I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I looked up from the faded and wrinkled copy of the school newspaper. My brother had paled somewhat, but he didn’t say anything. I didn’t say anything either, I just looked back at him in disbelief. He ran out of the room and a moment later I heard his door slam shut. I thumbed through the rest of the issue and found more comments written throughout the entire thing, along with the standard "blackened teeth-devil horns-zit faced" sketching on my picture. I was devastated.
But I knew I had no one to blame but myself.
I was always teased as a kid. My main tormentor was a rich girl named Lea. Ironically, we were friends in kindergarten. My mom told me a story about her, years later. Lea had been over at my house to play, and we were in the kitchen with my mom. I left the room and my mom noticed that Lea lost a tooth. She asked Lea if the tooth fairy had brought her anything. Lea said yes, she did. My mom asked what she got, expecting Lea to say something along the lines of, a quarter. Instead, Lea replied with, "Five dollars."
Yeah, Lea was one of those. So somewhere between kindergarten and third grade, Lea decided that I have wronged her somehow, and it was now her duty to make my life a living hell. And her obvious source of ammunition, was the fact that I was overweight. From third grade through eighth grade, she found her fun in harassing me. In 7th grade, I sat in the front row in my biology class. And with my luck, Lea sat in back of me.
"The heart has four chambers which pumps the blood to the veins and arteries..."
I watched the film through heavy eyelids. I tried to pay attention, but when you put a kid in a dark room with a boring movie, you get a nap just waiting to happen. My head started to droop, sleep was calling her Siren song and I was a goner.
Kick.
My eyes shot open and my head jerked up. Did someone just kick my chair? I looked around, but everyone was either watching the film or sleeping.
Kick. Kick.
My body slumped slightly and despite my attempts not to get angry, my face tensed up. I turned around in my seat slightly and glared at Lea who sat in the seat behind me, smirking. I turned back around and decided to try watching the film again. Maybe now that I was awake, I could...
Kick. Kick. Kick.
My seat vibrated with each kick. A growl started to rise in my throat, but I swallowed it. I wouldn’t let her see me getting mad or upset. I didn’t want her to have the satisfaction. I gripped the sides of my desk with both hands, and scooted forward as quietly as I could.
Scoot. Scoot. Scoot.
There, that should be far enough away so she couldn’t kick me anymore. For a minute it seemed to work. Then I heard a soft creak, and my desk started moving backwards. After my desk had resumed its previous place I felt it again.
Kick. Kick. Kick. Kick. Kick. Kick. Kick. Kick. Kick.
Lea had slumped down in her seat, reached out with her foot to pull my desk backwards so she could continue to kick my desk. She was kicking harder now, but I refused to acknowledge it. Maybe if I ignored her all together, she’d stop.
Kick.Kick.Kick.Kick.Kick.Kick.Kick.Kick.Kick.Kick.Kick.Kick.Kick.Ki-
It worked! I smiled to myself and my body lost some of its tension. Now I could go back to watching the film. I missed so much of it I was sure to be lost. I concentrated extra hard, so I could follow what was going on. My thoughts were broken when Lea spoke up, sounding all too astonished to be believable.
"Emily! There’s gum in your hair!"
My mouth dropped open. She couldn’t have. She wouldn’t. My fingers crept up the back of my neck and apprehensively felt around for---a big wad of gum wrapped neatly in my hair like a birthday present.
Lea had put gum in my hair. Why?
Because she could.
Over time, other kids joined her in her crusade. One time on the playground, her and a bunch of her friends were gathered on a ledge of the playground. I was down lower, playing in the sand or swinging on a swing or something. One of Lea’s friends had one of those stress management dolls. You know, the reddish guys that you can squeeze the crap out of, and then it’ll pop back into place. So she leaned over the little railing, held out the doll then started wringing it’s neck and shouted down to me, "I wish I could do this to you, Emily!" And everyone laughed, Lea loudest of all. I’ll never forget that feeling, of having such hostility thrown in your face for absolutely no reason at all. It got to the point where I couldn’t handle these feelings on my own, so I decided to talk to my teacher about it.
"Ms. Holub," I asked in a squeaky eight year old voice. "Can I talk to you?"
Ms. Holub looked up from the paper she was grading and smiled at me. "Sure Emily. Come have a seat."
I walked over and sat in the desk in front of hers, swinging my feet anxiously. Ms. Holub smiled at me, but there was no real comfort in her smile. "What’s up?"
"Well Ms. Holub, I wanted to talk to you about Lea."
Ms. Holub cocked her head slightly, and nodded. "Okay..."
I tried the diplomatic approach.
"Well, we don’t get along that well. And sometimes she bothers me in class, and at recess. I tried telling her not to pick on me but she doesn’t really listen. I was wondering if maybe you could talk to her about it?"
Ms. Holub looked down at her desk for a moment, thinking it over. After a moment, she looked up at me, but she wasn’t smiling anymore. I began to feel uncomfortable, as if I could sense my impending doom.
"Emily, I’m your teacher. And I appreciate you coming to me with your feelings."
I waited for the "but."
"But I can’t get involved in a fight with you and Lea. The two of you have to learn to discuss it and solve it amongst yourselves. If you don’t talk it out, it’ll never be resolved. I can’t help you. Do you understand?"
I didn’t. I didn’t understand at all. She was my teacher, she was supposed to be on my side. I already told her that talking to Lea did no good. Didn’t she notice how mean Lea was to me in class? Did she just not care?
"Yes. I understand."
Ms. Holub gave me a plastic smile, but to me it looked more like a hungry snarl. "I’m glad we had this talk. You can go back to recess now."
I got up and trudged slowly out of the classroom. Ignoring Lea didn’t work. Talking to Lea didn’t work. Talking to my teacher didn’t work. What was I supposed to do? Things seemed hopeless, and my angry emotions were getting worse. So of course, being a kid and not knowing what to do with these feelings, I went home and took it out on my brother.
My brother has always looked up to me, or so my mom has said. I always remember her saying, "He loves you so much. All he wants is for you to be nice to him." And I never really understood that. And I didn’t care either. All I remember is that I would come home from school after a day of having my self esteem mashed to a pulp, and there was this little creep who wouldn’t leave me alone. And when I wasn’t having fights with my brother, I was getting into screaming matches with my mom at dinner time. I didn’t take out my frustration only on Ben, but he did get the brunt of it. I wasn’t looking to get into fights everyday, I just didn’t know how to channel my hurt and anger and loneliness. One time though, my anger exploded.
It was after dinner. Ben and I must have gotten into a fight over who was doing the dishes or something, because we were in the kitchen. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, just sweat pants, so he had most likely just taken a shower. I was drying dishes with a towel and we started fighting. I’m going purely on guesses here, because for the life of me I can’t remember exactly what happened. I do remember hitting him though. At some point, I lost it and I slapped him across the back with the towel as hard as I could. I don’t remember actually slapping him. I just remember coming down the hallway from my room, and seeing him in my mom’s arms. He was crying hysterically, his back bright red from where I hit him. I could write pages and pages about the agony and guilt I felt, knowing I had hurt him like that.
I still can’t get past that shame.
Holding the newspaper and reading those hateful words hurt me, yes. But it hurt me because I knew that it was me who caused those hateful words. He had such hate towards me because I created it in him. I was still sitting there looking at the paper when my mom came down and took me up to his room. I slunk into the room, looking even more guilty than he did. We stood in his room, neither of us not knowing what to say. It was Mom that finally got us to talking.
"What are you guys feeling?"
"Well," I started, unsure of anything. "I can’t say that I’m not hurt by this. I didn’t know you...hated me this much." I could begin to feel myself choking up. This was Ben. The kid brother who I giggled with as we discovered the true meaning of "wrapping presents." The kid I would sing the Space Commander Zoom song for every time he had a birthday. This was the only person in the world who could make me laugh so hard that I would get the hiccups. And now I was finding out that he hated me.
"I don’t feel that way anymore," he said quietly, looking at the floor.
Thank god.
I was so glad to hear him say that. But I knew that there was a reason he didn’t hate me anymore. To be blunt, I just wasn’t as bitchy after middle school. When I got to high school, Lea didn’t bug me as much. I saw a psychologist for a little bit, and I was put on anti-depressants. I still had major issues with myself, but I wasn’t as outwardly angry anymore. And I stopped taking it out on my brother. I actually started to like having him around in high school. It was a big of an ego boost for me, when he would take a class and the teacher would recognize him as "Emily’s brother." I tried to get him to join the school plays with me, mainly so I could show him off as being my brother.
"I’m glad you don’t feel that way anymore. I don’t want you to hate me. I’m sorry that you did. Because...well, I know I deserved it. Hell, you guys didn’t call me Emily Blackass for nothing."
We all giggled at that. Ben finally looked up at me, and I gave him a sheepish smile. He smiled back, and then we both knew that everything was okay, and no one was mad at anyone.
"Now give each other a hug," Mom instructed.
We looked at each other. There was a brief moment of awkwardness. Then I held out my arms and he rushed into them. We hugged each other tight, and I could feel all those years of anger and resentment just slipping away.
Now, it’s almost three years later. He’s a freshmen at SUNY Binghamton, I think we’re the closest we’ve ever been. We talk all the time online with AOL Instant Messenger. He talks in garbles half the time, but he knows he can always talk to me about his problems. And I talk to him about mine also. Right now our main concern is our annoyance at what my brother has nicknamed, "The Process." This is basically the stages leading up to dating someone. Such as, having crushes, obsessing over little things, thinking about the person, being paranoid about what they’re thinking, and so forth. It’s really nice to know that he’s always there if I need someone to vent to.
It’s weird to think that it was only 10 years ago when he hated me. It’s ironic how the people that had absolutely no reason to hate me, inadvertently caused someone else to hate me as well. Only he had a valid reason to hate me. It makes me so frustrated, knowing that those people ruined my brother’s and my relationship for years. I have no idea where Lea is now. My personal theory is that she’s working the streets somewhere on Long Island. But I’m just glad that my brother and I are as close as we are. He means so much to me, and I don’t get to tell him as much as I’d like to. I know he knows that I love him. I just don’t think he knows how much.
Sometimes, I just have to smile. Because it really is funny to think back to the days when he used to hate me.
Well...almost.