"You're a pathetic 'female dog' who doesn't know how to live your own 'effing' life. I don't know how anyone is friends with you, you self-absorbed sonofa'female dog'. Stop believing guys will like you because you're a smart-arse, 'effing' pole who need learn how to eat! Guys never liked you and they never will! Give up now before you wished you did... pathetic. Pathetic, you hear me? That's P-A-T-H-E-T-I-C. Pathetic"

She blinks at me, "That's what Klaer said to you?"

I nod in shame, feeling a tremor run down my back, "Exactly. Almost word for word. Except add in some real profanity."

My best friend's eyes narrow, "And then she scratched you with her nails as sharp as fu-"

"Yes," I interrupt, I touch my marked cheek, "here."

She reached out her and runs her violin-callused fingers across my cheek, where a large scratch lay as my evidence of harassment. My eyes prickle with tears, but I blink them away.

"You have to do something," she sighs, "you can't just let Klaer throw you around like that and get away with it."

I cringe at the thought of telling our Year Coordinator my troubles. Just imagine how horrid it would be, having to arrange a meeting with him, then being dragged to the school psych along with Klaer and all the other witnesses. Klaer would just sit there with a smug look on her face the entire time. I shake my head vigorously. 

"I can't, Mianna, I don't want her to know she got the better of me!"

"You can't let her win," Mianna smiles sadly, knowing my exact thoughts, "Petria, you are impossible."

I nod, staring at her a little too intensely. I avert my gaze out of the train window. I suppose you can say Mianna Bavaro is popular, and she is, unlike me. Everyone who knows her, adores her, and wouldn't dare be cruel to her, like Klaer is to me. Mianna is beautiful, can play violin like an angel and has a rational solution for every problem anyone may have including how to cope with my personal bully... Klaer Armadale. I shiver at the thought of Klaer, feeling the phantom pain of her nails in contact to my skin continuously.

"What do I do?" I ask, staring into her gorgeous hazel eyes. She gently bites her lip and taps her thumbs together.

"You are going to hate me for suggesting this," she muses, her thumbs now twiddling.

"What?" I demand, my leg shaking in anticipation of what she might say.

Mianna looks at me sideways, a wild excited look in her eyes, "It's unlike me, Petria, very, very unlike me."

I swallow slowly, "Elaborate?"

She fully turns to face me, excitement so clear on her face, "Show her you aren't what she says! Because you are not, you're a beautiful human being, Tria!"

I open my mouth to speak but she grabs my hands to stop me in my tracks.

"Show her guys DO like you and that you're are the polar opposite of pathetic!"

I close my eyes. 

"What about the pole comment?" I ask quietly so no one else could hear (the looks we are getting from people already is enough to make me want to hide under the train). Klaer has pressed my button so hard by referring to my almost or 'semi' anorexia. She has 'no understanding whatsoever' as Mianna's locker mate and witness said earlier today.

"Well up hers for not doing her research on body image issues," Mianna pointed out, "I will always think you are beautiful, Tria."

I grin thankfully at her, "Well I think you're gorgeous too, Mi," I pause and run my finger over my cheek, "....you still haven't told me your master plan."

"You'll think I'm an absolute nutter," she giggles, "well I know you do anyway!"

I roll my eyes for a split second jokingly. It's not like Klaer does whenever I say a word in class or enter her proximity. Her technique is so dangerous her near-black eyes could roll well out of her ears, "What is it, Mi?"

She lowers her voice, I lean in, she smirks"Ask out a guy, any guy... possibly the guy you always stare at across the quad."

"WHAT?" I exclaim so loudly, the people near us in the train look at us questionably.

"Are you serious?" I whisper in shock, "no one wants to date me! I don't have the courage to go and ask anyone to go out with me!"

Mianna smiles the way she does when she knows something I don't, "I know a few who would."

My jaw drops, my heart thumps faster... louder... "Don't lie, please!"

"I'm not lying. I heard a boy call you..." she goes quiet for some sort of effect.

"What?" I beg, adrenaline racing through my veins and tying my innards into a knot.

"'Gorgeous with eyes as beautiful as the ocean down at Esperance.'"

I give her a doubtful look, "No by in our grade is that good at poetry."

She smirks, "You'd be surprised. And another guy said you were so beautiful and delicate that he is afraid at any bump you'll break in two."

I frown, looking down at my wrist, then back at Mianna who has my other wrist in the air with her thumb wrapped around it, which touched her pinkie, she gives it a quick peck... "Really Mianna, they said that?"

She nods, hazel eyes shining, brushing her dark brown hair of her face.

We're silent for a moment. It's a comfortable silence, silence is always comfortable between us. It means we're contemplating. There are different types of comfortable silences, if you'd like to know. The 'Mianna's crush, Darrin, just walked past' silence, the 'someone just made a joke but we don't get it or it's not funny' silence, or the 'you've just said something deep and meaningful' silence to name a few.

"Are you sure you're not lying?" I inquire nervously.

"Why would I lie about such a sensitive topic? I legitimately heard them say that!" she argues.

"When? Where? Who?" I interrogate, now on the edge of my seat, my heart beating fast.

"Yesterday, two weeks ago, in the quad, and someone sitting behind me in sci-enceeeee," she sung teasingly.

I search my mind for who she might be referring to as she continues her thumb twiddling. I can't put a finger, let alone an individual skin cell, on who it might've been. Well... there were three four boys who sat behind me in science. Heat rushed to my face as the name of one of them echoes through my mind.

"So, do you accept the challenge?" Mianna asks, bumping her knee with mine.

"Hmmmmmmm?" I mumbled. my stomach twisting into knots.

"Are you going to ask someone out?" she demands.

"They'll say no, whoever I ask," who you'll ask, you mean Petria!

"Take your chances, Tria! Prove to Klaer you're more than her over chewed gum on the bottom of her over-the-top Adidas Superstars.

I look out the window at the city now approaching fast. Soon my stop would emerge and I'd leave Mianna alone on the train for another three stops before she'd get to her stop. The I realise I should take my chance while I still have them within reach.

We have the 'I'm thinking of an answer to a super-hard question' silence. I tilt my head to the side a bit. The name of my stop flashes on the screen above us. People collect their bags and stand up as the train decelerates. The doors open, so carefully and electronically synchronised. I stand up as Mianna tugs on the back of my school jumper, "Well?"

I grab my dark blue school bag from the compartment above. She gently kicks the back of my leg and I stumble forward the tiniest bit. I put the bag on my shoulder and ever so slightly, my fingers brush across the scratch on my cheek. My jaw clenches as a knot forms in my innards again.

"Fine, I'll do it."

I am not pathetic.

I am not a pole.

Guys can like me!