Before I Was Seen

Physical Education

I had a football thrown at my head once. I hope it was an accident, but judging the laughter than erupted after I think they were picking on me.

I hope not.

I've never been notably obsessed with sports, I've always been afraid of accidentally revealing my powers while playing.

So Physical Education is possibly the worst subject for me.

I love when the teacher isn't in so we have to stay inside and do work on paper instead.

I find it boring, but I much prefer it, it's far less worrisome.

I used to enjoy Football before I discovered my powers. I would play with the "friends" I had, those days were fun, I remember.

My Mother when she has time, takes me to a nearby field late in the day and she kicks a ball around with me.

I still love it.

I'm just scared.

She's not good at it though, but I appreciate the effort. She has problems with her aim, she'll try kick it to me but launch it the opposite direction. She doesn't have any issues with distance.

I'm too afraid to run after the ball so I do this inexplicable speed walk when she kicks the ball too far away.

She claps when I eventually return with the ball.

I remember once she kicked it on top of someone's garage. I was deeply upset, in tears, going through all 5 stages of grief, and she was kneeling next to me, also an emotional wreck. She didn't cry but I've never seen someone look so guilty. It took less than an hour for her to buy me a new ball, she felt so bad about losing it.

She did, before buying me a new ball, suggest me climbing on her shoulders and reaching it, it wasn't kicked too high up on the roof. It was on the verge of the edge, being held on the roof by the layered tiles.

But I'm short, so is she. Genetically, the universe is against us.

So a new ball it was.

OH!

Once before in Physical Education, someone on my football team accidentally (a real accident this time) kicked the ball at my head and the force reflected the ball into the other teams goal, so we scored.

I was proud of that, even though all I did was stand like a pencil. It was my skull that bounced the ball into the net, that's my logic.

I don't know if anyone else has suffered this, but I presume it's common, after all I've attended many schools and this has been a problem for me in every single one.

Verbal abuse.

Because I don't really do much.

"CATCH THE BALL!"

"DO SOMETHING!"

"F***ING MOVE YOU F***ING B*****D!"

It's very scary.

It tempts me to run, as small part of me in moments of harassment like that legitimately contemplates just showing my powers, so they stop.

A very irrational side of myself, but it's a very real feeling.