Bully Me No More

36

*RAIN*

"Dad stop playing you're ganna make me mess up!" I yelled.

He laughed, knowing he would get a reaction out of me. While I was painting he'd keep pretending he was ganna hit my hand, therefore moving my brush and ruining my work.

"Oops. My bad, ok I'll stop." He laughed.

"Thank you!"

He grabbed his camera and started moving around with the lense directed at me. He was a profesional photographer, and working on his own sneaker line. I had paint on my overalls and my hair was in a sloppy, ugly bun on top of my head. My bangs had spots of paint from me continuously moving them out of my face. I heard click after click of the camera, but remained focused on painting my giant sneaker.

"Dad I'm not pretty, could you stop please."

He shook his head no and took another picture. I smiled to myself thinking about how much I thought he would like Roc and struggled to push the thought away. When I had my giant sneaker painted my dad invited in some of his workers into his office to see it.

"Wow!" My dad's assistant Jessica gasped. "Beautiful."

"Thanks I thanked her."

"You have great talent." A man said to me.

"Thank you sir." I walked over and hugged my dad. "I get it from this guy."

My dad laughed and told everyone to leave. "C'mon lets go home. You look a mess."

I hit his arm and made a sad face. "Well thanks dad."

He shrugged and smiled at me. "You're welcome."

During the drive home we made small talk and I tried as hard as I could not to think about Roc, but one particular thing my dad said screamed his name.

"You know something Rain?"

"What?"

"You've changed." He looked out his window as he made a left turn.

"I've changed? How?"

"Well just a year ago you used to be so quiet, and self conscious. Now you just radiate confidence, you're always happy and smiling now."

"Oh."

I turned away and smiled out the window, and Roc was to thank for these changes.

"I used to be so worried about you, but I guess I don't have reason to be. So anyways, any yahoo's I need to know about?"

I looked at him and raised my eyebrow. "I'm sorry any what?" I laughed.

"Yahoo's, ya know, boys."

I laughed even harder. "Next time just say boys. And uh..." I wanted to say yes so I could tell him all about Roc , but then I remembered the note I left Roc. In it I said he was single. "Nah, no boy right now."

"Oh alright." Was all he said.

The rest of the ride we were quiet and when we pulled up to the house I walked at an abnormaly fast pace and hurried to shut my door. I walked to my bathroom and shut and locked the door. Tears poured down my face, leaving streaks throught the patches of paint on my face. Roc. I missed him, I wanted him.

I watched my reflection get more and more blurry as the tears came harder. I pulled my hair from its bun and took off my overalls, leaving me in my tank top and shorts. I grabbed my phone and held it tightly to my chest, I needed to let go. I needed to leave him alone.

I jumped when my dad knocked on the door.

"Hey Rain hurry up in there ok? I have a surprise for you down stairs."

"Ok dad!"

I used a towel to wipe my eyes and scrub the now wet paint from my face. I combed my wet fingers through my bangs, pulling out paint in the process and ran my fingers through all my hair, letting it fall freely down my back.

I ran down stairs and my eyes popped out of my head when I did so. In front of me stood a small crowd of my old bestfriends.

"Britt! Taylor! Trevor! Kiesha! Mike! Jake! Oh my god you guys!"

I almost sufficated in our group hug, more tears formed in my eyes.

"We have missed you soooooo much!" Brittany told me.

"Same here!" I responded.

"And you're still short as when you left!" Trevor laughed.

"NOT funny! Anyways why are you guys here?"

Kiesha smiled and pulled down the v-neck on her shirt, revealing her bikini top. "Your dad thought maybe you'd want to swim with us."

I smiled at my dad. "Thank you."

"No problem. I'm ganna head back to the office now, I'll be back later. Have fun! Hey Trev, maybe you should throw some burgers on the grill."

"Yes sir!" He replied excitedly. Trevor always wanted to use my dad's grill, but he would never let him.

My dad walked out and I smiled again at everyone.

"I'm ganna go change, you guys can go wait out back."

"Ok!" All but Britt ran to the door that lead to the pool area.

"I'll go upstairs with you." She offered.

I smiled at her and nodded. "Ok."

I had an idea of what she would want to talk about, she was ganna ask about how I had been. She's the only person I ever told about my bullying and last time we spoke I was just a shell of a person, I knew she was suspicious of my new happy behavior. How do you explain that you fell in love with someone who used to bully you?