Bent

Fast forward five years, to junior year of high school. After that incident I lost any friendship I ever had a potential of having. Pennylee never talked to me again. I was sitting at a lunch table a month into junior year, reading a book. ‘Gods, Graves, and Scholars’ I’ve become a bookworm after so many years spent alone. Reading made this world disappear, took me away from pain. And bullying.

Just as I thought that something splattered across my face.
There was mocking laughter, and I looked up to see a table of boys, pointing and laughing at me. They’d used a spoon to fling a mass of chili at me. My glasses were smudged, clothes stained, and worse, a dollop of chili lay right in the middle of my page. Swallowing back tears, I stood up, leaving the lunch behind and rushing to the bathroom. Mocking giggles followed me.

Safe in the bathroom, I cleaned my glasses, carefully wiped the chili from my book. The shirt was unsaveable though. It was a lumpy grey sweatshirt that went to my knees and dangled past my fingertips. Now the front was stained. I swallowed again and leaned my head on the cold brick wall, telling myself crying was useless. I hate crying in front of the bullies.
I’m one of the school ‘whipping boys’....girl. People could bully me in the open, and no one would say anything to defend me. After David graduated it got even worse-he at least tried to help.

Every night I came home and sobbed myself to sleep, the cruel words of that day on my lips, in my dreams. I’d come so close to cutting myself the knife would be at my skin, but I could never do it. Too cowardly. My parents didn’t even notice as long as my grades keep up. And so the rumors, taunts, pinches, everything bullying entails continued.

I didn’t manage to not cry. As the bell rang I felt a tear on my cheek, trickling down to drop off my lips. Sniffling, I wiped it away, wincing when a stray drop of chili got in my eye. “Oww....” My voice was a low moan. The door opened as a girl walked in, too blurry for me to recognize. We stood frozen until I grabbed my glasses and pushed them up the bridge of my nose, finally able to see Pennylee. “Sorry! S-Sorry!” I ran past her and into the now empty hallway.

In Science, next class, I heard whispers behind me. When I heard my name I turned to see Mallory, the girl who loved making my life hell. I don’t care what they say about bullies having ‘low self esteem’ or ‘not mattering’. Mallory had no problem with her looks, she just liked to hurt people. Mallory tossed a curl of brown hair over her shoulder and smiled. “Hey there, Will.” She mockingly used my nickname, so I tensed up. “I have this party tonight, and I need a guy to bring. Will you bring me, dude?” Half the class cackled at her joke, and I turned away.

Every single day since that party in sixth grade, someone has called me a ‘boy’, one way or another. I’ve been pushed into boy’s locker rooms and bathrooms, cruelly asked out by girls, someone even cut my hair short once. It didn’t look alright for months. I hated my classmates, every one of them, cruel bastards they are. I’ve been called ‘fag, ‘dyke’ , or some new version, for most of my life, so much they seem normal now. Fat jokes, ugly jokes, father/brother/dog fucking jokes, gay jokes, style jokes, intelligence jokes-I have heard all of these and more. This year I had sworn to myself that I would be strong, that no one could bother me. It didn’t work.