I still wait for the day my life will begin. It doesn't start at the blink of an eye or at your very first birthday. I don't believe it starts when you're born. Good life is a myth. Rough life, hard life, fucked up life; we're all living it. Someone could be the happiest on a screen. Rich, smiles, happiness, and freedom. The things we see are just material. The ones who have the prettiest smiles are in the worst pain. Behind the screen, no one lives a perfect life. Even the happiest ones sometimes die the earliest.
I'm not afraid to admit it. I didn't grow up with a silver spoon. I wasn't made on purpose either. My mother is younger than an average mother. She had me when she was 17. Right then, I knew my life didn't begin.
School was never my thing. At least not what came with it. In first grade, I was a moving target. One thing no one even cared about what if I was human. I was forced to be the villain. It started with my classmate, Mason. He dropped his eraser. We weren't allowed out of our seats so I did the best I could to give it back though he was at a distance. I tossed it. It hit the side of his hand and just like that, he lied. Mason told the teacher I threw it at him. The teacher automatically accused me of stealing and so she brought a woman I was terrified of into the room. Mrs. Seldon was the monster that probably hid under my bed. She pulled me out of class. She was good at playing a fake role, too. She acted as if she was getting permission from my dad to spank me. Except, it wasn't my dad she was talking to over the phone. It also wasn't a spanking she gave me. I assumed it was the principal who gave her permission to "discipline" me. I had been lied on so much and purposely blamed for things that weren't true, I had bruises on my legs from the hits of the ruler. My dad never knew, but I didn't know until I told him years later.
Second to seventh grade was a bruise. I was in my not so happy but alive and breathing stage. I smiled occasionally. If there's another fear I had, it was school bullies. Nightmares came with them. Every night, I would cry in my sleep because I knew when I woke up I would see them again. I remember it was recess for the second graders. I was sitting a bench, reading and scanning all the words I could comprehend from my book. That's when these three boys approached me. One of them, Finely, was blonde with blue eyes that had a mullet. He wore a white sleeveless baggy basketball shirt with jeans and some sneakers. The second one, Manny, had a curtain style hair do, brown eyes, and wore jeans with a dark blue sweatshirt and some Levi's. The last one, Casper, was the scariest. He was the tallest, big boned, and just the look of his face was scary. His shirt was white with red short sleeves and some khakis while wearing some brown cowboy boots. The other two smiled at me with mischief while he just stared into my soul with that death glare he had plastered across his face. To me, even his name sounded scary. It was silent, calm, and bland. Finely broke that quickly. He snatched my book from my hands, throwing it on the ground and closing the space in between us. Fear was the only thing I knew in this moment. My body began to shiver, my head slowly lowering so my eyes wouldn't meet theirs. I gulped, feeling that large lump in my throat as my hands gripped into my red and black plaid skirt. Casper came to the center, lowering himself to my face.
"You got any lunch money for me today?" He asked.
I didn't have anything but that book. Basically, I couldn't answer his question which meant I was screwed. That's when he grabbed a fist full of my hair, yanking my head up until my eyes met his face. By then, my eyes were already tearing up. Weakness was all I had. I couldn't fight, and if I ran they were gonna catch me anyway. They were bigger, faster, and stronger.
"Hey, " he continued, "I'm talking to you."
Even if he was expecting an answer, fear was that thing that kept me silent. He pulled me up from the bench by the yank of my hair and then pushed me onto the ground. My knees were then scraped and began to bleed.
