Friday Freewrite

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Today's prompt: Contempt started it

Contempt

Contempt started it. I knew I was better than her. For once, I could be the tormentor instead of the tormented. It almost makes me laugh to think that she considered me a friend.

Once when the two of us were sitting on a bench in the park, she told me I was the best friend she had. The sun had that golden color it gets in early November, and the wind spun the leaves up around us as we talked. I started to say thanks, but chose that moment to turn on her, and instead looked at her and said, "Really?"

Of course it all comes back to a man, doesn't it always? Jason and I spent the summer together, hanging out, having sex, the whole thing. When Julie came back from the lake in September, she'd changed. I mean, she was still the same insecure, self-absorbed little snot, but the sun had darkened her skin and lightened her mousy brown hair. And hormones had widened her in all the right places.

I began to hate her when she kept hanging around me, acting like she had no life, when an idiot could see those blonde streaks and the new size B boobs, the lack of imperfection. At the mall, in the halls at school, I saw it again and again. Julie caught the eye of every cute guy we walked by. They'd stare at her body, smile and, if they were with friends, begin gesturing or, if they were alone, snap their neck around to keep staring. Somehow Julie never noticed this. Somehow these guys never noticed me, even as I stared and willed them to.