You're My Bullying Cure

16. The Late Bloomer

Songs for this chapter:
Incomplete - James Bay
Cut - plumb

Play when told:
Stay With Me - Brooklyn Duo.

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~ 9 years later ~

Noelani's pov

Today I am starting my final year of High School. I'm not at all excited. Every year I have been bullied and it has gotten progressively worse. I am the only person in my High School without any friends. I don't even have one. I just have a selection of bullies and people that avoid me for literally no reason.

I have somehow managed to cope. But it's not the best way of coping. If I'm honest I don't even know if it is coping at all. I get through it by cutting or any other method of self harm. Not the best way, I know, but at least it makes me feel human after a while of feeling like a toy or a punch bag. Nine years of my life has been full of bullying.

Nine years I have been living in the same care home. Zoe, Joe, Jack, Finn, Caspar and Naomi are still here. Except they are in either college or uni. We have younger kids but they are in for a few days and then getting fostered because they are young and innocent. But for some reason it never worked out for the others or me. Mike says it's difficult to foster kids that are siblings. You can't really split them up.

Naomi always said no to people's offers. She doesn't see the point in someone else looking after her if her own parents couldn't be bothered to. And me? Mike says it's because I'm special. I'm not, I just know a lot of stuff and act older than I am because you have to when you are alone.

But I have to also agree with Naomi. I don't see the point in a stranger looking after me now. It's not like I have had any offers to be fostered anyway. It's like they are visiting a zoo and I'm the ugliest animal there so they skip it and they go to the most beautiful animals in the park. I couldn't really give a crap though. None of the people that come to foster a child really capture my interest.

I am quiet, shy, I keep to myself. I only talk sometimes. Mike says it's like music when I speak because it's so rare to hear my voice. I am quite smart if I am honest. Let's just say I'm not the dumbest kid in the class. But that's partly why I get bullied. Because I am smart. I get bullied into doing other people's homework or by giving them the answers or writing them notes so they can copy it up. If I don't then I get a good beating.

I like to read, listen to music, I am quite a peaceful teenager. I don't like going out, partying, making my friday and saturday night's a big deal. I would rather stay in and read or go into the woods and sit under a tree and write or read. Or I visit the grave yard. My parents and sister were allowed to have grave stone's here in Minnesota so when I was younger it was like they were just around the corner. But obviously when I was six years old I knew they wasn't 'just round the corner', they were dead.

I visit them on special occasions, birthdays, Christmas, New Years. I tell them about how my school work is doing and I even read them my stories. Or I simply sit in front of their graves and re- read the writing on the stones over and over again.

And when I am not spending time in a graveyard or the woods. I will be in the care home. Either in my room like I have said or I will be in the quiet room, playing on the piano or guitar. I taught myself how to play since the age of eight. Everyone has been supportive of it and on a Sunday evening they let me play for an hour to them all. I sometimes sing, but that is really rare.

And when I am not playing piano, guitar or singing, well I'm doing something arty or homework. Head glued to a project, either a school project or my own little project. We have some of my paintings around the house. My drawing I have kept in an art folder. I do portraits of celebrities, actors, singers, what I imagine book characters to look like, or kids that are part of the care home.