I was young my friends teased me. They told me I wasn’t good enough to play sports because I was to small. I didn’t care. They were just a bunch of superficial kids putting others down to make themselves feel good, and I was used to that. But hiding behind a screen is much different. Texts and post are social teardowns that end thousands of friendships. My friends began by posting harmless pictures of themselves at ice cream stores, but that’s not how it ended.

Anna, a girl in my grade, was mad because she noticed I was better at soccer than her. Anna was the ‘it girl’ in our grade that year. She had pretty hair, her own possy, and boys were in love with her. She walked around the playground looking at people like they were beneath her, and they started to believe it was true. I was the first girl to stand up to her. I walked up to her one day and told her and all her friends how manipulative they were. She was so mortified by my comments her face turned red. A war had began, and there was no escape.

Throughout the next week Anna created an army. She got every girl in the grade to stand behind her. Once her army was built she began the attack. A rein of bullying came down on me like a sword. She posted vindictive comments on my posts, and got others to follow her. At the time I posted pictures of cakes I spent hours working on. I posted a picture of a chocolate cake covered in kit kats and m&m's. It made me feel proud, up until the day Anna saw it. Anna and her montage of girls started making rude comments on it, saying they could do better. I didn’t care about the texts, until I saw who was writing them. People that I thought had been my friends were agreeing with Anna and saying things worse than Anna’s comments. By the time I finished reading the texts I was sick to my stomach. My heart started pounding.

Every night that year I cried myself to sleep because my friends ignored me during school. At recess I sat alone reading my book, waiting for the bell to ring. After a few months it still didn’t become better, so I decided to make new friends. I played soccer with the boys at recess, and did math projects with them. The thing about boys is that they fight fair. When they get mad they just punch each other and it’s over with. Girls fight dirty. They lie, cheat, and deceive. I decided not to get involved. When summer finally came I was relieved. The texts had stopped and the posting paused. Hanging with my family kept my mind off of all of the troubles throughout the year. But school had to start sometime. I entered the hallway on the first day of fifth grade and saw Anna eagerly awaiting by the door. She ran up to me with her arms wide open and gave me a tight hug as she whispered in my ear, “I’m sorry.”

At that moment I realized something. Anna was a good person inside. She bullied people because no one ever saw it. But I did. Sometimes the people who deserve love the least are the ones that need it the most. So from then on I tried to be the bigger person. We had a few more disputes, but that’s all over with now. I have my friends by my side every day as I walk down the school hallways, and I am grateful for that.