Bullied | irwin

one

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.

I believed in that saying – I wanted to believe in saying – for years when I was younger. I thought I was invincible, and no matter how many rude comments were thrown at me did not matter unless I had my guard up. It worked for a while, but then the thoughts started to cloud my head and the insults were plastered inside my brain and it felt as if I couldn't escape. The worst part is I let those words get to me. They never left, like they made a mental scar on my self-esteem and it did not heal, but just stays there. That's when I realized that sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me, was a massive, deceiving lie.

My name is Alaina Ilao, and I'm sorry for the relatively rough introduction.

More anxious thoughts start to fill my mind, the kind of thoughts that I go through everyday. The stupid, but hopeful part of me thinks; maybe today is the day they realize, hey, I've been wasting the past two years of my life to torture an innocent bystander. What a douche I am. Let me buy her some flowers and fancy chocolate for her forgiveness, then leave her alone for the rest of my life while I work on to becoming a better person myself.

"Get out of the way, freak show." A sharp voice pierces my thoughts and shoves me into a cold, cold locker.

Never mind. Today does not seem like that day.

I tuck my tangled hair behind my ear and keep my head down from any another harsh comments. Hopefully I won't have to run into Ashton or any of his friends more than I need to today.

If you're wondering, yes, the guy who just bumped into me against the cold locker was Ashton. That's the 'they' I was talking about. By the way, he scares me. Like, not horror movie scary where I'd scream my head off, but scary as in I'd avoid any confrontation with him, at all. Not even an eye contact. Yet, he keeps his tail on me. Day after day, he can't help but remind me on how useless I am.

Its okay though, I knew that way before he told me.

Before anything, here's a little rundown. Ashton Irwin, the guy I've known since we were in second grade when he 'stepped' on a tortoise at recess – everyone thought it was a turtle, but I knew it was in fact a tortoise. Everybody was gathered around the tortoise, and being our curious little selves, some people were closer than others. Ashton was one of those people.

I told him not to harm the little fella, for he was only looking for food, but Ashton ignored me, naturally. He placed one foot on top of the tortoise's shell – not completely stepping on it or adding an pressure, thankfully – and looked at me with a sarcastic smile. Of course he didn't want to hurt the animal either, he just wanted to annoy me. And boy, he sure did. So, I started chasing him. All I really wanted him to do was to take his foot off the innocent creature, and he did. But again, I was my energetic second-grade self, so I continued chasing him for revenge. In my perspective, I was fairly mad at him for irritating nature, but for some reason as we were running, we couldn't stop laughing. It was fun.

I forgot what happened after that, what made me stop chasing him, but I never let him off the hook. It was our little inside joke whenever we saw each other. I always accused him of stepping on the shelled animal when he protested he never completely stepped on it, which is a huuuge difference.

Then, everyday after that, we always hung out. It was weird, but not weird at the same time. See, we had this little competitive spirit between us that we just had to prove who's the best. I don't think either of us beat each other, but it always ended up with hysterical laughter. I was always happy next to him. Was.