Saving Grace

[Section One]

My hands hit the ground first; I had put them out in front of me to break my fall.  I had, for the most part, fallen flat on my face.  The person behind me laughed loudly.  My face went bright red and I lay on the ground to avoid watching people point and chatter about me.  When I finally stood up, I stood and walked quickly with my head down, pushing through the large crowd of my classmates.  I was completely embarrassed; and it wasn’t anything new.

I was shoved, harassed, and bullied daily at school, so much that some days I was almost scared to go to my classes, yet also too afraid to skip.  I went to school daily out of and in sheer fear.  I almost didn’t go some days; some days that I knew somebody would have what they thought were a specific reason to torture me, I told my mom that I was sick or had a migraine.  None of the teachers ever saw me being bullied; the few that had did not do anything about the problem, ignoring it completely.  I did not have it in me to go tell anybody, then I would get bullied more for being a ‘tattle tell’, and the bullying had already been happening for years.

I walked home from school that day by myself again.  Mom was home and as I walked in, she asked, “Hey how was your day?” 

“Good,” I lied. I always did lie when she asked how school was or what I’d done.

I walked upstairs to my bedroom.  My dog jumped on my knees for me to pet him, and I sat down and began rubbing his fur and talking to him as if he were a therapist.  The thing is, when I talked to my dog, I knew he didn’t really listen or understand, but it still felt as if he cared.  I told him about my entire day; by the time I was done talking I was in tears.

My dog licked my face as if he were trying to cheer me up.  I knew that he probably just wanted his attention back, though it really did make me feel better.  My phone started vibrating. ‘Who would want to talk to me,’ I thought to myself for a moment.  When I opened the text message it was rude; it was another text from one of the cheerleaders.  It was crude and unkind.  I did my best to ignore it, but I was soon in tears again.  This was how most of my days were: go to school and fight to hold myself together, then come home and fall to pieces as soon as I got here. 

“Grace, it’s time for dinner!” Dad yelled up the stairs.  

“Coming!” I yelled back, then got up and wiped tears off of my cheeks and put on makeup to cover up my bright red face. 

I ran downstairs to the dining room where my parents and younger brother were. Michael, my younger brother, was twelve. “Why is your face so red, Gracie?” He asked. 

“I was running, and don’t call me Gracie. It’s just Grace. Okay?” I replied. 

“Be nicer to your brother, Grace, he hasn’t done anything to you,” Mom chimed at me.

We sat eating dinner quietly until my dad started trying to make conversation with us. “What did you two learn at school today?” He asked to break the near silence. I scoffed at him. I used to tell them, I did until I got older and the bullying got worse, because I quit caring enough. 

“In science, we made planet models,” Michael explained, only for Dad’s sake. “We used Styrofoam balls for each of the planets and attached them to wires and painted them to represent each of the planets.” Michael tried to explain as if he actually cared, and Dad tried to listen like he cared. The problem was that nobody in my family actually cared about school even slightly.

After dinner was over, I went back upstairs by myself. I paced back and forth in the room for a few minutes, and then I picked up my dog and sat on my bed. After I petted him until he jumped out of my arms and waited at the door for me to get up and open it.