The Outburst

I didn’t want anybody to see me. What I had done was...out of control. It was cowardly, I know. I should’ve just endured it –but I don’t know if I could have. Back then, my temper was boiling nearly every second of the day, waiting for the chance to spill over onto everyone else. People could tell, I think, from the quiet look on my face. I don’t remember feeling ostracized by them –maybe that was because they were being careful around me. Now, I don’t blame them.

But I did blame them for what they did that day at lunch. For everything they said about that girl, who never said anything back. 

She never said anything to anybody from what I can remember. I don’t exactly remember her name, and I doubt I knew her name that day, either. It was something like Holly or Sally or...Callie?  Anyways, Callie –we'll call her that –was an incredibly timid and softspoken person. I can’t remember a time when I actually heard her speak before that day. She was an eighth grader at the reformational middle school I went to. I was forced to go there after my poor attendance at my old middle school finally decided to catch up with me. I’m not sure why Callie was there. There were rumors, of course; most of what was said wasn’t reliable anyways, so I never paid any attention to it. I wasn’t aware of the bullying until lunch one day.

One hundred fifty people filed into and out of the cafeteria every single day; to say the least, it was a wild period of the day, especially when the outside eating area was closed. It was usually closed because of rain or cold. I remember it being closed that day because nearly all of the lunch tables were full. My usual table was no exception to that either, so I perused the cafeteria until I found an empty seat at Callie’s table. I knew that she sat alone at lunch, like me. Did she have social anxiety, as well? I’ll probably never know, but at the time I avoided any contact with her at the table, sitting on the opposite side of it. I turned my focus solely onto my lunch, which was spaghetti that day. Or what the lunch ladies thought was spaghetti.

Callie didn’t say anything, like I knew she would. From my peripheral vision, I saw that she was pulling apple slices from a brown paper sack before carefully nibbling on each one. She stared at each slice attentively, inspecting each one as she ate. It’s hard for me to remember people’s faces from when I was a child –they always popped up in my memories like blurry images. But I’ll never forget Callie’s as she stared at those apple slices. Her short, curly, auburn hair brushed against her ears, almost like they bounced across her face. She had pale green eyes that lit up her usually sunken complexion. I never had a girlfriend or a crush in school, but I think that Callie was the only girl who ever came close to that.

I wanted to say something to her. For the first time in my life, I wanted to make small talk. I searched my mind for the only non-awkward conversation starter I had –which were very few to begin with. What do people even talk about? I asked myself, knowing that I had no clue whatsoever. I looked down at my lunch tray...it was still full of fake-spaghetti. I picked up my plastic fork and twirled the noodles around, sighing in resignation. I had wished that I was less of a loser and more of a confident speaker.

Suddenly, the disorderly sound of incoherent screaming and laughing encroached from behind me. I caught Callie looking up for the first time, her once bright eyes darkening and becoming the same sullen look that she always wore. I heard the noises growing louder, so I turned to investigate the ruckus. My body ran cold when I saw what it was.

There was a group of eighth graders back then who I tried to avoid. I cannot remember most of their names; though one person, their ringleader, has stuck to my memory –Morgan Fisher. She was the meanest, most unforgiving child at the reformatory school. She terrorized everyone she could. I avoided her especially during my time at that school. It was easy to hate bullies as a child, but when you mature, you live to witness how messed up their lives would turn out to be. The last I ever saw of Morgan was when she was sent to juvenile prison for...reasons not to be disclosed. Some kids get nurtured for the world –some for the good of it and others for the bad of it.