Perhaps it hurt more than I can remember. Perhaps it still hurts now, but I can’t feel it. Perhaps, perhaps. It honestly feels like it occurred a millenia ago, in that godforsaken school we all have to pass: Middle School. But then, I’m getting ahead of myself. The story begins in elementary school, where we tended to smile the most. Back then, there were no jock’s, no emo’s, and certainly no nerds. We were all friends, all equals, all ready to go to recess and have a good time. Then we changed schools, and we were considered “Big Kids”. Though, simply because we were handed a new title, does not mean our innocence just vanished. Often it’s a slow process, a product of growing up. My innocence did not vanish; it was more or less stripped from me.

Ginger. I know what you’re going to say: “It isn’t even an insult”. My retort? You don’t know a thing about what you claim. In sixth grade, I met a young boy my age. Because all of the schools getting mixed together into one building, I had never met him previously. He had, apparently, gone to one of the less civilized schools. One day, as I waited to go into L.A, he called me a ginger, and laughed. I gave him a strange look, as I had never heard the word prior. I later learned that he was referring to my hair and skin. This confused me, given that the only comments I had ever gotten about my hair were from old women from Home Depot. And believe me, those comments did not hurt like his did.

The more he did it, the more it hurt. All I could do was stand there, head heavy with a shame I was forced to own. He made me feel as though I were doing something wrong. Like I was a criminal for being Irish, like I was wrong for being me. “What about everyone else?”, you ask? They stared in shock. Not a single one did anything to stop him. They didn’t stand up for me, they didn’t get a teacher and they didn’t even look uncomfortable. They just sat there, and did their work. I resented everything he stood for, everything that made him smile. Why would I hate that, you ask? The only time I saw him smile was when he was torturing me.

One day, in the third semester, we were in L.A with a substitute teacher. He began yelling at me, saying “I was a ginger”, as per usual. I yelled at him that “he would fail in life because of who he was”. The substitute told us to stop, but he didn’t listen. In fact, it only made him yell louder. I could only sit in my chair and take it. After school, I ran to where my dad worked, and, half crying, told him what happened to me. He drove me straight back to school, and told the principal how the boy had persecuted me endlessly. Needless to say, I dreaded the next day, fearing that he would attack me for indirectly telling on him. Surely enough, the very next day I was called a snitch, and, by order of the boys code of conduct, was shunned for not fighting him instead. Still to this day, I feel shame for some strange, ironic reason.

I often look back to this period of my life, and turn my repressed feelings into resentment. Not towards the boy, but towards Middle School. It changes us from innocent friends to awkward people trying to find a group that accepts them. It took me a long time to find a group, and because of that, I was forced to meet that boy. I can only hope that someday this system will change. Perhaps in a way so that we can remain friends. Perhaps in a way so we can find our group quicker. Perhaps another young man won’t have to go through what I went through just to get a couple friends. Perhaps, perhaps.