Forever Bound

Chapter 4

        I dreaded going back to school after March break, knowing nothing would be different. The floors would still smell like the lemon polished they used to wax, classes would still carry the odour of chalk, and the locker rooms would reek of the unnatural combination of sweat and axe. The lights would still be dim, sucking every ounce of life in you as soon as you entered, and the walls would be the same dull grey colour that gave the impression of incarceration. One can only hope that the students would be different, but I know better than to think they had some sort of epiphany during the break and changed their ways. They would still be the reason I gritted my teeth every time I walked into the building these past four years. Badica Hill being such a small town everybody from elementary school had followed me into high school, which meant that the harassment was tagged along also.

         Do you know what it feels like to be invisible? I wish I did. Being invisible would mean people would pass by me in the hallway without saying or doing anything to hurt me. But alas, invisibility for me was like a little girl wishing for a unicorn, mythical and will remain at that, a wish. I could not pass through the hallway without having someone insult me with a homophobic slur, or slam me into a locker “unintentionally.” Escaping the hallways was always a blessing because I shared no classes with them, all my classes were advanced and although I wasn’t loved I these classes I was disliked less. My day goes well until second period, my one and only open class, gym. At the beginning of the year, my schedule had been screwed up by the guidance office and I had been given gym instead of health education. No matter how hard I tried to get my schedule changed they didn’t budge, their reasoning being that gym was technically health education. I had gm on odd number das and health on even number das, which in a way made up for the physical exertion and pain I went through. I actually liked health class even though I had to share it in the same room with the knuckleheads.

        “Today’s class we’re going to take a look at sex,” the teacher began the word appearing on the overhead behind him. The class snickered around me, “boys I know you have urges but sex comes with serious consequences, Chlamydia, Herpes, HIV and pregnancies. You need to think twice before you have sex with your girlfriends…”

        “Coach” Greg said raising his hand, “I think you should say girlfriends or boyfriends, you don’t want Riley here to feel left out.”

        The class erupted in laughter and I felt myself shrinking clenching my jaws trying not to let it get to me, “ha-ha very funny, okay moving on” the teacher said clicking to the next slide. You would think such a blatant example of bullying in class would have teachers stepping up to defend me, but they never did.

         I brushed it off as I had been doing for years now, not letting it get to me. I had resolved to ignore them after years of letting them get inside my head. When I was eight, I had tried to hold my breath but I lasted only thirty seconds, when I was ten I tried starving myself but failed after my mother baked a tray of cookies. My most recent attempt was when I was twelve and had taken a razor blade to my forearms. Blood dripped from my arm staining the white ceramics that tiled the bathroom floor. Every drop that came out of me brought a wider smile to my face, it was going to work, and it would all be over. I was beginning to feel light headed when the bathroom door opened and my brother strode in. He cursed at me and grabbed my body pulling it towards the bathtub to run my hand under water. I struggled with him but he was stronger, as he always had been. I was perplexed as to why he would help save my life, constantly questioning his motives as he wrapped white gauze around my hand. My brother spared me no mercy with helping with the bullying, he was the main advocate. I tried to question him on why he had helped me but he gave me no answer, only a glare that made me shit my pants every time.

        After that day I came to the realization that there was a reason that all my previous attempts had failed, and that my bother of all people had intervened, death would not stop anything. Dying would only make Greg and his friends happier; they would not feel remorse for it; after all, they wouldn’t have been the ones to take the bullet to my head. This was only temporary; Badica Hill was not my life. I would grow up and became something great, something that they could never touch, how could I do that if I was dead?

            I stood strong against everything conditioning my mind that this was going to go on and the only person to fight it would be me. So I fought against it by standing my ground whenever they attacked me. Though every sane part of my body screamed for me to run I would stand my ground and reply them with whatever I could muster. That didn't stop them from still hurting me, but it allowed me to let it out not bottle it in. It allowed me to go home smiling despite the possible bruised bones, I had acquired during the day because I had not let them make me cry like they used to. There is only so much a person can take.  There would be days that I would go home crying wishing it would all just stop, looking for something to make it all end. But I had to remember the end, the light at the end of the tunnel; I was headed to the top universities in Ontario far away from them.