Bully

The first day of “higher education” through the eyes of a 13 year old boy was filled with excitement and anxiety. A few hours into my first day of middle school I witnessed the depressing force of bullying, my parents warned me about this evil but I never really could comprehend how bad it really was until I experienced it firsthand. The time was early in the morning where the sun was just peeking out and you could still see a little fog in the air throughout the campus. Since it was the first day everyone was scrambling trying to find their classes, and off the corner there were some restrooms and I see two 8th graders talking to a line of 7th graders at the boy’s restroom door.

My curiosity killed the urges to find my classes so I decided to walk by were I hear boys charging a dollar for admission to the restrooms or else they would shove you in the trash cans. I didn’t believe what I was hearing at first, it sounded something off a movie. It was until I got a little closer to this organized crime was where I saw new students actually being thrown in trash cans. It was crazy; I didn’t make eye contact of course and pretended like I didn’t see it. I went through the rest of my day wondering how someone could do that and also how someone could let them do that.

It really ticked me off but I knew my place in the animal kingdom so I never said anything. A couple months went by before anything else happened, I was adjusting to the new learning environment well and it was a new term. I walked into one of my different classes when I recognized that one of the boys that had been bullied was in the same course. He was a small timid looking fellow with a stick body and he honestly looked miserable. I was quick to make assumptions that this was because he may be facing serious problems from the 8th grade bullies. He ironically sat next to me; he was the quietest kid I have ever met.

His pale white face never seemed to talk, ever. I thought maybe something was wrong with him mentally? One day during class I broke the silence and said, “Hi”, he quickly replied with a, “hey”, which shocked me to hear a positive tone. I told him that I saw what happened on the first day because I needed to know what happened after I walked away. He told me that he started crying, running away into a different bathroom and never felt so alone. I asked if he told anyone and he said, “of course not”, he had never told anyone until now.

I felt good that he told me, even though I barely did any work or had done anything to achieve this emotion. I knew that maybe he just needs someone to talk to and provide him with support. Later down the road the 8th grader was caught and the timid boy later became my best friend.