My name is Janet, and I recently moved to a new town. My parents moved here for work, so I had to leave my friends behind and start over at a new school.

On my first day of school, I was incredibly nervous about making new friends, but I then I met this boy named Fred. He came up to me during lunchtime and invited me to join his bench with his friends. He told me all the things I needed to know about the school: the friendly teachers, the strict ones, how to sweet talk the lunch lady for more food, and where the troublemakers hang out. I started having lunch with him and his friends every day, and sometimes we would walk home together.

One day, as I was walking to school with a group of friends from my class, a girl called Eneka asked me, "So when were you going to tell us you were Fred’s girl?” I was shocked! I did have a small crush on Fred. However, he was not my boyfriend. I asked her where she got that news, and she told me that she overheard Fred talking with his boys during Math class.

I was so mad that I couldn’t talk for the rest of the way. Initially, I wanted to never talk to Fred ever again, but when I saw him at lunch, I realised it was important for me to speak my mind. So I went up to him and in front of all his friends, I told him what I'd heard and made it clear that I was not his girl. I even took it a step further and told him that if he didn’t tell people the truth, we’d stop being friends.

He admitted the truth to his friends and they made fun of him for weeks. Even after this, I was still annoyed with him. I don’t like people making decisions for me, I have a mind of my own. And if he’d waited, who knows, we may be dating now. But he didn’t, and that’s his loss.