Bully
by Erica—Age 34—Baltimore, MD
One thing Daddy liked to say was that travel broadened the mind. Consequently, my brother and I attended five elementary schools, two middle schools, and two high schools.
I knew I would be the biggest dork in the new school, no matter how many misfits already attended. In those thick plastic-framed glasses, knee socks, plaid skirts, and cheap leatherette pumps—yes, even by fifth grade—no one could out-nerd me. And none of them wanted me as a friend.
By the time I entered my second high school, I’d discovered a love of music and theater that improved my meager sense of belonging. A boy in my old geometry class unwittingly put it best.
“Nerds make their own music,” he said. “They’re all in the band.”
So I joined band, and chorus, and drama. In High School #2, I won a slot in the show choir. Its queen bee, Mary Lou, was an alto with a lust for cheeseburgers who resented my intrusion into her little world.
Mary Lou never beat me up, but used her advanced skills in exclusion to make me wish I’d never heard of singing and dancing. And I tried so hard to win her over. One day, I complimented her new haircut.
“F*** you,” she retorted. “Retarded little freak.”
During the spring musical, in which I played Maria to her Mother Abbess, she laughed uproariously the day I tripped on the long black habit and hurtled down a flight of stairs. Through her guffaws, she spat out phrases that she’d learned in health class.
“Should we stay or send?” she moaned. “Stop, drop, and roll!”
A few weeks later, the drama club held initiation into its secret society. That night, as I sat blindfolded in a practice room, waiting my turn, I heard the door open and close. A person stood there, and I smelled pickles and cheese. Chewing. Silence.
“Open your mouth,” a low voice ordered.
Within seconds, most of a can of salmon was shoved between my lips and my legs were smeared with Ben Gay. Sour breath leaned in close to my right ear.
“I will always hate you,” she said. “And you will always suck.”
I heard her voice for years, even faintly as I graduated magna cum laude with a music degree, in contact lenses and a hot little dress. But some days, when my eyes blur with tears, Mary Lou waits eagerly in the shadows.
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