There was a plane crash when I was in junior high. Some kids died. It's a small community; we all knew them. At least one of them. At least in passing.
I knew this boy, but not really by name. I recognized his picture. He went to this summer program with me, a day camp to keep us out of our parent's hair. Every year there were fewer and fewer of us there, depending on when their parents through they were mature enough to stay home alone. I went there when I was ten and everything was fine. There were about fifteen of us. We had free run of the place, and for the most part we didn't abuse the privilege. I carried my EpiPen (I only had one then, and it had a friendly green cap. The dosage changed as I got older and now I've got two of them and they're an ugly yellow) in a soft black camera case tossed carelessly over my shoulder because I didn't know yet that I should care enough to buy a purse, and nobody really noticed. I wandered off when someone had a snack with peanuts. That was it.
I went there when I was eleven and it didn't even take an hour for everyone to hate me. I'd never been allergy bullied before, or beaten up in a ball pit, but there's a first time for everything, I guess.
There was a boy who waved a crust in the air and said that it came from a peanut butter sandwich, and I crossed my arms and said that it wasn't funny, and he tossed it into the trash and gave me a quick apology and left the room. He didn't try to help me, but he didn't do it again, either. He just kind of stayed away while I learned that I shouldn't use a camera case; it doesn't matter if your EpiPen is undamaged if it's been stolen and hung from a pipe. Honestly, girl. What were you thinking? You use a purse.
I withdrew a month early. Last year I'd made friends by taking off my shoes and shimmying up a light pole. It nearly gave the woman watching us a heart attack, but I knew I wouldn't fall. This year I'd made enemies by existing. I wasn't sure what I'd done, I'm still not, but I irritated a lot of people. Last year the adults said I was cute. This year they told me not to be so sensitive.
And then I went back to school, and I got a purse with multicolored stripes and a pocket that I carried a book in, and I was annoyed but not surprised when I was bullied some more, and I learned that the boy with the crust was dead in a plane crash.
What do you do with that kind of information?
He'd tried bullying me, but he'd stopped, and we'd called a truce of sorts. He certainly wasn't my friend. I didn't know if I hated him. Now he was dead. Now what?
I cried. And I think if the death threat girl died I would cry for her too.
What does that make me?
It makes you human.
ReplyDelete