A Letter To My Childhood Bully

Dear You,

I thought I had forgotten about you, along with all the memories created by my anxious nine-year-old mind, and yet a glance at your name from my peripheral vision was enough to startle me, like a doe caught in headlights. I hadn’t thought about you for over ten years, ever since the last time I saw you get off of the bus, and never return to our school to torment me again. I didn’t need memories of you, I was barely going to make it to my statistics test, so I shuffled past the name, trying to convince myself that it couldn’t be. I probably read it wrong anyway.

As I was taking my exam I could peep into a little window in the back of my brain, where all the memories were playing like a movie reel. I remember how the dread in my stomach would mount the closer I got to the doors of the P.E. room, where they would have us sit in rows to wait for the yellow school bus that would cart us back home. You were always in the line next to mine, since you were one grade ahead of me. I’d anxiously count in pairs to determine if I was going to have to sit next to you. My breath would hitch when I realized that I had to endure the fifteen-minute ride to the middle school in your company.

I didn’t fear you physically, that’s not the way girls fight. Even from a young age, we deploy psychological warfare over force. You deconstructed me in the way only a ten-year-old knows how, pointing out every birth mark on my body, questioning if my brown skin made me a terrorist, and laughing at the foreign smells that came from my purple lunchbox. I never said anything back, but I also didn’t wish for the bus to speed up, because then the second half of my torment would begin.

I’d be free of you on the second bus ride from the middle school to my home, but now I had to sit back and endure my little six-year-old brother receive similar treatment from your little seven-year-old brother. While I never thought about raising a hand at you, I admit I wanted to beat the shit out of him. The rage and helplessness would last until finally, you would get off the bus, and I would go home to cope the only way that I could, by scribbling all over your face in the yearbook.

This was how my parents finally found out about my daily torment on the bus. They found my artwork. I tried to hide it, but they questioned me until I broke down in tears and told them everything. The next day they talked to the principal, I wasn’t there, but they told me he called you both in and that you fearfully apologized and promised you would never do it again. Apparently, it wasn't the first time both of you had been called in. After they finished telling me what had happened, and how I didn’t have to fear you anymore my father looked at me sadly and told me that unfortunately not all homes are safe spaces.

I finished my statistics exam, and walked out of the classroom slowly. Ruminating on the childhood memories I thought had been forgotten. I stopped by the figure that had caught my eye. A large wooden cutout of a woman, painted scarlet red. A paper in the chest area had your name, and the details of how your boyfriend had murdered you, before turning the gun on himself. It just couldn’t be. I took out my phone and typed in your name, the obituary from three years before popped up, and there was no mistaking your face. You were only a few weeks away from your 21st birthday.

I stared at your picture, the face that had once produced fear and anxiety now only produced tears as I read your obituary and the news articles. I finally understood what my father had meant. I finally understood why you and your siblings would act the way that you did. You weren’t able to outrun those demons, and sadly continued the vicious cycle of domestic abuse. Perhaps that’s all you had ever known. I laid my memories of you to rest, finally free of the hatred that clouded them, only to be replaced by the deep sadness of a frightened ten-year-old girl.

Sincerely,

Me