This is something I came up with after watching this video ( http : / / www . youtube . com/ watch ?v=2v0RhvZ3lvY ) and also this video ( http : / / www . youtube . com/watch ? NR=1& feature = endscreen &v=D38S9o_6qnc ) The second one's pretty cheesy but it's the one that mainly inspired this story. It's really heartbreaking. Both videos are really popular and just...I can't explain it. I know that there's an anti-bullying story day, and I'm trying to get involved but this story was begging to be written first. So please, watch the videos and then read the story. I hope you enjoy it.
The coffee shop down the street from the high school is a popular place to hang out. Everyone was always there, students and adults alike. There was a jukebox with all the classics, awesome pastries to go with the delicious coffee and various teas, and friendly employees, some of whom were familiar faces of students who had graduated and were now attending the university.
I was new to the local high school and was just discovering this. I had moved from Manhattan barely a week ago, and since my brother was still in school, I had an hour to pick him up. Now that I'd finally gotten my car repaired, I had no reason to spend most of the hour to walk all the way to the elementary school to wait another twenty minutes for them to be done. I could drive in my new car- and by "new" I meant the old, cigarette-reeked Camry. We had to sell my Cougar for a good price- we'd spent weeks repairing whatever was wrong with my baby to get it sold for a good price. The outside was nicer than the inside. Kind of like people.
Not a single person had said Hi to me since I'd moved here. Not even the Senior Class President, who'd immediately offered her services to escort me around the school. It didn't take long to realize what her real motive was for helping me. Especially after she didn't say a word to me for the rest of the week.
I hated it here already. I hated my disgusting, tiny house that was nothing compared to my penthouse back in New York. I hated the disgusting car that I had to drive to school and be laughed at every day. I hated the fact that I had to sell every single one of my expensive shoes right before we moved. To a thrift store. A thriftstore! Half of the stuff that I'd sold, I'd gotten those at Saks Fifth Avenue! The only things I'd ended up keeping was my least nice pair of jeans, which my mother insisted I'd have to wear two days in a row if I had to, some shirts and dresses. How could she do this to me? I literally had one pair of heels, one pair of sandals- grungy, flat, black ones- a pair of tennis shoes- ugh! Who could want those?- and don't get me started on my clothes. I had nothing. And even after selling all of that merchandise, I couldn't go shopping for new school clothes.
And the worst part was, I could understand why I got laughed at. I'd be laughing at the idiot who wore brand-name designer clothes every day, but had to wear them more than once and wore them while getting out of a old, shaky Camry. Who struggled to carry her books because her bag that screamed "I'm rich! Admire me!" was full of necessities that I always carried around that my father called "useless junk". If I'd gotten to keep my old car and my old clothes, I'd be running this school by the end of the day. But we wouldn't even be here if my dad hadn't gotten himself fired from his stupid company. Well, I guess everybody got fired, but oh well. He still lost everything for us. We hadn't even been living in our own house when we first moved here- we'd been living with this aunt whom I hadn't known had existed. How dare she try to hug me? I didn't know her!
My life was a living hell. Literally.
I sighed and began digging in my backpack. I had refused to wear my glasses to school after my prescription contacts had ran out. We didn't have health insurance, therefore I couldn't get new contacts, but my glasses were so goddamn ugly. Who was my mom to tell me that I looked classy and intelligent in them? She's so stupid.
I groaned when my hand hit the bottom of my bag- my only remaining Prada bag- when I realized that in an act of protest, my glasses were still sitting on my bedside. I was not going to look like a dork at school. I'd only been going there for a week. I was not going to ruin it already. I still had a chance of being popular! Even if I couldn't see the whiteboard, being legally blind and all.
But I had no chance of being popular if I didn't study. I could already tell that idiots weren't at the top of the food chain in this school. Most of the popular kids were generally intelligent.
I sighed. Now I had nothing to do if I couldn't read the material. Hell, I couldn't even drink coffee today- I had to save my money to buy Subway- again- for dinner because my parents worked overtime on Fridays. How disgusting. I was going to be fat.
Oh, life just got worse.
"Do you need a pair of glasses?" I turned to see an older man in the booth behind me. I frowned. Who the hell was he to bother me?
He handed me a thin-rimmed pair, smiling kindly. Not lewdly, just a sweet old smile.
"Thanks," I muttered, the words almost coming out of my mouth against my will. I turned and then stopped, turning back around. "Hey wait- you don't know my-"
But he was gone.
Mouth agape, I turned back to my government book, staring at the thin-rimmed glasses. I wasn't sure about this. A stranger had just handed me a pair of glasses and I was just supposed to put them on? He didn't even know my prescription- he didn't even know me!
What if other people saw- I didn't know what was worse, having people see me in glasses or have people see me accepting glasses from a man I clearly did not know?
Oh, shut up. You're already a poor and practically homeless loser, might as well let it go.
I swallowed, and slid them on my nose.
Immediately the world became clearer. The words on my government book became clear- I'd flipped to the wrong damn chapter.
I looked up to observe the coffeeshop. I saw faces that I knew- not because they talked to me, but because I knew their names from my attendance and forced discussion in classes. A tall, pretty girl from my biology class walked by, laughing loudly with her friend. To my shock, words appeared in front of my glasses.
Living with her older brother in a dilapidated apartment. Was kicked out by her mother and chose to move out of her father's house to avoid the custody battle.
Oh my god...what was happening?
I looked at her smiling face again. I realized that she had in fact said Hi to me- in fact, she'd promised to come sit at my lunch table one day when she wasn't offering her tutoring sessions. She'd even invited me to come to them, but I'd refused. I couldn't even remember her name.
I looked at her friend, who was just as pretty and was rubbing at her wrist.
Struggling with bulimia for six years. Cuts to relieve stress.
I looked at the girls' waist- it did look pinched and sunken. The girl from bio smiled and waved to me as she walked by- she nodded at my book, understanding that I was studying and probably shouldn't be disturbed. Her friend also gave me a small smile, pushing her hair behind her ear. Her sleeve slid down her arm- the hair on my arms rose up when I saw dozens of white scars littering her wrist.
I quickly yanked the glasses off, the words in my book becoming fuzzy. I breathed hard, staring around the room blindly. If these things were happening to them...why was I realizing this? Am I the only one?
Taking a deep breath, I slid my glasses on only to feel my stomach curl. In walked that same bitch from earlier this week. The one who had ditched me. To my surprise, words appeared in front of her, too.
Her mother says she's not good enough, so she tries to be better than everybody else at everything.
I stared, open mouthed at her. She dropped her purse into a booth and said something to her friends, possibly her coffee order. She then sat down, yanked open a book and began reading intently, pulling her long blonde hair into a ponytail.
My eyes slid from her to the boy sitting at the table in the corner. He didn't have a coffee in front of him- he was just staring into space. He looked like he hadn't even showered in a while. An employee came over, possibly to say something to him about loitering, but the boy just shrugged and stood up to follow him to the back. Not a minute later, he came back, wearing an apron and a baseball cap to take the next person's order.
He's now homeless after leaving his abusive foster home.
The general manager came into view. He smiled and patted the boy on the back as his story came into view.
Only son was killed while on duty in Afghanistan.
I suddenly began seeing everybody's stories out of the corner of my eyes. I looked around wildly, at faces I knew and faces I didn't.
Struggling for acceptance...
Bullied every day about her mentally handicapped brother...
Parents divorced at young age, looking for a way to escape the pain...
Twin sister lost to suicide because of constant abuse about lifestyle...
Mother is slowly succumbing to cancer, father is distant...
Attempted suicide to escape an abusive relationship...
Hates the way she looks...
Parents gave him up because they couldn't afford to keep him...
Grandmother who'd spend her final years raising him died recently...
Couldn't conceive the child they desperately wanted...
Husband left her for another...
Entire bank account wiped from fraudulent charges caused by own family member...
Only son killed in a car accident...
Father blames her for her mother's death in childbirth...
Was driving her brothers to practice when they were hit and the boys were killed...
Husband died, has to raise her 2 children on her own...
So many people...so many stories...it was all becoming too much to witness. I didn't know these people. I had no business knowing what their personal stories were.
I was about to take the glasses off when they walked in.
Four boys from the hockey team- I shared every class with at least one. They had their own table to themselves, and it seemed like being their best friend made life a party. Something told me to discover their stories.
The first boy slid into the booth- I should know his name- it was Jake, or Jack or something. Everyone always talked about him- girls gushed, boys called him a faggot. The boy with the perfect hair and beautiful smile that made me swoon from a distance. Of course, words began to fade into view.
Parents divorced five years ago, mother is constantly working, father is completely absent, low-self-esteem, in the closet because he can't accept it.
I stared at him. This boy, this boy, who seemed to have it all- he was the richest guy in the school- his mom owned some kind of big cosmetics company- he was handsome and a great hockey player, he always had a girl on his arm when I passed him in the hallway- was hurting? How could he be hurting? He had everything...or so it seemed on the outside. He was hiding who he was- because he couldn't accept himself to be different? What some people considered an abomination? Low self-esteem- he always smelled like Barracuda Man Spray- I'd sampled it once in New York- was that why he was always wearing that cologne? To draw people in to distract them from his god-like face? Because if people knew what he was...nobody would want to be near him.
I looked at the back of the head of the second boy- I couldn't see his face. I moved on to the helmet-wearing boy who was sitting next to him- I could see his profile from the side. He had this enormous smile on his cute face, he laughed loudly at something a fist-bumped the pretty boy.
Low-income family, victim of race discrimination, mocked for recklessness mistaken for stupidity.
...but he still kept a smile on. He was known for never frowning- he was always bouncing off the walls when he walked down the hallway. He was in my gym class- man he was energetic. And ridiculously competitive.
I frowned. I wasn't sure why he was wearing a helmet- didn't people with head injuries usually wear them? Maybe he was dropped on his head. But why would people make fun of somebody with a mental handicap problem?
Somebody walked by their table and stopped to say something to him. The boy I'd overlooked turned his head and I recognized him immediately. He'd been the silent boy who was supposed to help the Senior Class President but had been shooed away. She'd rolled her eyes and told me that he was a dork- even though he was on the hockey team, he was hardly a stud.
Works hard to make his mother proud while she works to support her son and abusive deadbeat husband.
The boy stretched, raising his shirt up to where an enormous, blue bruise was standing out on his hip.
I gasped out loud at when I saw it. I stared at his hipbone until I realized that the boy had winced- he let his arms fall and the bruise disappeared.
This was beginning to become terrifying. This was proof that the glasses and the messages were real, and I wasn't just imagining it. These were people's real stories, real issues that they were facing. This kid was being beaten...how could this happen?
I looked at the last boy- he was comically raising a ridiculously large eyebrow in response to whatever his friend had said. A playful smirk covered his face and he laughed heartily at something, clapping his hands together. His grey beanie fell off of his head, and he reached over to pick it up.
Father abandoned the family, so he gives minimum wages from his job to help his mother pay the bills to support himself, his mother and younger sister.
His father was absent. Completely absent. Yet he still smiled.
My father wasn't just alive, he was still living at my house, working to support us after tragedy had struck. The economy hadn't scared him off. He hadn't left like a coward. He was still there.
I tried to imagine myself in any of these people's shoes. I looked back at the girl who's mother was dying of cancer. She had a gentle smile on her face as she talked to her friend.
How could I smile if I knew my mother was so close to death? How could I smile if my brother died by his own hand because he felt like he wasn't good enough? How could I smile if my father just abandoned us, out of the blue?
Four completely normal boys who were suffering on the inside.
This entire restaurant had a story.
I sat up in the chair. I stared at my government book, then at my purse. It all seemed so insignificant to me now. I felt tears welling up in my eyes and I set my head in my hand.
"Little missy, may I have my spectacles back?"
I jumped and turned. The old man was sitting back in the booth, grinning toothlessly. I breathed hard and quickly handed them to him, his face fading out of view.
"What- what was that?"
The man just smiled. "Just promise me one thing. Tell your parents you love them when you get home tonight." He winked and handed me something else. My glasses case.
"What-"
"Found that on the floor. Suppose you dropped it when you came in." He winked and just walked out of my sight.
I stared after him, disbelieving. I opened the case and looked at my glasses. I slowly slid them on my face, and to my relief, words didn't appear. Instead, I locked eyes with the last boy I'd observed. his eyes were a vibrant green under his messy hair. He slowly got up and walked towards me, his friends looking after him.
On instinct, I stood and walked toward him. We stopped when we were within a foot of each other.
He held out a hand, his face melting into a smile.
"Hi, I'm Kendall."
Those three words meant the world to me.
"My friends and I noticed you were alone. Would you like to sit with us?"
Those words meant even more.
I swallowed. "But...I don't know you."
He chuckled. "That's kind of the point of making friends."
"But why?"
"Because nobody deserves to be alone. Here, I'll help you with your stuff."
He helped me pick up my books and I quickly grabbed my bag, suddenly feeling ashamed. I didn't want him to think I was some type of snob.
Actually being one hadn't done much for me since I moved here.
He pulled up an extra chair and directed my to take his abandoned seat in the booth, next to the first boy I'd seen. He gave me a beautiful smile and held out his hand to shake.
"Hi, I'm James."
Parents divorced five years ago, mother is constantly working, father is completely absent, low-self-esteem, in the closet because he can't accept it.
I smiled at him. His smile grew bigger. "I like your glasses."
I blushed. "Thanks."
"They make you looks really smart. I mean, I'm sure you are." I smiled, feeling warm inside.
"Hi!" I looked at the helmet wearing boy who was waving energetically. "I'm Carlos!"
Low-income family, victim of race discrimination, mocked for recklessness mistaken for stupidity.
I was surprised. He wasn't mentally handicapped...what had I been thinking? I smiled and waved back. "Hi, Carlos."
The smart boy who I could have known for a week now held out his hand. I smiled and winced upon seeing the finger-shaped bruises on his arm that were now visible from his rolled-up sleeves sliding up is arm.
"I know we met earlier this week, but my name's Logan if you've forgotten."
Works hard to make his mother proud while she works to support her son and abusvve deadbeat husband.
I smiled gently. "Hi, Logan."
I sat down, and Kendall did as well. I looked at him one last time.
Father abandoned the family, so he gives minimum wages from his job to help his mother pay the bills to support himself, his mother and younger sister.
"It's really nice that you guys asked me to sit with you, but I do need to go get my brother soon."
"That's cool. We hang out here everyday, so no big deal. You can hang with us whenever." Kendall leaned back in his chair, smiling at me.
I shrugged. "I just moved here from New York, so I'm still trying to figure out how to roll with the punches."
"New York? Is that where you got your purse?" The guys all raised their eyebrows at James, whose red cheeks suddenly became redder. "What? My mom has the same one!"
I smiled. "It's totally okay. Yes, I did get this from Saks Fifth Avenue, but I want to get rid of it. It's worth a lot of money, and I need an actual, sturdy backpack."
"Well, there's a small store behind the Macy's that takes old stuff." said James.
"Right behind the arcade! Hey guys, wanna go to the arcade?" Carlos said eagerly.
"Yeah!" All the guys high-fived and I laughed.
"Well, if I get extra money, I can buy my brother ice cream after school."
"Ice cream? I'm so there!" Carlos yelled, actually jumping out of his seat this time. All of us burst into laughter, James leaning on my shoulder as though we were old best friends while he gasped for air and Kendall's eyes narrowing into slits as he heaved and laughed.
"You're a great older sister," Logan said as he stopped laughing. I smiled at him.
No. I'm a changed one.
Soon enough, I was on my way to the elementary school with my new best friends squeezed into the back of my Camry, arguing over whose butt was in who's face, and who needed to remove their hands from wherever. I couldn't stop laughing. I was right, these guys did make life a party.
Even Kendall, who worked because he put his mother and sister before his own wants.
Even James, who was terrified of rejection and just wanted love.
Even Carlos, who showed his love for living and ignored the bullying.
Even Logan, who suffered beyond my own imagination, but like his friends, still wore a smile.
There were so many things I wanted to say to my new friends.
Your friends will still love you.
You're worth more than you think.
You are truly brave.
You're fucking perfect.
It's a big world out there. Everybody has their own story about who they are, why they act the way they do, why they do what they do. It's difficult and scary to accept the reality of it- that there were people out there who were suffering and were having difficulties in their home life, or at school. People who have lost somebody, people who were being bullied because the bullies don't know them, people who have hated life so much they wanted to end it for themselves. Everybody has a story. We just need to take the time to read.