The names in this article have been altered to maintain privacy.

“Come on, we’re gonna be late!”, Sophie whispered. It was 1:58pm on a Wednesday. Our routine Strings rehearsals were at 2:00pm, and we were going to be late for the first time ever. I was rarely late—even obsessively early in my strive to receive some form of validation by being the perfect student. Perhaps it was to control what others thought of me; my crippling sense of self-worth relied on external opinions. Being on time allowed my mind and body to stay in control, whereas being late came with a side of couldn’t-live-up-to-the-title syndrome.  

After waving at our teacher, then at the clock, then back at the teacher again, we leapt out of our seats and sprung down the third floor hallway with skips in our steps. Strings rehearsal fed the right-side of my brain that so yearned to express itself, but more often than not, it was an opportunity to skip math class. Eager to relearn the Concerto we had certainly not practiced throughout the week, Sophie and I swung open the staircase doors and journeyed to the basement.  

Located deep in the bowels of the building, one had to navigate five lengthy staircases, numerous poorly-lit passageways, and what felt like an endless trudge down the hallway to get there. Worn out floors travelled the length of the building, turns were sharp, corners emerging abruptly, as if out of thin air. The place had always been unsettling. 

After hurrying down the steps and rounding the corner from the staircase passageway, Sophie and I came upon a group of our peers—all boys—who had congregated in a corner of the corridor. Matt, the ring leader of the group, turned around mischievously. My stomach churned; we had never gotten along. There were two of us, and seven of them. My eyes began to cloud; confrontation was my worst nightmare. 

“High five!” he said, and the others parroted his words. 

They reached out sweaty palms, cheeky grins spread across rosy cheeks. My body tensed, frozen in place.

“Give me a high five,” he insisted, his voice becoming more stern.  

“Stop it, Matt,” I tried to hold my ground. 

“Why won’t you just give him a high five?”

“It’s no big deal”

“Aww look, she’s crying!” Our eyes locked, mine watery and his questioning. He stepped back.

“Bitch” he scoffed. The crowd went wild.

From that point on, I realized I was no longer in control of how I was perceived. No longer was I just my name, or a playful nickname received from friends. It didn’t matter who I was or what I tried to be, because with a flick of the tongue, my entire identity could be condensed into one insulting syllable that laughed at me with its consonants and mocked me with its irony. This insult-turned-slang term reduced myself, and my womanhood, into a mere figment of what was truly there. Because a woman who’s defensive and stern is a bitch. But a man-bitch is powerful and respected and strong, The idealized version of man. A true Hercules. 

So, I put up a wall.

I taught my eyes to stop burning and choked back my tears because they made me look weak. I learnt how to control the flushing of my cheeks, and the quiver in my voice when I got nervous. I became the girl that talked back, that stood up for her friends, that told off the boys. 

They gave me a title, and I became it.