And once upon a time, we were friends.
Or at least, I thought we were.
Friends of a sort, I guess. He never talked to me at school, but we lived in neighborhoods near each other, so we'd sometimes walk home from school together.
When it was just the two of us, we talked about books, movies, video games, and girls. He secretly loved the same old Fantasy TV series I did, and we'd have heated debates about it, usually ending in laughter as he turned off toward his neighborhood and I continued on to mine.
But even then, he was always glancing over his shoulder, like he didn't want to be seen with me.
I didn't have many friends. I was the chubby kid with the"weird witch mom,"so my self-esteem made me cling to whatever version of friendship I could get.
We didn't really see each other after he went to high school, but when I became a freshman, I looked forward to maybe seeing Paul again.
He had changed from the last time I saw him. He was more confident and cared a lot about appearances. He made the varsity football team as a sophomore, which was apparently a big deal, and he was becoming friends with the older, popular crowd.
The walks home became few and far between, but when it wasjust us, it was fun. Paul was nice, and I liked to think that version of him was the real Paul.
But with high school comes hierarchy, and drama, and mistakes, and betrayal.
It started with a girl named Lauren, my freshman-year lab partner. I had a crush on her. She was blonde and pretty, smelled nice, and always laughed at my dumb jokes. I thought maybe she liked me, too.
I told Paul about my crush on the way home one day and asked his advice. He didn't laugh at me or tell me to keep dreaming. No, he encouraged me, he said I should tell her. So I did, through a dumb, heartfelt little love letter.
God.I still cringe thinking about it.
What I didn't know was that Paul had been joking with her, with his friends, about me behind my back.
Lauren played her part. Whenever we were in class together, she was sweet and flirty. She would compliment the books I read and ask questions about them. She would smile at me in the hallway in front of her friends and then giggle with them when I passed. It was like they were in on a fun secret.
For two weeks, it was kind of magical. I could feel myself walking through the hallways with my shoulders up and my head held high, when before I used to shrink myself as much as I could. With my height and weight, I always felt like I already took up too much space.
But Lauren didn't like me.
She left a note in my locker, telling me to meet her at the park near the elementary school. Said she had something to tell me, that she wanted to talk about the note I left her, and signed it with:xo, Lauren.
I had thought...
I don't know, I just thought maybe something good was going to happen.
She was already standing with the rest of the popular crowd when I got there, her friends giggling into their hands around her. The guys were smirking and playfully nudging Paul, who was smack in the middle of them. He looked almost guilty, his smile not as wide as the rest of them, and he wouldn't meet my eyes.
Lauren cleared her throat dramatically and started reading the letter I gave her. My words, my feelings, were read aloud like the setup to a punchline. Every sentence, every line I'd rewritten a dozen times, spilled out of her mouth like a joke.
Then the name-calling started, the normal vicious taunts—fat, weird, loser.I was humiliated, and that moment told me everything I needed to know about Paul O'Connor.
I turned and ran straight home and went right to my bedroom. My mom and dad had come to check on me, but I faked being sick for the rest of the week. My parents could tell something was wrong, but didn't pry and let me stay home. Going back on that Monday was torture.
I had to switch biology partners because Lauren and her friends would laugh whenever they saw me, reciting words from the letter.
If I saw Paul and his friends walking down the hallway, I ducked into the bathroom or turned the other way. I was late to class too many times that year because of the reroutes I had to take.
I never talked to Paul again, and he never tried to apologize.
Whenever I tried to tell my parents about what happened, the words wouldn't come, shame choking me.
That is when I started shedding my baby weight, working with my dad on his contracting jobs, along with shooting up six inches over the year. By my Sophomore year, I towered over all the guys in my grade, and the name-calling stopped.
And, like my mom always says, karma has no deadline.
