On Bullying
Maria was a girl who was not so different from other girls in my neighborhood. As young kids, we spent the majority of our time in 6th grade avoiding her because of one person’s little rumor. They said she smelled. Badly. And if she smelled, then that means she has some sort of disease. As that rumor spread, she became lonelier, to the point where people wondered if she had any friends … or anyone outside of her family. Throughout that year, I never remember actually smelling this scent that everyone said permeated her pores, but, as someone who got picked on for his weight, I didn’t need any more reasons to draw attention to myself. If I could make it out of elementary school without doing any number of little things that would ostracize me from my friends, I’d go somewhere where I could make a new reputation.
Sometime in May of that school year, we sixth graders got our autograph books, hoping everyone who we built