Your cruelty and insensitivity were a wake-up call, a lesson in life I would not have learned otherwise at such a young age. You prepared me for the world beyond our small town. More than anything, you motivated me. Because no matter how hard I tried to block you out, some of your insults, your criticism, stuck with me, eating at me, making me doubt myself, until I had no choice but to persevere and to succeed. If for no other reason than to show you. See, without you, there would be no me, at least not the me I came to be.
Every time I struggled with a difficult college course, a hopeless job interview, a terse rejection letter, a thankless boss, a petty colleague, a bad relationship, or just some impatient jerk on the subway, it was your face I saw. You have taken many shapes and forms since, but after all these years, it’s still you. Our relationship is a special one, and I’ve learned that no one can take your place. From you, I realized that life is harsh and not always fair. I learned that not everyone is well-intentioned. I realized that not everyone will like you or respect you, no matter what you do or how much you try to please everyone. I learned to rely on myself, to believe in myself, to do for myself, and to fight for myself. Having family and friends to provide a shoulder to cry on is a wonderful thing, and I’ve taken advantage of their love and kindness more times than I can count, but it is your adversaries that strengthen you, that toughen you, that sharpen you, that force you to be the best you can be, to keep trying no matter how difficult the task or unachievable the goal, to prove them wrong.
Because you victimized me, I no longer allow myself to be victimized. You broke my bully cherry and I’ve never been the same.
Love,
Tonya
Dear Audrey
by Courtney Sheinmel
Dear Audrey*,
I’m counting on the fact that you’ll never pick up this book. After twenty years, there’s an enormous part of me that feels choked up by the thought of you, afraid to open my mouth because what I say might make it worse. At least when I finish this, the things I bottled up will be there, in writing.
Except now I don’t even know how to start.
We were friends in seventh grade; for a few months, we hung out together after school nearly every single day. Then, I remember, you started spending a little bit less time with me and little bit more with Jessica Searle. At lunch, you stopped caring whether I saved the seat next to me. My mother noticed you didn’t call so much anymore, and when I told her I thought maybe you wanted to be Jessica’s best friend instead, she assured me that you’d come around. Maybe the problem was that I kept inviting you to things; maybe I should have just left you alone. One day you pulled a Bloomingdale’s catalog out of your locker. It must have been during study hall, because in my head I see a few of us sprawled out in the hallway, uniform skirts rolled up and boxer shorts worn underneath, our attempt at modesty. You flipped the book open and pointed to different items, a pair of leggings, a sweater with patches on the elbows, and asked whether I liked them.
The phone rang that night and my mother came into my room. “Audrey for you,” she said with a smile—a smile that meant, You see, I told you so.
When I picked up, you said, “I can’t believe you actually liked those overalls—they’re so immature. And that pink baby-doll dress was hideous.”
There was a muffled sound and I asked you what it was. You pretended that you hadn’t heard a thing. Then you said maybe your sister had picked up the extension. But I knew you were calling me on three-way, probably with Jessica Searle, and when I hung up the two of you would stay on the line and talk about how awful I was, how babyish and inferior. I’d done the same thing with you a couple months before. You called Beth Fogel and asked what she was planning to wear to Lorelai Martin’s birthday party, even though you knew full well she hadn’t been invited.
It occurred to me just how mean we’d been to Beth, and I was sorry for that; but even more, I worried about turning into someone exactly like her.
As time went by, you picked on the things that most embarrassed me and found flaws I didn’t even know I had. You laughed at my fear of elevators, at my tendency to refer to my childhood babysitter as a big sister. You told Señora Baldwin that I cheated off your Spanish quiz, just because I dared to sit in the seat next to yours. You said I should meet you at our old pizza place, and then you never showed up. I thought it was my fault: I was too short, I wasn’t pretty enough, I didn’t like the right music, my parents didn’t have enough money. I didn’t stand up for myself, ever, and now I wonder if part of the problem was that I never confronted you; instead I retreated and cried in private. But I suspect it was something else entirely, something I won’t ever get to know. Something like that indefinable chemistry between two people when they like each other, except the opposite.
Then you started complaining about having little headaches. They came often and you said Tylenol did nothing to relieve them. I thought maybe you had a brain tumor, and I felt guilty for every bad thought I’d ever had about you. We were in eighth grade by then, the summer had done nothing to subdue your distaste for me, and we had a class meeting to vote on our song for the Middle School Sing Off. Miss Halloran stepped out of the room and you dropped your head down toward the desk, pressing your fingers into your temples. “Oh, my little headache,” you moaned. “I just can’t get rid of it.”
Jessica Searle hit you in the side and you both started laughing. Lorelai Martin turned to me. We hadn’t been friends in a long time; she’d always been more your friend than mine, so it made sense that she’d pulled away when you did. But suddenly she had a look of such compassion on her face, and she said, “You know what she’s talking about, don’t you.”
It was more of a statement than a question, and it hit me all at once, like a punch to the gut.
“Little Headache” was your nickname for me. And everyone knew.
My cheeks were burning and there was this feeling coming from deep inside me, as strong as anything I’d ever felt before: I was ashamed to just be myself. In all of my life, I’ve never felt that again quite so strongly. Even now, I can’t even write about it without wanting to cry. Even now, I feel the heat on my cheeks and something flapping inside my chest.
You left school a year later, and by the end of ninth grade, things started to turn around for me. For a long time, I had fantasies of bumping into you on the street, preferably when I was surrounded by friends. Maybe I would become a world-famous writer, and then you’d read about me. Or I could marry a movie star, and you’d see our wedding covered on Entertainment Tonight. It’s funny that even as I’ve gotten older, my desire to prove my worth to you has not dimmed that much. The friends I have today are the coolest, most extraordinary group of people I’ve ever known, and they are loyal, and they are plentiful, and they are mine. It is as if I think that if you saw how good it was now, it would make the reality even more valid.
A few months back I heard about a horrible story out of Florida: A fifteen-year-old girl had been severely beaten. Her attacker was a troubled boy whose brother had committed suicide. The boy had been dating the victim’s best friend, and when the victim purportedly said something to her best friend about her boyfriend’s dead brother, something inside him snapped. He was arrested and I think tried for attempted murder, though I’m not sure what his sentence was.
Reading about those kids, my stomach turning, I was overwhelmed by their pain. My own story of adolescent cruelty seemed so simple, so harmless. I didn’t even ever get slammed into a locker; certainly no one was bringing weapons to school. But of course it doesn’t need to end in tragedy to be transformative.
For better or worse, Audrey, you changed my life.
With pride, I remain,
Courtney
* Names and other identifying details have been changed, and certain individuals are composites.
Slammed
by Marlene Perez
When I saw the book just lying there on the bleachers, I wondered if you had left it the
re on purpose. If you had left it for me to see all those hateful things people said about me. About everyone.
No one had passed the slam book my way. What would I have done if they did? I’d like to think that I would have done the right thing and not written anything.
I turned to my page first. Now I understood why they called it a slam book. Because when I read what was written about me, I felt as though an invisible person was repeatedly slamming me into a wall. I couldn’t even see who I was fighting.
Or could I? After I shook away the tears, my vision cleared and I recognized almost everyone’s handwriting.
A guy from my chemistry class, the one who would smile at me sometimes, wrote about how I’d performed a certain sexual favor for him. The only place that ever happened was in his imagination. And there was stuff from people who I thought were my friends, too. People like you. I recognized your handwriting right away but couldn’t believe you had written those things. That my boobs were too big and that my brain was too small.
We weren’t best friends or anything, but I thought we were friends. What about all those games we’d ridden to together? We double-dated for homecoming when we were sophomores. Remember? I held your hair back when you threw up all that cheap wine you and your date were guzzling. We talked about how your brother had died and even about getting out of this town, moving somewhere far away where nobody knew us.
I thumbed through the book and saw your handwriting on every page. You hated so many people, but most of all, I think you hated yourself.
I thought I knew you, but I didn’t. I thought we were friends, but we weren’t. Then you walked back into the gym, a panicked look on your face. You didn’t see me right away, so I slid the book into my backpack.
“What’s the matter? Lose something?” I asked.
You frowned, the panic on your face growing. “It’s not important.”
I met your eyes.
“I thought I lost something, too,” I said. “Turns out I never even had it.”
My Apology
by Marina Cohen
1981
I look up at the wall. It’s 3:25. The second hand appears to be moving more quickly than usual, like it’s racing around the face of the ugly black clock. Each second brings me closer to the end of the day.
Heads keep turning, stealing glances at me as though they might divine my thoughts. I pretend I don’t see. I sit statue still. I hear whispering all around. Can’t the teacher hear it? She’s busy making sure we’re clear on our assignments for the next day. She has no clue. They rarely do.
I reach up and remove my earrings one at a time. They are real gold. My grandmother brought them all the way from Italy. She’d be so disappointed if I lost one. I tuck them safely into the pocket of my jeans.
The whispering is getting louder. The teacher tells the students to be quiet now, but she has no idea what the buzz is all about. I worry what my face looks like. My cheeks feel hot, burning, but I keep my eyes hard, my expression blank. I can’t let them see how scared I am.
The bell silences the din. For a second, I feel everyone’s stares tunneling into my skin. Then they stand up. They get their coats and books. Suddenly I’m holding my jean jacket and books, too. I must have picked them up but I don’t even register doing so. Everything is a blur of sound and movement as I drift into the hall and out the door. The vultures follow. They circle ravenously. I can hear them talking; their voices spill over with excitement. “Are you going through with it?” “Is it true?” I don’t answer them. I can’t lose focus. My throat is chalk dry. I try to swallow, but it hurts.
Outside, tornadoes of litter and leaves twist about. I’m jealous of the chocolate bar wrapper that is snatched up and carried away. I want the wind to carry me away, too, away from all of this, but I’m cast-iron heavy. Dead weight.
Then the crowd parts as if perfectly choreographed and I see them. They stand high on the cement steps. They look confident together. I stand in the middle of a crowd and yet I’m all alone. They make no move toward me so I take a step closer to them. My heart feels like it’s going to explode. I clench my fists to keep my fingers from trembling.
I walk until I’m face-to-face with her. She refuses to look at me. Her eyes shift between the faces of her friends. She is smiling, chatting, laughing. I stare right at her, forcing my eyes cold, lifeless.
The vultures begin to squawk. They want action. They thirst for it. But this isn’t what drives me forward. I just want this to be over. I’ve had enough. It all ends today.
Finally, she shifts her focus. She looks me in the eye, and for a split second, I see something I’ve never seen before. It surprises me. So much so that I take a step back. In her sparkling green eyes, her laughing and mocking green eyes, do I see correctly? Do I detect a trace of fear? This amuses me. It almost derails me. I almost turn to leave, but then she speaks.
“Well,” she says. “I’m not going to start this.”
Sparks of anger ignite my insides. Her words thunder in the air around me. You don’t want to start this? I want to scream. I want to explode. Tears burn at the backs of my eyes. You don’t want to start this? All these years, and now you say you don’t want to start this?
My mind goes blank. The crowd melts away. I see nothing but her green eyes filled with contempt and fear. My hand rests at my side. My fist unclenches. My arm slices through the crisp air. I make contact.
2011
Dear Kristie,
I’m very sorry I slapped you in the yard after school. I wish I could say I didn’t mean to, but that would be a lie. We both know it was no accident. I hit you. I admit it. And now I’m apologizing because I know I was wrong.
Thing is, I was so tired of you and Brenda and the rest of your gang calling me names. Mostly “Dog.” Every single time I passed you in class, in the yard, or in the hall. What kind of a dog did you think I was, anyway? A poodle? A Doberman? Just curious. Particularly hurtful was when you’d just shorten your insults to “ruff, ruff,” barking in my direction, looking at one another and laughing. You were relentless. I don’t even know what I ever did to you to deserve this treatment. Was it because I wasn’t a follower? Was it because I spoke my mind? Were you so threatened by me? Were you so afraid your control over others would diminish if just one person challenged your beliefs? I guess you had to figure out a way to silence me. Demeaning. Discrediting. Excluding. These are all just forms of silencing, aren’t they?
I have no excuse for my terrible actions that day, but I realize now, I struck you because I simply didn’t have the words—the words to express all the pain, the frustration, the feelings of self-doubt, of shame, of embarrassment you caused me. I didn’t have the words then—but I have them now, so I say to you and all others like you:
My self-worth is not linked to your cruel words and actions.
My self-esteem is not affected by your deliberate attempts to destroy my character.
You have no power over me.
You will not silence me.
These words are not constructed of ink and paper. They are not formed of movement and sound. They are echoes of my soul. May they ripple outward and give strength to those who hear them.
Sincerely,
Marina
Dear Samantha
by Kieran Scott
Dear Samantha,
I’m writing you this letter because there’s something I’ve been dying to ask. How did you do it? How did you manage to have so much control over so many of us? Even more intriguing . . . how did you know you could do it? What gave you the confidence to roll into middle school that first day of fifth grade and take over? Did you sense we were all weaker than you? That we weren’t as smart? How did you decide who to pick off first? Who was least worthy of your “friendship”?
Back in fifth, when you made Aura Montrose walk up to me in homeroom and declare loudly that I was clearly anorexic, that I obviously needed help, that I had to stop with my psychotic disease or I was going to kill
myself, I was mortified, dumbstruck, destroyed. To this day I remember everyone laughing—Evan Lawrence’s openmouthed cackle, Danielle Jennings’s sympathetic glance, Jenny Marx standing behind Aura with that awful, triumphant smirk. That was the day you decided that I was no longer worthy, and just like that, I was no longer popular, either. After that day, it was just me and Mary, the one person who stayed by my side, my BFF. For the next few weeks I would sit in the cafeteria and watch you, surrounded by all your (formerly my) friends, and wonder what I did wrong. Was it my pink tube socks? Was it because my brother was being picked on by the “cool” kids in his grade? Was my house not big enough or my backpack too large or my hair too straight? Why did all those girls get to remain in the inner circle while I was kicked out? I felt so uncool. So unlucky. And I didn’t know why.
But as time went on, I realized that I was actually one of the lucky ones. Because as you got older, you got crueler. Coercing people into signing that anti–Cara Mellon petition; that awful “gift” you sent to Maya Walters that was supposedly from the guy she liked. Even Aura and Jenny, in the end, weren’t immune from your tactics. (Perhaps Jenny’s smirk that day was her gloating over the fact that it wasn’t her day. That she would live to see another as part of your in crowd. But it didn’t last long, did it?) You embarrassed and ostracized each and every one of us until my table, the outcast table, was more crowded than yours. Until we were the ones having fun at lunch while you were practically alone. I learned not to blame those who did your bidding, who stood by and smirked, because I knew that if I had been in their position, I would have stood by and said nothing. Let you do your thing. Because standing up to you was just too scary to contemplate. I tried to understand where they were coming from, and I forgave them. In hindsight I realize that if we had all just stood up to you the first time you “pulled a Samantha,” most of us never would have had to suffer. I wonder what you would have done if ten girls had all told you to stop. If ten girls had come to you as one and told you what we really, truly thought of you. What I wouldn’t give for a big, fat rewind button.
Dear Bully Page 2
