A Wilting Rose

Winter is Coming

For all those that have suffered from bullying, something I cannot express how much I hate.

***

Rose Emily Langford.

Rose after the flower blooming on the windowsill in the hospital I was born at, Emily after my grandmother, who died a week before my birth. Langford, of course, was my family name.

I grew up with the belief that it was a nice name, a pretty name even. And then I began high school, where Rosy Posy was shot at me from all corners. Many sniggered, and told me as I passed that it matched my hair. As I would blushed a furious red they snorted, and told me it suited my face too.

Things did not ease as I aged, from Year Seven, Year Eight, Year Nine, Year Ten...and now Year Eleven. As the bullies discovered what I was like: a walking, talking dictionary, they seized it as their chance to torment me further. I was known as the geek, the nerd, even the 'spof'.

I tried my hardest to change. But after years of attempting to fit in somewhere, anywhere really, I gave up. I didn't belong with the 'cool kids'. I wasn't pretty, with a plastic-type face and dyed-blonde hair. I couldn't do the duck-face, not that I'd ever tried. It really was horrendously stupid that in this day and age looking like a quacking, farmland animal was attractive.

In fact, nearly everything that made the popular pupils in my school favoured struck me as dense and ignorant. Their quality of phone, for instance. When new students arrived at my school, one of the first questions the 'cool kids' would shoot at them would be, 'what phone do you have?' Then the said newcomer would produce their iPhone 5s, or even 6, and I would see the acceptance in the eyes of the question-askers.

I myself owned a five-year-old, brick-like Samsung. All I needed it for was to make calls. That was the purpose for which Martin Cooper invented them in 1973; a phone you could take around with you in your pocket, instead of rushing to the nearest telephone box to call who you so desired.

I am certain it wasn't invented to have a selection of good quality apps including Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr.

However, it wasn't simply my phone that made me the object of snickered taunts in my classes. My appearance played a large part, as did my eagerness in lessons. People simply didn't want to be my friend. I could tell some were uncomfortable with the way I was treated, but none befriended me. None wanted to intervene, only to become the new target of the bullies.

The bullies.

The words felt bitter on my tongue, filling my mouth with a sharp, sour taste. I never thought I would be prey to twisted hearted school children. I always imagined I would enjoy school. I always imagined it wouldn't come to this. The thing was, none of those who bullied me thought of themselves as bullies. They thought themselves as cool, and this could be proved by the amount of friends they had. Except they had as many real friends as I did. None of the cluster that hung around them were their real friends. They wanted to be in the bullies' favour, the winning side. They didn't want to be like me. Who would?

I stared relentlessly into the mirror hanging above my chest-of-drawers. A face I despised with all my heart looked back at me, unblinking. A face framed with curly, ginger hair. A face concealed with orange freckles. A face with cheeks that were now glistening with salty water, as they were every single day.

I hated my hair, which so often earned me the unpleasant names of 'Ginger Nut', and 'Frizzy-Locks'. I hated my large, green-brown eyes too, and my braces, and my pale, ginger eyebrows. The list was endless, innumerable.

I tore my gaze away from the face in the mirror, blinking rapidly to ease the sting in my eyes. School began at half past eight; it was currently seven o'clock and I needed to eat and ready myself for the tiring day ahead.