The Real Bully

Flashback 3

I spotted Brandon walking home. He probably crashed his car driving drunk from some wild party I obviously wasn't invited to. Mommy and Daddy needed a day to pay for the damages and poor, poor Brandon had to walk home because his friends were either grounded or with their girlfriends. So sad.

I kept my distance even though he was alone and never attacked me himself.

Sometimes I wondered what it would be like to be friends with Brandon rather than bullied by him. He seemed like a really cool guy from afar. I watched how he treated his girlfriend—rubbed her shoulders, brought her flowers once a month, wrote a song to ask her to Prom, kissed her on the forehead, held her hand—and how his friends idolized him—saved him a seat at lunch when he ran late, invited him to parties, took him on cruises with their families, rode in his car and laughed with him. Not to mention, Brandon was really smart. He took several AP classes and—from what I heard—received only 5s and a 4 on AP Chemistry. He was the star quarterback, yet he never bragged about the highly-esteemed position, only gave a shy smile to the crowd when they cheered him on.

I hated to admit it, but I truly admired and envied Brandon.

But back to our imaginary friendship. I wish I could invite him over one day. Hey man, do you want to play videogames? Toss a football maybe? Anything really. To be honest, I didn't have any friends and frankly, I didn't really like the people I was surrounded by enough to want to be their friends even if they didn't bully me. But Brandon was different. I could just tell by the presence he gave off—collected, confident, modest. I wished him the best even though he wished me the worst.

And I wished he didn't hate me.

I wished I could challenge him in videogames, could shoot hoops with him, could talk about girls with him. We would buy junk food and eat at each other's houses. When one of us learned how to drive, we would drive the other. We would go on double dates. We would go on road trips together, camp out on beaches and travel to Vegas. We would go to the same college and exchange knowledge about our different majors. I wanted to be an engineer and I could visualize him as a doctor. We would be the Best Man at each other's weddings and work in the same companies.

Brandon caught my eye across the street and for a second I thought he knew. He agreed with my thoughts and wanted to drop the whole bullying act, apologize, forget everything. His gaze softened and he rubbed his lips together nervously, his constant glare vanishing. For a moment, he said nothing, just looked at me as I looked at him.

And then his expression hardened and he scowled at me, a deep ugly scowl. "Stop looking at me!" he yelled. "Do you know why people hate you? Because you're WEIRD! You're a freak! You're fat, you're ugly, you just plain suck. So stop staring at me like you need help. I'm not your friend. I don't want to be your friend. Just do me a favor and go away."