For Life

Part 7

"Shit" Ant exclaimed "you were bullied?that must have been awful...was that at your new school in London?"

"Yeah" Dec replied sadly.

"I'm so sorry you had to go through that Dec" Ant stated and squeezed Dec's hand "kids can be little arseholes sometimes"

"It wasn't the kids" Dec said softly "not to start with anyway...it was a teacher"

"What?" Ant asked shocked.

"It was a teacher" Dec repeated "for some reason she decided that she hated me and wanted to make my life hell and she certainly succeeded"

"Oh Dec" Ant replied seriously "I can't believe a teacher would do such a thing"

"Well,she did" Dec snapped,hurt at the thought that Ant might not believe him "and I know I wasn't the first kid who she treated like that and I doubt I was the last"

"What...what did she do to you?" Ant asked cautiously.

Dec could immediately feel the tears stinging the back of his eyelids.

It still affected him deeply after all these years.

"I'm severely dyslexic" Dec announced "I really struggled with reading and writing and some other stuff,but she saw that as an opportunity to tease me...to make me feel stupid"

"What the hell?" Ant frowned "surely any decent teacher should help a dyslexic child,not berate them?"

"You'd think so wouldn't you?" Dec sighed "she would write poems about how stupid I was...what an idiot I was,then read them out to the class,who would all laugh at me"

"Oh Dec" Ant pulled Dec into his arms and held him tight,kissing the top of his head "you don't have to continue if you don't want to?"

"I DO want to" Dec insisted,but stayed comfortably resting on Ant's chest,listening to his calming breaths.

"You know you're not stupid right?" Ant asked him.

"I know that now" Dec nodded.

"You're the smartest person I've ever met" Ant continued "you're bilingual,it's not easy to learn another language and look at the songs you write,how you play the piano,that's a hell of a talent"

"I'm actually trilingual" Dec said "I speak Spanish fluently too"

"Of course you do" Ant laughed "why wouldn't you?"

"And anyway" Dec continued as he sat up "I'm not sure that being talented and being smart are the same thing"

"Maybe not" Ant smiled warmly "but you're still pretty damn amazing"

"If only she'd thought that" Dec replied with tears now beginning to flow freely down his cheeks "then maybe things wouldn't have gotten as bad as they did"

"There's more?" Ant asked sadly,as he wiped Dec's tears away with his thumbs.

"Yeah" Dec took another deep breath "she would make me stand on a chair for two hours by the wall"

"TWO HOURS?" Ant stated angrily "you were a little boy and you had to stand on a chair for two hours...why?"

"She didn't need a reason" Dec shrugged "other than the fact she hated me and wanted to punish me for just being there,that was reason enough for her"

"Jesus Dec" Ant exclaimed "I'm so sorry she put you through all that"

Dec obviously hadn't finished though and continued opening up to Ant.

"I wasn't allowed to move...not even a tiny bit,the slightest little fidget and she would shout at me,call me stupid,an idiot,a foreigner"

"Oh my God" Ant shook his head despairingly,overwhelmed with sadness at what this awful woman had put Dec through and totally in shock that the culprit was actually a primary school teacher.