Kindness Is Not Guilty

I still remember the words she told me, her face sparkling under the sunshine on that gentle and warm afternoon. In the second year of junior high school, I was assigned to Class 15, which had many top-notch students. Nevertheless, my grades were average in the class. You know, "average students" are always the most insignificant existences in such a class, so even after half a year, the interactions between her and me could be counted on one hand. I often heard her praising the top students, and I found myself becoming increasingly insignificant.
There was a period when I was not in a good state. An old classmate I wasn’t very close to often asked me some questions about studies. Out of kindness, I answered him. However, on an accidental encounter one afternoon, he said some harassing words to me. At that time, I was eating dinner in the hallway. He said in an abhorrent tone, with a lewd expression, "You look sexy." I was just wearing a thick sweater, and his words made my hair stand on end. Disgust and terror took control of me. As a 13-year-old girl, I didn’t know how to deal with this kind of situation. Thus, I was troubled by this matter in the following days, regretting and wondering, "If I hadn’t agreed to help him, would I not have been harassed?" At that time, it was hard for me to speak out about this.
Yet my homeroom teacher noticed my absent-mindedness in class. Before that, I always thought she would never care about me—an average student. She called me to her office and asked me what had happened. A surge of grievance welled up within me. Summoning all my courage, I spoke out in a voice trembling on the verge of tears. She pinched her eyebrows together, listening carefully. After understanding the situation completely, she promised to deal with it seriously by informing his teacher and parents. Then, she told me gently and hugged me, patting my back: "It’s not your fault. Kindness is not guilty. You just encountered a bad person among men—not all boys are as bad as him. We merely should know how to protect ourselves as females." Her curly hair was sparkling in the sunlight. In her gentle gaze, I realized I had misunderstood her for a long time.
Still, her words echo in my mind sometimes, and I continue to be kind with this courage.