I ended up finishing my shift at noon, when the next shift came in, and I went to all the rest of my classes like the exemplary student I was.

The day felt a lot better without having Dr. Mann ruin it for me.

I shouldn't have let him get me so worked up, since that was the only way he could ever win against me, but I couldn't help it. He couldn't beat me with facts, logic, or debate skills, but he had a special card he could always play.

Failing me.

But oddly enough, I didn't really care. The F almost felt like a victory to me.

Of course, the problem was that other people seemed to care about the failure, like the University, my dad, and Viktor.

I wasn't sure how my grades affected Viktor, but he seemed concerned over my apathy, claiming it just wasn't like me.

Little did he know that my middle name was "Does Not Give A Single Flying Fuck."

Plus, to make my life just a little bit better (or worse), after much debate with his boss, Trey actually managed to get me officially hired.

Both Trey and Mo seemed okay enough to me, but I didn't care for Mo's excessive pushiness. There was nothing wrong with having expectations, but I threw myself into the lions' den for her sake, and I didn't get a single thank you.

I was rude, but I always tried to give thanks where thanks were due.

It didn't bother me too much, though. If it did, I would have let her know.

I took another shift at Cool Beans Coffee before my next sociology class, and afterward, I went to class.

I sat down in my usual seat, and before class began, a girl approached me.

"Hey," she said, then took the seat next to me.

I looked over at her for a second and began to pray that she wouldn't start up some shitty small talk. I was never any good at that.

She continued talking, much to my dismay. "So I don't know if you remember me-"

I interrupted her. "I most certainly do not."

She paused for a moment, then continued. "Well, thanks for the honesty, I guess, but I sat next to you on the first day of class, kind of got you in trouble, you know-" She trailed off.

Shiny hair girl. Yep. I remembered her. She was the one who muttered "bullshit" when Dr. Mann was telling us that there was no such thing as an individual, and I took it upon myself to defend us.

She continued when I didn't respond. "Anyways, I just figured you'd like to know some information, if you know what I mean."

I rose an eyebrow. "Oh?"

She smirked. "You weren't here last class, right?"

I shook my head.

"Well, Dr. Mann noticed, and he spent the first ten minutes of class talking shit about you. He was like, 'She's the embodiment of the entitlement of your generation. She thinks she can just disagree with me, when she has no background on any of the stuff we discuss in this class. Suburban white girl, she doesn't know shit about anything, blah, blah, blah."

I smiled. "Is it weird that I find that oddly satisfying?"

I didn't disagree with Dr. Mann about what he talked about in general, exactly. I disagreed with the way he went about his class. He gave his opinion with no evidence to support it, besides a biased poll here and there. I bothered him enough that it made him think, and that was my number one goal.

"Yeah, that's weird, considering it's kind of bullying," she said.

My mouth opened slightly, and I rose my eyebrows. "You think?"

She nodded. "One hundred percent. Talking about a student while she's not there is pretty much the definition of bullying."

It wasn't quite that. I didn't think Dr. Mann was bullying me from what the girl told me, but it certainly wasn't nice of him to be mean to me behind my back.

But I wasn't there for the shit-talking session, so what did I know?

I smiled at her. "Well, thanks for letting me know. I'm not really sure what I'll do about it, but I'll figure something out."

The corners of her mouth rose into a smile. "I could help you out with that if you'd like."

"I don't usually accept help from people I know, let alone strangers."

"Then let's not be strangers. I'm Caroline." She held out her hand.

I shook it. "Amanda."

"You busy after this class? I have something that I'd like to show you," Caroline said.

"Uh, I have about an hour until my next class. How long will it take?"

"Not that long. It's only about ten minutes," she said.

"Before I agree, I'd like one thing answered right now," I said.

"Sure. Hit me with it."

"Why are you interested in helping me?"

She didn't hesitate before responding. "Because bullying isn't cool, no matter who's the victim and who's the bully."

"I hate to say it, since you seem pretty into this, but I don't think he's necessarily bullying me."

"Typical victim. News flash: he's singling out a student based on her beliefs. If that's not bullying, I don't know what is, sis. You need proof? I got that. I got the whole rant on video."

"I'd love to see it, then, and I'll tell you what I think. Sound good?" I said.

I didn't want to be the victim again. For the previous few years, my life had been almost completely made up of defending myself and the people I loved. I wasn't about to have it happen again.

I never had a problem engaging in discussion with people, even when it frustrated the hell out of me like Dr. Mann. But if the video was as bad as Caroline wanted me to believe, there was an issue there.

But she seemed all too eager to help me out, and I couldn't help but question what her motive was.

I almost instantly ruled out altruism.

***

After class (which was uneventful since apparently, Dr. Mann didn't have the guts to say anything to my face), Caroline took me to the main sorority house on campus, Sigma Kappa.

Not my thing.

We walked into the house, and while it looked pretty big from the outside, there were a bunch of girls in there, at least thirty, which really cramped it up.

Again, not my thing. Living with seven other people was enough for me back at home.

"Megan, you still haven't done the dishes? Goddammit, you slut," Caroline said, then laughed.

The "Megan" person laughed too, so I figured they had that kind of relationship where insulting each other was a compliment. I was the same way with Arti.

As we walked through the house, which was modernly decorated but somehow gave off an older vibe, there were several people putting up decorations, and even more in the kitchen. The cabinets were hastily painted white, and the flooring creaked with each step anyone took.

"Party tonight?" I asked.

Caroline turned around to me. "Yep. You can come if you want."

I didn't reply to that, mostly because I had no intentions of going.

Caroline led me into a theatre-type room, and there was enough seating for everyone in the sorority, I guessed. I counted them: there were forty-eight seats. I couldn't imagine how hot it got in there when they wanted to watch a movie together or some shit.

How did they even manage to agree on a movie to watch if there were forty-eight of them? I couldn't even agree with Blaine on a movie to watch.

I sat down in one of the seats close to the TV screen, where Caroline was plugging things into the TV and her laptop.

"Just a heads-up, this dude totally tears into you. It'll seriously piss you off," she said as she looked at the screen to see if anything was on it. It was still black.

I bit my cheek. I was getting real sick of her real fast.

It was like she wanted to get me all worked up.

I was good enough at that on my own. I didn't need her to push me over the edge.

The video popped up on the TV screen, and Caroline smiled.

"Okay, just let me turn up the volume. You want some popcorn?" Caroline said.

"This isn't that long. I think I'll be okay," I replied. I just wanted to watch the goddamn video.

She smiled and tossed her shiny black hair over her shoulder, even though it was already held away from her face in a ponytail, then pressed play.

The video seemed to start in the middle of the rant, and Dr. Mann's voice boomed throughout the lecture hall. "She is the product of how she was socialized. I don't know much about her, but from her attention-seeking behavior, I can deduce several things. One, she has narcissistic tendencies to mask her inferiority complex. Two, she comes from somewhere where people feed into that. Telling her how great she is only makes the problem worse."

I rose an eyebrow.

"Three, she has a sense that society is a bad thing. It has its negative effects on people, yes, but for the greater good, we all need to work together. Her individualism is a threat to the society we've constructed, for example, in this class.

"Having too much pride in oneself-hubris, if you will-is the downfall of organization. It's important to keep in mind that you are just like everyone else. You're nothing special, especially your entitled generation, but together, we can accomplish our goals.

"Amanda is nothing, and since she refuses to cooperate with the norms of this class, as an instructor, I have no choice but to expose that truth to her."

I shifted in my seat and kept watching.

The fact that he thought he could make so many judgements about me said more about him than me.

"Now, I'm not saying she's a bad person."

Lie.

"But, there comes a point where her ignorance and optimism have to be corrected. I'm sure many of you are just like her, believing that you're different, you're special, et cetera. I'm here to tell you that there's a reason that humans are such social creatures. It's because we're worthless without others. Now, moving on to the real topic for today, the sociological imagination."

And there, the video ended.

I took in a breath, then looked at Caroline.

"You're a threat, Amanda. You're a threat to his regime," she said.

I shrugged. "It's not really a regime, but it's not cool, nonetheless."

I, or rather the person he thought I was, served as the "bad example" for the lesson. If the class was considered a society, I would be the outgroup, the outcast who wasn't allowed in, even if she tried (not that I ever did). It didn't take much to get me there, but with one minor screw-up, I bought myself a one-way ticket out of the society. I was the deviant by seeing through the authority figure, and naturally, I was punished by being singled out.

I didn't buy a word of his speech, anyway. I wasn't some anti-society warrior, contrary to what he thought. I didn't think I was special or better than other people, but I wasn't going to let anyone tell me that I wasn't anything. For someone who believed that society's inclusion was so important to a person, Dr. Mann kicked me out of his society for almost nothing.

Half of me thought that I was just a sociological experiment to him, and the other half was a little pissed.

Caroline succeeded in getting me fired up. It wasn't the fact that Dr. Mann called me narcissistic, or that he said I had an inferiority complex, but that he had the audacity to sit there on his high horse and make those assertions about me in front of a class of a hundred students when he noticed I wasn't there.

He didn't know me, but he knew damn well how to get a group of people against me, just to feed into his ego, to validate what he had dedicated his life to.

His society was bullshit, and the first step to toppling it was to confront the aggressor.

--------------------------------------------

Howdy everyone! I hope you're all doing well, and thank you for reading!

Amanda's a little put off by Caroline, but can they bond over their common goal?