Kiralee gripped the shimmering knob of the all wire door and pushed it open with a slow creak. Suddenly, all the heads turned her way. Quietly, Kiralee paced forward, pinching her homemade tennis outfit for good luck on her first day of tennis lessons. A group of girls were huddled on the far side of the court, eyeing each other from the corner of their gleaming eyes.

Deep breath, deep breath, Kiralee inhaled and exhaled. She stopped to the point where she was at least a decent distance away from the girls.

“Hi……,” Kiralee joined her sweaty palms. “My name is…..K-Kiralee….,” she stammered, letting go of her palms just to begin twirling her skinny strands of jet black hair.

A girl with glossy brown hair and sky blue eyes took a step forward, and put her manicured hand on the hip of her baby blue tennis dress.“Hi,” she sighed like she had no interest in Kiralee whatsoever. “I’m Madison.” She began to inspect her nails. Then she added with a smirk, “I suppose you found that dress or whatever in a dumpster?”

The rest of her crew snickered. Kiralee felt her cheeks burning.

“I...uh….made it at home,” Kiralee murmured. Her heart was already thumping in her ears.

“Hm….couldn’t afford one?” Madison arched her eyebrow up. “How’d you even afford to be here in the first place?” she sneered in disgust.

“I…uh…saved money to take…these…lessons…,” a drop of perspiration trickled down Kiralee’s neck.


“What about education?” Madison’s sly smile and her sniggering group made her look more superior than ever. Suddenly Kiralee felt that she’d made a huge mistake taking these lessons. But before she was about to respond, the tennis instructor, Miss Collins, blew her silver whistle, summoning for all the tennis students to crowd around her. Kiralee breathed a sigh of relief, and began to jog towards Miss Collins. But Madison was side by side with Kiralee, definitely too close for comfort. And before she even knew it, Kiralee’s dirty sneaker was struck with Madison’s blue Nike’s, and she fell knee first on the hard lime green court.

The last thing Kiralee heard was “Go earn money to buy real clothes!” And then she screamed in utter pain.

It was the same routine every Thursday. Madison and her posse lingering between Kiralee, insulting her, chucking tennis balls at her, whispers about her financial problems, and so on. But this Thursday, the routine was broken.

Kiralee once again stepped onto court, and once again Madison was taunting her along with her group of friends too. “Kiralee, go get a life!”

“Kiralee, go to a place where you actually might be some use to somebody!”

“Kiralee, it’s surprising you even got those sneakers.”

“Kiralee, get out of my life!”

This made Kiralee full of hatred, but at the same time, a sadness that made her want to cry her eyes out. Thoughts raced in her head as insults were exchanged with Madison.

Why me? What did I ever do? You don’t even know me! How can you hate me? I just don’t get it!

And with those thoughts, she took a tennis ball and threw it with all her energy out of the court.

“Madison, I’ve had enough of this! What did I ever do to you, huh? You treat me like garbage!” Kiralee paused to wipe the salty tears running from her emerald green eyes. Then she lowered her quivering voice. “You want me to get out of your life? I will. There’s obviously no point in coming here at all.” And with that, Kiralee placed her tennis racket gently on the hot court, and then muttered, “Goodbye Madison…”

She left without another word, strolling out of court as if nothing had ever happened. Even after Kiralee went out of sight, Madison was glued to the same spot, realizing what she had just done to her.

She had judged her without even knowing her; she practically made Kiralee’s life miserable. But amidst of those thoughts, was one thought: How will I ever forgive Kiralee for what I did? I was very wrong…