Dear Bully

When I entered high school, things lightened up for a short period. Maybe it was because my bullies were but small fish in a much bigger pond with much bigger fish. Maybe it was something else. I’ll never know. But that message needed to be driven home by the end of my freshman year, so it came in the form of a scribbled insult on my notebook in US History. Lesbo, it read. Because apparently, a certain popular boy by the name of Jesse (you thought I was going to say Greg, right?) had decided that because I had actually become close friends with a girl, we must be lesbians. I wasn’t at all offended by being called a lesbian, but the notion that I was being deemed a lesbian by a homophobic idiot who couldn’t even spell the word floored me. I told the teacher, who’s now the principal there, and he chuckled, and I was horrified by his acceptance of such blatant hatred. The class laughed. I spoke with the school’s counselor about it and he laughed it off, too, and told me that things like this build character.

He was wrong.

I had thoughts of suicide all through high school.

I imagined removing myself from the pain and from the horrible people around me. It sounded peaceful. It sounded like a plan. After all, no one cared about me. No one would even notice that I was gone, right? But then I realized that, in the end, they would win. And I would be the one helping them win. They’d go to my funeral and say things like “She was such a nice girl” and “I wish we had gotten to know each other better.” They’d shed tears over their fear of their own mortality and swear that they were tears for me. And a month later, no one would remember my name. Suicide was not the answer, and for many, many years, I wouldn’t know what the answer was. I found it, eventually, in surrounding myself with a family and friends who love and appreciate me, in the therapeutic effect of writing, and in the success of my career. I realized that I am so much more than those insecure bullies ever deemed me to be. I’m special, and weird, and wonderful, all rolled into one. And I always have been. I think on some level, they knew that, and it frightened them. Maybe because deep down, they knew that they weren’t.

Granted, not every thought of suicide was because of the Gregs or Jesse or any of the rest of the kids who picked on me. Some of it was because of stuff I was dealing with at home. Mostly, the house fires.

One would think that one’s classmates would feel a smidge of empathy over something so tragic happening to a girl once, let alone five times. But no. Many of the daily comments were about that as well. And when I say daily, I mean daily. My average daily routine was this:

Get on the bus and see who’s in the back—if the usual bullies hitched a ride to school, I could sit back there. Otherwise, it was up by the bus driver, so I could pretend not to hear their taunts.

Hurry to my locker, ignoring more insults flung my way. After grabbing the books I needed, get said books knocked from my hands onto the floor. Scramble to pick them up (repeat this a couple of times every day) and get to class.

When in class and insults would be flying (except for Ms. Roney’s and Ms. Carnes’s classes—they didn’t put up with that nonsense), do my best to ignore them and count the hours until I could go home.

On lucky, happy days, hide out in the library during study hour.

Ride the bus home, get tripped on my way up the aisle.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

So there I was, sitting in senior English, looking over the newspaper filled with class gifts. I was trying not to read my gift over again, because I knew if I did, I’d cry. And you can’t let the bullies see you cry. But eventually, my utter, pained disbelief got the best of me, and my eyes swept over the words once again.

“To Heather Truax—we leave a fireproof house.”

My soul ached. It aches even now as I write those words. How could someone think that was funny? How could someone think that was an okay thing to joke about? It’s not. It wasn’t then and it’s not now.

But what is funny is that I’m certain many of their children are reading my books, wishing that they could be weird and different, just like me. What is funny is that I’m certain I’m one of the most successful people in my graduating class and that I’ve based an entire series on what it feels like not to belong.