To boldly go, eat your words, swallow your pride and admit that you are wrong might seem like the hardest thing to do but it can have its own special effects on a person. My story revolves around the same type of situation that happened to me about a week ago, it all started on my way to school after a month’s holiday...

I was feeling cranky, getting up early that morning after such a long break and thus broke my alarm clock in the process, then got ready, very slowly I must say, and headed towards the usual path that I took for school.

As I made my way through the street I stopped short, for right in front of me was a girl, my age, crying hysterically over a broken bicycle. I wouldn’t have stopped if that girl wasn’t from the same class as me. I decided to help which I must say wasn’t at all like me since she was, what I called, a low category girl and me, well I was well-known in my neighborhood, my class and almost the whole school, I was the light of the party, a major source of fun and thus highly disregarded the quiet ones around me, which unfortunately, included the girl in front of me.
Anyhow as I approached, she saw me and was taken aback for a minute but then quickly rose up and brushed herself off, before I could ask, she started talking, ‘it’s not the bike, I can fix it, it’s the everyday bullying that caused it, I tried to change direction today but they somehow knew about it and broke it again.’ And with that she started crying again. I stared at her not sure what to say, actually not sure if I wanted to say anything cause I had done a bit of bullying myself once but she didn’t need to know that, so instead I took her bike and motioned her towards my own bike. She was surprised, but happy as well I could tell, ‘go ahead take it but no one must know about it.’ With that I went along with the broken bike leaving her to stare at me with her mouth open. I never knew I had a soft corner.

The real problem began when I reached school that day. As I entered dozens of my friends surrounded me and within a second noticed the bicycle. ‘What is that?’ ‘Did you get in a fight, where they exchanged your bicycle for a broken one?’ laughter followed. I rolled my eyes, ‘ oh please, grow up I fell on my way, unfortunately the bicycle took it all’ and I made my way towards my class, my friend Sara followed, ‘ you know, I’ve seen that bicycle before, it’s Irma’s, isn’t it?’ I heard giggles from behind, ‘what of course not…’ I didn’t get to finish my sentence when a girl raced towards me calling out loudly, ‘I heard you gave your bicycle to Irma, she just showed me, is it true?’ that blew me up.
I looked around at my friends and then saw Irma at a corner standing quietly, looking quite pale, I started shouting, ‘how dare you say something like that, making up such a ridiculous story, do you even know who I am, look at yourself I rather die then give you something of my own!’ with that I stormed away, I heard my friends giggle but Sara stayed quiet beside me.

I couldn’t concentrate during class that day, the guilt kept pinching me especially after Irma showed up, 5 minutes late all red eyed and embarrassed, a friend of mine snickered, ‘ what else did she give you Irma, her calling card?’ a few giggles. Irma ignored.

After class, my friends decided to bully her for making up such a story, they surrounded her as soon as she came out. ‘Please, let me through,’ but no one budged, that’s when I had enough and that’s when I decided, for the first time to do what was right.

I swallowed my pride, knowing about the consequences, I took her hand and said, ‘Enough! She didn’t lie; I did give her my bike, okay? And I’m proud of it!’

I learned a valuable lesson that day, the pleasure you get when you help someone in need is way more valuable than anything else that I’ve experienced so far and it was totally worth it all.