Standing Up to Life

Chapter 4:

Part II:
March 1995

IT HAD BEEN an interesting few months since September. I had basically two camps of people that I dealt with on a daily basis, the girls and the guys. Wonder that. The guys began razzing me pretty hard about the length of my hair. One such incident happened the day before spring break.

"Ralphy," Lucas had cornered me, "I used to call you a girl because you were such a wimp. Now I'm sure that you must be one – or want to be with your hair like that!" I attempted to get by him to go to Biology, but he blocked the way.

"Go away Lucas, I don't have time for your crap." I said as I tried getting by him again.

"Or what, the little girlie will start crying to her mommy? Or you'll fight me like the girl that you are? I'm real scared." He said this as I once again tried pushing past him.

"You know, even if I was really a girl, I know that I could take care of you just as easily as your pal Matt." He was obviously taken aback that I was speaking up to him like this. The incident with Matt seemed to bring a spark of uncertainty to his eyes. "Now, you can either move out of my way, or try to beat me up. I'm not going to take any more of your pathetic trash talk." Yeah, I'd grown up a bit since September... Now if only he would move out of my way...

"Well, Ralphy, I guess I'll let you go for now, but you watch out." He said this as he turned around and started to walk away. I noticed that part of the reason for his retreat was the principal coming towards us. Oh well, if nothing else I didn't get beat up, that was a start right?

I walked up the staircase to class. I got in there a minute early and started talking to Amy.

"Brandon, I can't believe it, I think Lucas was actually afraid of you!" Amy said.

I forced myself to chuckle, "Yeah, boy I'm glad he doesn't realize nothing has changed! I'm still just as short as I was at the beginning of the year, and I've lost weight even... I'm even less of a threat now than I was then!"

She laughed a bit too. "Hey, what are you doing over the break?" She asked.

"Well we're going to stay at home. My parents can't really afford to go anywhere since we're going on the trip this summer. You?" I asked, knowing that money would definitely not keep her from going anywhere. Her mom was a doctor and her dad was a lawyer. There was certainly no lack of money at her house.

"Mom and Dad have to work next week, so I'm stuck at home." She paused for a second as if pondering something. "Hey! Would you like to come hang out at my house on Monday?"

I didn't know what to say. I hadn't been invited over to anyone's house in a long time, let alone a girl's house. What would we do? What would the other kids say? I spoke without thinking any further though, "Sure! Where is your house?"

"It's down..." It turns out she only lived three blocks away in a nicer section of houses behind our house. She wrote down directions during class, and wrote a time of noon down.

"Amy, thanks for being such a great friend! I'm really excited about coming over." I somehow kept from squealing with the glee that I felt.

We walked down the hall and the stairs together before splitting off to our separate classes. I couldn't believe it, she was a real friend that was really inviting me to come over to her house to hang out! Over the past few months we had reaffirmed to each other that neither of us wanted to date the other, but were just good friends. Still, this was the first time that we were going to have seen each other outside of school.

I had been quiet the past few months to most people in my classes. That was the main reason why I think the bullies had been giving me a wider berth. My novelty as a target had worn off. My hair had also given me a bit of a status bump as well. It was almost down past the bottom of my neck now, and a lot of the girls had decided I looked like a rock star.