One afternoon, the following week, it was raining and the bus didn’t come until an hour after school got out for the day. And in that time, you managed to push me down onto the pavement and kick me with mud, until I was covered. Until it was in my hair, and in my ears, and up inside the crevices of my mouth.
I remember getting up, tears streaming down my cheeks, and seeing you laughing.
And wondering how anyone could be so mean.
That was the last time I took the bus. From then on I walked to and from school. It took me just shy of an hour and would’ve been well worth two.
I didn’t see you much after that. Then I heard you’d moved away. A couple years later, I changed schools.
And then flash forward about fifteen years: I was in my twenties, working in the writing center of a college. My job was to assist students with their essays and research papers. One night, just before my shift was over, a student came in, wanting me to help her with an interview assignment. She was asked to interview someone whom she really looked up to and respected, and then to write an essay based on her findings.
To my complete and utter shock that someone was you.
The interview detailed your whole life’s story, from early childhood—a story that had been anything but charmed (to say the least)—and how, despite all odds, you’d been able to turn things around for yourself (which is why the student chose you for the assignment).
I won’t go into your life’s details here—because they’re your details to share, not mine—but suffice it to say that in that moment, reading that student’s interview about how life had been for you growing up, I couldn’t condone any of the things you’d done to me in the past, but I could almost understand why you’d done them.
After the student left the writing center, I couldn’t believe what a coincidence it was—that out of all the schools and all the writing tutors, that girl just happened to make an appointment with me.
But then I wondered if maybe it wasn’t a coincidence at all—if maybe it was meant to be, that I was meant to see you in a different way and understand you a little better.
And now I think I do.
No longer your victim,
Laurie Faria Stolarz
Love Letter to My Bully
by Tonya Hurley
Dear Steven,
You never forget your first.
The first time you were forced to eat pink-colored glue on the bus and were told it was gum even though you knew it wasn’t. The first time you were snapped in the ear with a rubber band in algebra class and were made to sit still in your seat despite telling the teacher, who was also afraid, all while trying to figure out the value for x. The first time you were shaken down for lunch money or tripped in the hallway or the first time you were forced to cower in fear on the school bus or were humiliated in front of teachers and classmates in ways you could have scarcely imagined. The first time, tears streaming down your face, the teacher told you to “stand up for yourself” but did nothing to help. The first time your virginity was publicly disputed in graphic detail before you even really knew what virginity meant. The first time your innocence was taken from you, your faith in people and your illusions about the world and your place in it were thoroughly and irretrievably shattered.
I tried to deal with you, Steven, in any number of ways—by ignoring you, avoiding you, reporting you, and eventually even fighting with you. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve psychoanalyzed you in hopes of trying to understand you, to figure out how people can be so awful to one another, whether it’s learned behavior or genetic predisposition. I’ve tried to excuse you, putting your callousness down to a bad upbringing, broken home, lack of discipline, insecurity, or maybe just a lack of love in your life and compassion in your soul. I’ve even tried to forgive you, although I have to admit that hasn’t worked out very well. Like some unwelcome ex-boyfriend who friends you on Facebook or an embarrassing prom date who pops up in old family photo albums, you are unavoidable, even all these years later. My daughter even knows your name.
As must be obvious by now, I’ve spent a lot of time pondering you, some might even say obsessing over you. Way too much, in fact. I’ve searched for you on the internet to find out who you are now and what you’re up to these days, not because I care, but perhaps for an opportunity to gloat. I’ve dreamed about getting revenge on you more times than I can count. And if I ran into you on the street today, I would have just two words to say. Thank. You.
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.