Tears for Nicole

A few memories of my past.

This is the story of my sixth grade adventure with bullying.  It begins with my dealings with junior year and the English work I was going through with a paper involving interviewing other people for real-life experiences.  The current-day memories have no direct quotes, but as we travel into the memories the quoted speech begins.  It ends right back in the world of junior year, in a nice yellow school bus and another yellow-ish creature.

 

There are a few strange aspects to the story I usually like to point out.  The tenses mix around - it was intentional at the time, but I may one day make it uniform.  It jumps around in my head.  I expressed it that way.  I also left the present moments (those of junior year) very unclear and somewhat blurred, uncertain - I wanted the present time ambiguous to contrast with the clear-cut memories of the past.  I wrote it that way to express how I felt through the day.  My mind was entirely in the past or acknowledging the hurt that was welling up.  I was not at all focused on the events of the day.

 

I'm also pleased to know I got an excellent grade on the paper later that week!  Smiles.  Thanks, Nicole!

 

Picture credit to Roy McMahon.

 

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            I had swallowed my fear with a few shivers and asked her: would she mind her added story as part of the interview?  No one would see it that she had been abused in her younger years.  I only had to pass in the paper, not the notes.  She had told me, days before, that she wouldn’t have given the information out to other students.  She knows and trusts me.

            She corrected me on one mistake, said it was all right, and I filed out.  Jogged down the hall to English, an angry tide of air following me to my seat.  Anger.  That’s just what I have before the hurt comes.  Memories flooding.  How much time do I have left?

            Not enough.  We’re in class talking about our interviews.  Similarities.  The teacher asks us to talk about them.  I raise my hand—twice—but am not called on.  I’ll live.  I let my gaze shift to the window and look out at the pond.  Water.  I feel the upset in my stomach.  Something’s off.  I don’t have much time.  Much less than I thought.

            She’s going through the class and looking at our interviews as well as our introduction paragraphs.  I hide my face behind my hands.  I don’t want to cry while she’s right there.  She may make it a big deal.  Then what would I do?

            Then she’s gone and I’m looking into the dark my hands create over my eyes.  There are voices saying something of some importance but who am I to care?  That isn’t true and I know it.  Caring is what I do.

            There are tears clinging to my eyelashes.  I can’t blink or they’ll journey down my cheeks.  I keep my eyes large and wide to allow the air to dry them somewhat.  I’m glad no one notices.  What is wrong with me?  What am I upset about this time?

            This paper is intimidating.  I did my introduction paragraph wrong, I’m sure.  Probably doing the paper wrong.  I hear my thoughts echoed in the voices of my classmates.  Nervous.  Scared.  Intimidated.  This is new and scary and oh no, how will I do this?  How will I be good enough?

            I imagine her asking if I’m alright, if I’m upset.  I hear myself in the ‘daydream’ reply, “Yes.”  Why?  “I don’t know, but I’m sure it’ll all come to me once I exit those doors.”  She doesn’t ask, I don’t tell.  One of the times I accept that stupid policy.

            There’s the bell.  I hear everyone get up and leave; I’m quick to follow.  Take a left at the end of the hall?  Of course.  I wouldn’t dream of anything but.  The room appears empty but I know it isn’t.  Park my backpack, lean my cane against the sink.  There she is.  I see her face light up when she notices my presence and I try to do the same.

            I thought I was doing well.  Must not have replied fast enough.  She looks at me with that worried expression and I know what’s coming.  “Are you upset?”

            Do bears sh…  No.  Nonono.  I will not go there.  Not now, not with her.  My answer must not have been clear.  Not surprising.  She asks again if I’m upset and I say yes.

            Go into it?  I don’t know.  Something comes off my tongue.  Friends, ranting, fears about the paper.  Is that really it?  It doesn’t feel like it.  Not all of it.  Oh, I wish.

            Hug her on the way out and try to offer a smile.  I step out onto the grey-skied campus and take a deep breath.  Oops.  Looks as though I just took in a breath of angry air.  My shoulders stiffen as I drag myself towards the bus.  The anger tightens and suddenly I’m moving like a bullet.  Voices call from the buses, “Hi, Kiwi!”

            I reply with a little grin and a hello.  That should help.  If I weren’t this deep in my pool of emotions, I’m sure it would have helped.  I wish it would have helped.  I know I’m angry and I know what it means.

            I trip on my way down the isle of the bus and make it to Andi’s seat.  Don’t talk.  Get out walkman, don’t talk.  Don’t, don’t talk.

            I barely hear what’s coming from the headphones and soon I’m at the center of town.  45 minutes left of the ride.

            I feel another person inside of me.  No, not another person.  Another part of myself.  Waking up, or making herself known, or something.  No words.  Just a picture.  A horrible picture that makes my heart swell and my eyes overflow.

            It’s me.  I’m sitting in the nurse’s office.  I’m eleven and in the top grade of my school—sixth grade.  I should be excited.  Instead, I’m sitting directly in front of the door and looking out as tears slide down my face and land on my clothing.  I don’t wipe them away.  I’m hoping with all my might that someone who can help me will walk through that door and read my agony through these salty wet tears.  They’re drying and making my skin crinkle.  I hold out hope.  Someone walks in, doesn’t notice.  I breathe out.

            The nurse can’t help me.  She tries, but what can she do?

            The teacher isn’t much help.  Another picture.  I’ve walked up to her desk and am standing there.  “May I go to the nurse?”  She looks up and offers simply an odd look, reading something along the lines of ‘why are you leaving class again?’  Instead of uttering those words, she simply asks, “Why?”

            My shoulders broaden and come back in defiance.  My spine straightens.  Even for such a small girl, I can feel the presence of some inner fire.  I’m going to the nurse.  I will get you to agree to let me go to the nurse.  I smile sweetly despite the boldness and mutter something about “social problems”.  Her eyes tell me she doesn’t understand.

            I wish she did.  But how do I tell her?  She’s been told before.  I can’t tell her in any new way.  My words don’t work that way.

            That brings me to where I am, at the nurse.  Waiting, hoping, yearning, praying for someone to walk in that door and sense my pain and misery.  Help me.  Find some way for this to work.  I don’t want to spend my time at the nurse.

            New picture.

            I’m not spending my time at the nurse.  I have a session with the guidance councilor.  It isn’t really helping.  I don’t know what’s going on.  I feel like a cop out.  I got this idea from Mary Fran and that’s essentially the problem.  She has guidance once a week because her mother died. Dead.  A dead mother.

            What’s my deal?  I’m just bullied.  I don’t deserve this.  I shouldn’t be taking up her time when people with dead parents need it.  Why am I here?  I shouldn’t be the one that gets this…

            New picture.

            How did this start, anyway?  I’m on the phone with Kristen.  She asks me, “Hey, what do you think about Hannah?”  I think for a moment.  I want to be honest.  I word my answer.  Speak. 

“We’ve got a weird friendship.  Like, we start over every night and work our way through the day.”  Something like that.  There’s a pause on the other end.

“So it’s like an on-and-off friendship?”

As if I know how to explain it.  That sounds reasonable, but not what I’m going for.  I’m thinking.  I try to both agree and disagree.  I don’t have the words to do that.  I don’t think to wonder why she asked me that.  That was what happened.  People talked behind backs, but I wasn’t doing anything wrong.  I hadn’t said anything bad, had I?  Just honest.  I liked Hannah.  She was cool.

That’s when it started.  The bullying.  Kristen was in the middle, dead in the middle.  Her torture was through that.  Was it as bad as mine?  To this day I don’t know.  We both cried.

            Hannah bullied me for what I had said on that phone.  She had been there.  Three way calling.  Wonderful new invention the junior high and top elementary grades had found.  I didn’t blame Kristen.  I didn’t blame Hannah.

            I felt bad.  How could I have said something like that?  On-and-off friends.  I had hurt Hannah.  No wonder Hannah was hurting me.  I only wished…well, couldn’t she have talked to me?

            And talk she does.  Not the way I wanted.  No, tears wouldn’t be part of that.  At least, hopefully not.

            I see her IM pop up on the screen.  Another nifty thing we got our hands on.  I helped get it popular in school back in fifth grade, when things were going good and I had lots of friends.  A best friend.  A favorite subject.

            It isn’t nice.  Spiteful, hateful things.  “Everyone hates you.”  “No one at school likes you.”  “They’re just pretending.”  “You’re not cool.”  Ouch.  Double ouch.  Ouchouchouch.  This hurts.

            I stand…type…tall.  Kindness.  I use it.  “I’m sorry.”  “Did I upset you?”  “I just want to be friends.”  It’s true, true, true.  I want to be friends.  I don’t want to be hated.  Is it true?

            Why does everyone hate me?  It can’t be true.  Lucy doesn’t hate me, wouldn’t hate me.  Maybe the other girls in class.  They’re popular.  I’m not.  Lucy wouldn’t hate me.

            I have to talk to someone.  That’s what they always say in those programs, right?  Talk to someone.  Don’t keep it to yourself.  Who do I tell?  Mom sounds like a good person.  I print out the IMs.  I want to have proof….but I don’t want anything done with the proof.  I don’t want to hurt Hannah.

            I tell Mom.

            Mistake.  She tells others.  At one point she takes me out for a walk up to the baseball fields so we can sit up on the hill until the principal is done talking to the group of sixth graders.  I didn’t know he was going to do that.  I hope it helps.

            Back in class.  It didn’t.  He was apparently mighty specific in his address, though he didn’t use names.  Hannah knew who he was talking to.  Anyone Hannah talked to, which was a large number, knew who he was talking to.

            I was meat.  Done for.  Most of it wasn’t direct.  That wasn’t the way of the girls.  It ripped me to shreds over and over and over again.  It got harder and harder to smile, laugh, do well…  I just wanted to run to the nurse.  I drew.  I wasn’t very good but I drew.  Animals, an escape, a friend…

            New picture.

            I remember back to when I met Hannah.  We were third graders with Mrs. Reilly, as cool as can be.  I had friends.  Good friends, many in my class.  Four great friends and we made five, which was cool because there were five Spice Girls and we liked Spice Girls.  Hannah was new from down south.  I was excited because next year we would be in fourth grade and the first year in the big-kid building.  Hannah would need friends for that as well as this year.

            Elise and I decide to be her friend.  Show her around.  The cool spots at recess, the best spot to eat lunch, what not to eat…  The hot dogs bounce and the chicken nuggets are known for the “surprise factors” of purple gunk or pieces of metal.  Don’t eat those.

            Hannah looks kind of funny but that’s cool.  She’s from somewhere else.  They’re different there.  She wears her hair cropped really short and has a big headband that keeps it out of her eyes.  Her hair only goes down to her ears.  We all have long hair, mine the longest.  People like my hair.  I do like Hannah’s hair, though…

            We get her friends.  Good, funny friends.  Our friends.

            They last her.  Fourth grade, fifth grade, our friends plus a few more.

            Sixth grade boom.  We’re dust.  First she squares out Elise with an army of new, popular friends.  Elise can take it.  She’s got a backbone much sterner than mine and skin that’s quite a defense.  I’ve only won one argument against her and apologized after.  She’s got it handled.

            The others are less direct.  They just stop being friends as quickly as they had started years before.  I thought I would be like that.  After all, we were in the same class but that didn’t mean we had to be friends.  I have Lucy.  She’s more popular than me, too, though.  She’s friends with the sporty popular girls and dresses like them.  I try, but I didn’t have enough of that clothing.  So I just wear Mary Fran’s hand-me-downs and do my best.

            They say I copied them.  It’s part of Hannah’s thing, but I replied it’s all right.  I wear more of Mary Fran’s preppy clothing.  It’s the only other option.  Preppy or sporty.  At least I can do preppy.  I mean, I like sports, but I’m girly.  I don’t have make up or bras, though.  I need a bra…  not, like, because other girls have them.  I need one.  Not that I’ll tell why…

            Too late.  She knows.  It’s added to the bullying.

            “So, is it true that you have your period?” she snaps one day on the playground after I’ve been called over from my fun ball game with Lucy.  I shift and look down, move the wood chips around with the toe of my Payless shoes.

            “No…  I have precocious puberty…”

            “What?”

            “I would have it, if I didn’t have these shots…”

            “You get shots to keep you from getting your period?”

            I nod, gulp, and look up.  She doesn’t understand, but is beginning to.  I’ll leave her alone there.  I promised I wouldn’t tell.  The only people that knew were Mary Fran and Lucy.  Now the school will know.  Why did I do that?

            I decide to work off the upset by playing more ball.  Lucy looks up and sends a ‘what’s up?’ look.  I shrug and shake my head with the tiniest of grins.  I want to go back to beating these boys at this weird game we made up.

            Then there was the party.  Kristen invited both me and Hannah.  Hannah said that if I went she wouldn’t go.  Tears for Kristen.  Tears for Nicole.  Mom tells me to say, “Hannah, if I go and you don’t it isn’t my fault.  You’ll be choosing not to go.”  I know it’s true but that won’t help.  She knows that.  Saying that won’t help me in the school politics or hierarchy.  What to do, what to do…  I apologize.  Tell her I really want to go anyway and hope she won’t mind coming.

            Surprise, we’re both there.  I’m not surprised.  We play Survivor, since it’s our favorite TV show.  The one that we’ve been watching for a whole two years.  Someone gets voted off every time.  It’s a weird version of Survivor that we’re playing.  We play hide and seek first, and then come back for the tribal meeting at the fort…  I suppose it’s so the person that loses is most likely to be voted off.  Like the challenges.

            I know I’m going to go.  Hannah is friends with all the girls there and it would be social suicide for Kristen to vote for anyone but me.  If they count the votes and count that someone didn’t vote for me (except for one vote, mine) then Hannah will go out of her way to figure out who didn’t follow her plan.  That person will be in trouble.  I don’t want Kristen in trouble.  I want her to vote for me.

            There won’t be any slips of paper in that basket that don’t have my name on it.  I decided to vote for myself too.  Make it part of the game.  Maybe a meek little, “oh, I was hoping to be voted out…”  I don’t want them to see me hurt.  I don’t want to ruin Kristen’s party.  They won’t vote her out because she’s the birthday girl.  I’m happy about that.  I’ll just go daydream on the hammock…

            That sounds perfect.

            The pictures end.

            I remember how horrible it felt to follow the rules—tell someone—and for the problems to get so much worse.  I had decided not to tell anyone anymore.  I wanted help, not what I got.  I knew they were trying…

            I have a picture in my head of Nicole, small, little Nicole of twelve years of age sitting alone.  I walk over and hug her, bring her close.  Rest my cheek against her hair and stroke it, keep her close.

            She cries and cries.  Clings.  She just wanted protection.  She’s talking now.  I haven’t heard her in years.  Since I was her.  I haven’t felt her presence since then, even as I don’t know when I stopped truly being her.

            I know I’ve been protecting her.  Protecting my Nicole.  I won’t let her—myself—get hurt that way again.  I will be there and I will be tough for her and keep her from that pain.  I talk to her with fancy phrases and reassuring words while continuing to hold her close.

            At last I hear something I hadn’t expected to hear.

            She giggles.

            I can’t help but smile and laugh beyond just the picture in my head.  As I rejoin the world, where I’m sitting next to Andi, I’m smiling and laughing.  I have my Nicole and she’s happy and she’s with me.  My kind, gentle, sweet Nicole.  She’s back with me after the hurt that she didn’t deserve.  My brave little Nicole.  My big gift in a small package.

            That English paper?  No problem.  After the journey I just went through in my head, I can write a paper.  After the journey Nicole went through years before, I can write a paper.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned since I was Nicole (and there have been many things) it’s how to use my words.

            Brave Nicole helps me free Andi from the evil clutches of the honey bee buzzing against her bus window.  I save the bee by persuading it with gentle taps to exit through the newly-opened window.  The one it has been looking for.

            Andi chuckles.  Nicole giggles.  I laugh.

            I want to dance.

Reviews

[Pj]

Wow! What a journey...I went up and down constantly. A truly great write!
The struggle in self and in the world- how powerful!

Thanks for sharing :D