Dear Bully (18 page)

The Short brothers were not, in fact, short. Henry was super tall and super skinny. His brother, Alex, was of average height and kind of stocky in an athletic sort of way. I tried to stay as far off their radar as possible, but we went to the same small private school, and there were less than thirty-five students in our entire grade. If the Short brothers wanted to make your life hell, there wasn’t a whole lot you could do about it.

I spent the first two years of high school trying to pretend that their constant taunts didn’t hurt me. They liked to refer to me as the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man—as in the super-huge, sugar-spun “villain” of the movie
Ghostbusters
. They’d make booming noises whenever I walked. If their comments about my weight weren’t riling me up enough, they’d start in on my clothes, my glasses, my hair.

The summer after my sophomore year, I transferred to a large public school and, thankfully, never had to deal with the Short brothers again. But I never forgot about them. And I certainly never forgave them.

Then, one recent night, through the magic portal that is Facebook, I actually found Alex Short.
The
Alex Short. And me being me, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to send him a message. It went something like,
Hi, you and your douche bag brother were really mean to me, and now I’m a successful author and you’re not.
If I’m going to be completely honest, my message was a whole lot nastier, but that’s not entirely relevant. Because here’s the thing:

Alex Short didn’t remember me.

At first, I didn’t believe him. I wrote back, expanding on all of the terrible names I remembered him and Henry calling me. Alex apologized. I didn’t buy that apology, so I wrote him again, laying into him even harder. Finally, he responded:

I feel even more like an absolute douche bag for not remembering [because] taunting someone like you say we [did] is WRONG! I have done some screwed up things in my life and karma has seen to it that I get paid back. I DO apologize and wish you the best in life. I again congratulate you on your success. It is good to see you take the negative and change it to a positive. You should be commended over and over! Again, good luck!

I. Was. Speechless.

I was also quite embarrassed. I mean, here I was, spewing out some ugly, hateful words to a boy I hadn’t even
seen
in more than fifteen years. And there he was, offering what ultimately seemed like a sincere apology for some stupid things he said when he was a mere teenager. Things he didn’t remember saying to a girl he didn’t remember. Period.

How is it possible that I had every detail of our biology classroom burned into my brain, down to which desk I sat in as he and Henry sang out, “Who you gonna call?” over and over and over again, but Alex Short didn’t so much as remember my
name
? How? Seriously, how?

I don’t know how. I really don’t.

But here’s the thing: in the end, it doesn’t really matter.

Kids are mean. Kids are cruel. But the sad truth is,
I
was my own worst bully.

It’s true.
I
was the one whose cheeks flushed red whenever the Short brothers serenaded me with the
Ghostbusters
theme song.
I
was the one who let their voices get inside my head—who let their voices stay there for so many years, long after I’d fallen out of their collective consciousness.

Adults will tell you that bullies are only as powerful as you let them be. And when you’re a teenager, you’ll think they’re full of shit. I know I did.

But in the end? They’re right, you know. It’s like that quote from Eleanor Roosevelt: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

So don’t give it to them. After all, there’s a good chance they won’t even remember that you did.

*
Names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent.

Silent All These Years
by Alyson Noël

It started the moment I stepped onto the bus.

The sidelong glances. The not-so-hushed whispers.

“New girl.”

“The one who moved into
that
house.”

Words directed at the back of my head as I claimed the first available seat. Aware of them leaning over one another, craning their necks, widening their eyes, hoping to see something they could add to the story they were already forming.

Something worth talking about.

I fought to overcome my shyness. Forced myself to look around and smile. Tried to work past the nervous twitch in my belly, to look accommodating and friendly. My efforts were met by curious looks, piercing glares, dissecting stares—causing me to hunker down and retreat, keeping quiet, keeping to myself, staring out the window, praying it soon would be over.

A long, bumpy ride on a bus with bad shocks.

A quick trip to the office and then on to class with a pink slip clutched in my fist.

An awkward introduction in which I was forced to stand before the chalkboard, stand before my new classmates, stating my full name and where I’d moved from, while my gut clenched so badly and my face turned so red, I swung my long brown hair before me, hoping I could somehow hide behind it, pretend I wasn’t really there.

A move I’d soon learn to regret.

A move that haunted me for the next five years.

“Did you see the way she
swung
her hair?”

“Did you know she lives in
that
house?”

And by lunch, a group of older girls, girls who were ten to my nine, had taken it upon themselves to rename me.

No longer Alyson.

No longer “new girl.”

“Stuck-up Bitch” is what they called me.

They even created a song to go with it—one that made liberal use of my new name, accompanied by lots of hair tossing.

But despite the lyrics professing that I thought I was “
sooo bitchin’
,” I’m here to say I felt anything but.

I may have lived in the biggest house in the neighborhood, I may have had long hair and nice clothes, but all of that was just a Band-Aid meant to cover the truth.

My life was a mess.

I was the poster child for low self-esteem.

And despite the big house, I soon would be poor.

With parents on the verge of divorce, a mom struggling to deal with the demise of everything she’d known for the past twenty years, and a dad who, on the rare occasions he chose to come home, made it a point to either berate me or ignore me, my entire world was collapsing to the point where my home life and my school life became mirrors of each other. Making it impossible to determine which was more miserable.

The stomachaches were getting so bad I started coming home early, until one day, feeling particularly overwhelmed by it all, I mentioned the bullying, the name that they called me, only to be told to ignore it. If I ignored it they’d soon move on to something else.

But ignoring it didn’t work. If anything it just made them sing louder. So I kept quiet. Didn’t mention it again.

Mostly because I felt ashamed.

When an entire group of kids decides to reject you at first sight, without talking to you or getting to know you, without giving you a chance to prove yourself—it does more than just hurt, it makes you question your entire being, your self-worth.

Those were the days when nobody spoke about bullying. It was something boys did. Primal. Survival of the fittest. Perfectly normal. Kids will be kids. Easily handled with a shrug, a look the other way, a mumbled comment about soon growing out of it and moving on to better things.

And certainly no one acknowledged that girls were capable of it. Capable of crafting a systematic form of social terrorism that consisted of snide looks, passed notes, and whispered insults when adults and teachers were present—progressing when they weren’t to outright lies, rumors, physical aggression, and, in my case, a horrible song I couldn’t escape.

They sang it on the bus. Sang it during recess, and again during lunch. Sang it when they passed by my house after school, and on weekends, too. After a while they even grew bold enough to sing it right out in the open, in front of my teacher, who shrugged, looked the other way, pretended not to hear.

By eighth grade it was over.

After five solid years, it seemed they’d finally grown bored and moved on. But while the taunting may have ended, the effects lingered for much longer than I care to admit. And I always swore that if I ever got published, I’d write a book about a girl who experiences something similar in the hope that my experience might help someone else. That book turned out to be my second novel,
Art Geeks and Prom Queens
.

And though it seems like this story is over, there’s still one last bit left to tell. About a year ago, completely out of the blue, one of my bullies sent me an email.

She wanted to apologize, to tell me how horrible she felt for the way she’d chosen to treat me back then. Having kids of her own, she could hardly believe what she’d done. It was the sort of thing she’d never tolerate from them. And though she tried, she couldn’t really answer the
why
. I was new, had long hair, had a big house—at the time, it seemed like enough.

When I read her message, I was shocked by how much I still cared. I’d come a long way since those days, was enjoying a life I’d worked very hard to create. I took my time with it, chose to revisit it over the course of several days. Determined to deal with the swarm of long-buried emotions that came rushing back, emotions I sought to get a handle on before I hit reply.

And in my reply I forgave her.

I forgave her because doing so freed me from the burden of that particular past.

I forgave her because I had no good reason not to.

It takes a whole lot of courage to own up to something like that, and when her former partner in crime also emailed an apology, I forgave her as well.

And after all of that, this is what I want to leave you with:

If you’re being bullied—speak up! You do not have to suffer in silence. Tell an adult, a relative, a friend, someone you can trust to help you deal with it.

If you are the bully—
stop it
! Just
stop it
. Right now.

Building yourself up at someone else’s expense is one of the lowliest acts you can ever commit.

There is no excuse.

It is
never
okay to engage in that way.

And if bullying is something you’ve done in your past, then keep in mind that it’s never too late to apologize—no matter how many decades have passed. I can say from experience that the sentiment goes a very long way.

Choose kindness.

Be well.

Peace. Joy. Love.

Now and Then
by Aprilynne Pike

“Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!”

It was a sound I dreaded. Not that I was ever in the fight, but I hated the sight of kids my age beating on each other. I couldn’t imagine ever hitting anyone once, much less over and over the way I saw some fights proceed. I despise violence. Even now I have trouble watching realistic violence in movies. So throughout my younger years, when the age-old chant broke out at school, you could expect me to be the one heading not toward the crowd but for the nearest classroom to tell the teacher. And I don’t feel an ounce of shame over that.

On the other hand, verbal torment has always been a part of my life. I could hardly have avoided it; I was a poster child for nerdiness. I got glasses in kindergarten—big, thick Coke-bottle glasses with those terrible plastic eighties frames—loved to wear my hair in two braids, made friends with teachers more easily than with my peers, and was a moony, easily distracted little thing. I was teased for everything. My homemade clothes, which I loved. The book that was always in my face, which I now consider a wise investment in my future career! In middle school I was teased and shunned for being a lesbian—even though I’m not. And, like most girls, I went through the cycle of being teased both for not having breasts and, later, for having them. (I always had to scratch my head at that.)

But through all of that, I always had the thought:
At least no one’s beating me up
. It was my greatest fear.

I remember looking forward to turning eighteen, moving out, and going to college because, of course, bullying stops once you get out of high school.

Everyone take a moment to laugh with me.

Turns out, bullies don’t go away. They just change. Instead of kids who are physically bigger than you wanting your lunch money, you have arrogant jerks who think they’re smarter than you or better than you, who want your job or your life or just to make themselves feel bigger by making you feel small. And you know what? They still don’t like that I’m a nerd. Some things never change.

There aren’t nearly as many
physical
bullies once you’re an adult—that is true. You don’t often hear about fistfights at the office or stories of everyone gathering in a circle at the grocery store and shoving the person in the middle around, like kids used to do on the playground.

But sometimes I think I’d rather have someone just punch me in the face. Not only would it be over quickly but it would be easy to point my finger and say, “Hey! That person is bullying me!” (And the ability to get the law on my side wouldn’t hurt, either.) Over the years, I’ve had a friend try to undermine my career, a religious leader with a strange need to prove how important he was, even a coworker who went to rather extreme lengths to let the world know how much she hated me.

And you know what’s crazy? If I were to confront any of these people and tell them I didn’t appreciate being bullied, I suspect they would all honestly deny that they were being bullies at all. Despite their exhibiting all the classic signs and tactics of bullies, I don’t think any of these people are aware of what they’re doing.

Adult bullying can be so subtle. But when it happens, I know my first reaction is to curl into myself and slouch by and escape as soon as possible, just like I did when I was a kid. I don’t. I’ve learned some skills since I was ten. But on the inside, I feel the same—the same bewilderment, the same hurt. Why would someone treat me this way? That part hasn’t changed in twenty years. I don’t know that it ever changes.