Mariam didn’t Ronan or Minghao about what she had overheard in the washroom.
She knew them too well.
If either of them found out that Brenda and Caroline had been speaking about her like that behind her back, they would not simply ignore it and move on.
They would turn the matter into a full-scale war.
And Mariam didn’t want that.
Her friends had always been fiercely protective of her—sometimes far too protective.
She still remembered an incident from few months ago.
A girl from another class had made a rude comment about Mariam’s appearance right to her face.
It had been nothing more than childish teasing, the kind of thing immature children said without thinking.
Mariam herself had barely cared.
Unfortunately, Ronan and Minghao had cared a lot.
The very next day, the unfortunate girl had been walking across the school courtyard when a bucket of filthy water mysteriously appeared above her head.
The entire bucket had been dumped on her.
In front of dozens of students.
To make matters worse, Ronan and Minghao had loudly nicknamed her “Dirty Rat” afterward, ensuring the humiliating incident followed her around school for weeks.
Even now, people called her as a “Dirty Rat.”
As a result, very few students dared to openly offend Mariam Doyle.
Not because they feared Mariam herself…They feared her two overprotective best friends.
When Mariam had learned what happened, she had scolded both boys endlessly.
They were just children.
Children sometimes said hurtful things without thinking.
That was normal.
If the girl had been mature enough, she wouldn’t have made such a comment in the first place.
If the girl had simply apologized, Mariam would have forgiven her immediately.
She had never been the type to cling to resentment over something so trivial. Find the original chapter at g.com.
But Ronan and Minghao didn’t think that way.
In their eyes, anyone who hurt Mariam deserved consequences.
At most, all Ronan and Minghao should have done was make the girl apologize to Mariam.
Instead, they had gone far beyond that, launching what felt like a revenge campaign and relentlessly bullying the poor girl.
This was exactly why Mariam wasn’t going to tell them about Brenda and Caroline.
No good would come from it.
The last thing she wanted was another school-wide disaster.
Still…
The insults continued to echo relentlessly in her mind, hurting her more deeply than she wanted to admit.
Slut…Attention seeker…Arrogant…
The cruel labels replayed over and over in her head, refusing to fade away.
“Did they really have to say such awful things?” she muttered to herself as she picked up another stone and hurled it into the lake.
There were ripples in the calm surface.
“How am I a slut?…Ronan and Minghao are my friends…Hanging out with my friends makes me a slut?…”
For a while she simply sat there, watching the sunlight shimmer over the water.
A gentle breeze drifted across the lakeshore, carrying the scent of grass and wildflowers.
Clusters of yellow flowers swayed softly nearby, bright against the green landscape.
The peaceful scenery slowly soothed the ache in her chest.
Maybe she had been taking the comments too seriously.
People talked…People judged….People gossiped.
It was simply the way things were and there wasn’t much she could do about it.
No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t control what others chose to say or think about her.
Eventually, Mariam straightened her shoulders.
“Hmph! I won’t let their words get to me anymore,” she declared loudly to herself, feeling confident as she said it.
After sitting there for nearly an hour, she finally felt calm enough to head home. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
Dusting off her skirt, she stood up.
Or at least she tried to.
The lakeside ground was damp from rain earlier that week.
Mud clung to the edge of the shore, hidden beneath patches of grass.
Mariam had been sitting much closer to the water than she realized.
The moment she took a step forward, her foot slid.
Her eyes widened.
“Oh!”
She windmilled her arms wildly in an attempt to regain her balance, but it didn’t work.
The muddy earth gave way beneath her shoes.
Her second foot slipped immediately afterward.
And before she could even scream properly—
She rolled down the slippery embankment like a wheel.
SPLASH!
An enormous wave erupted as Mariam plunged straight into the freezing lake.
The icy water swallowed her whole.
Cold pierced through her clothes and into her bones like hundreds of tiny needles.
When her head resurfaced moments later, she emerged sputtering and coughing.
“P-ptoo!”
Water splashed into her mouth and she immediately sank again.
As if overhearing people insulting her wasn’t enough, now she had managed to throw herself into a lake.
What a perfect day!