Opening the door of the bathroom, I slipped in quietly, making sure no one was watching from the hallways. The scent of the bathroom came rushing at me in a strong whiff, causing me to hold my breath anxiously. I slowly walked to the toilets, flushing each one, not waiting to see what was going down, just flushing, flushing, flushing, hearing the water drain down through the toilets. After I flushed the last of the toilets, I made my way towards the mirror, not daring to look at my reflection. I caught sight of new messages on the wall: Marie is a slut. Jessica is fat and ugly. Sarah Gray needs to stop flirting with my boyfriend before I kill her.

I rested my purse against the sink, and before opening it, looked around me again. I looked into the paths of the dark, wet bathroom. Looked beneath the stalls, even though just moments ago, I was inside them all, flushing the toilets. I didn't want to be seen doing this. As I zipped the purse open, I caught the smell of my favorite lotion crammed in there, but this is not what I was here for. I dug into the right corner of the purse and took out a few sticky notes and a pen. It's my turn now to write messages on the bathroom wall. My notes would always be removed by girls only moments after I had written them. Pressing the pen firmly against the note, I thought hard of what to write.

"You are beautiful," I wrote on one.

"Your smile makes your face glow," I wrote on another. "So keep smiling."

"Your outfit today is gorgeous."

I quickly stopped writing as soon as I heard someone open the door. Taking my belongings with me, I rushed into a bathroom stall, locked it behind me, and sat there silently, breathing heavily, my heart beating as I waited for the person to leave. After a few minutes, she did leave, and I came out again. I quickly stuck the notes to the wall, covering up the previous nasty messages.

But as I raised my head up, I caught sight of myself in the mirror and cringed in disgust. I had taken it all in, all of it. I had seen my matted hair, my dull eyes, my plump, oily face, my round body, my-

"Enough!" I screamed to that ugly thing in the mirror.

I looked back down, focusing on the tiles on the bathroom floor, my head bowed in shame and my eyes forming tiny droplets of tears, making the tiles go blurry and zoom in and out, in and out, in…

I'm so ugly. Ugly, ugly, ugly. The image in the mirror kept coming back to me, dancing in my head, even though I was no longer looking at it. Stroking my finger along the edge of the note to make sure it was stuck against the wall, I began to cry, to hope, to hope, to hope, that the girl who reads my notes will feel better about herself than I do about myself.