Chapter 13 | "Karma Police" by Radiohead

This is what you get

This is what you get

This is what you get

When you mess with us

Some bands grab you the first time you hear them, while others grow on you. For me, Radiohead is one of the latter. "Creep" caught my attention when it came out—possibly because my subconscious picked up on the similarities between it and The Hollies' "The Air That I Breathe"—but after that, they really weren't on my radar all that much.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uYWYWPc9HU

I can't recall how I ran across "Karma Police," but it's been in the rotation on my playlists for decades. When I was writing Chapter 13, my first choice had been Gary Jules' "Mad World," but I later reassigned that one to Chapter 7, leaving me with the question: how do you summarize middle school mean girl bullying in a song?

There may be better choices than this one, but for anyone who's experienced that level of daily abuse at a time when your psychological need for approval shifts from your family to your peers, I feel "Karma Police" fits the bill pretty well.

I don't know what happened to any of those girls who tormented me, but I know I'm absolutely justified in hoping that karma caught up with them in one way or another.

The Anatomy of Social Cruelty

Middle school bullying isn't like getting beat up behind the gym. It's subtler, more psychological, and more devastating in ways that leave no visible marks. It starts small.

A joke at your expense.

A question designed to expose something you're insecure about.

A casual comment about your clothes, your body, your family situation.

And when you don't fight back—when you try to be kind, when you follow the golden rule, naively assuming others will treat you the way you treat them—they learn something important: you're an easy target.

That’s when they escalate.

Autumn's Playlist: When Friendship Becomes Weaponized

Chapter 13 tells the story of Autumn’s experience during her middle school years at Sacred Heart, the Catholic school she'd been at since first grade because her mother insisted would provide a better education than the public school her friends from the Germantown projects went to.

It was a difficult chapter to write. I debated including at all, but it had to be done because it’s essential to understanding who Autumn becomes and why she responds the way she does to certain perceived threats and triggers.

At this point, she’s already spent her childhood coping through her absent father’s disinterest in knowing her, and she’s three of the four years in on losing her mother’s emotional presence to grief, gambling, and depression.

Just as the developmentally appropriate psychological shift begins where the need for approval begins to shift from family to friends, Autumn learns yet again that the people closest to you are the ones who will hurt you the most. Not are likely to…will, without question.

It’s this chapter where she internalizes the lesson that trusting people—especially girls who seem friendly at first—is dangerous.

The chapter begins by centering on Autumn's friendship with Lila, her best friend since second grade. It then progresses to document what happens when a group of popular girls decides to recruit them into their circle.

Or rather, recruit Lila…and use Autumn for entertainment.

The Questions That Draw Blood

One of the most insidious aspects of social bullying is how, at first, it masquerades as genuine curiosity.

Where do you live?

What does your dad do for work?

Why don’t you have a dad?

How come your mom is never home?

What brand is that shirt?

What size jeans do you wear?

Questions that seem innocent on the surface but are actually reconnaissance intended to gather intelligence about your vulnerabilities so they know exactly where to strike.

If you're a trusting kid who never considered that someone would ask you questions with nefarious intentions—because you haven't learned yet that information can be weaponized—you answer honestly.

You don't realize you're handing them ammunition.

How This Shapes Who Autumn Becomes

Everything that happens to Autumn in Chapter 13 reverberates through the rest of her story; in this book, and in those yet to be written.

Her wariness around new people—especially women.

Her assumption that all relationships are conditional and can be revoked at any moment.

Her default expectation that people will eventually leave or turn on her.

Her inability to trust that kindness is genuine and not a setup for cruelty.

This chapter is the origin story for Autumn's emotional fortress. This is where she learns to keep people at arm's length. This is why she keeps a hierarchy for every person she meets, categorizing them into varying levels of trust based on what she observes of their behavior.

Karma Doesn't Always Come

I wish I could tell you that those girls who inspired this chapter got what they deserved; that karma caught up with them in dramatic, satisfying ways, but I honestly don't know. I never kept tabs on them. I moved on, built a happy life, found quality people who don’t use others to boost their own egos.

Time has a way of shrinking people who once loomed large in your life.

The girls who made Autumn's life hell? They don't matter—they never did. Their cruelty, while real and damaging at the time, shapes who Autumn is, but it doesn’t define her.

That's the best revenge, really. Not that they suffer, but that they become irrelevant.

For Anyone Who Survived This

If you were the kid who got excluded, mocked, or otherwise tormented by the people you thought were your friends, Chapter 13 will probably hurt to read, but it might also feel validating because someone else gets it.

Someone else knows what it's like to cry yourself to sleep because you don't understand what you did wrong. Someone else knows the specific pain of watching your best friend choose the bullies over you.

Radiohead's "Karma Police" isn't a happy song. It's dark, menacing, and kind of haunting, but in certain situations, that's what you need. You don't need a pep talk, or a "rise above it." What you really need is simply acknowledgment that what happened was cruel, and anger about it is justified.

This is what you get when you mess with us.

And if karma never came for them? At least you survived them.

That's enough.